Food

Independence Days Week 13-14: Bees, Weeds and Survival

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Anisa

Well this post is a bit tardy, but I wanted to share some exciting things from the last couple of weeks. At first I wasn’t going to post anything from the week we were on vacation, because, obviously, we didn’t harvest or plant anything. But then I realized that even though we were across the country, we still made baby steps. So there are a couple of things there from our trip – woohoo!

The first Sunday of the trip, our friends called saying they had a swarm of bees for us! They were so kind and put them into our hive while we were gone. We were sad to miss that, but we are so excited to have bees! And we’re glad we had the hive all set up and waiting!

After we arrived home, we had a TON of weeds to pull. It had rained a few times and we didn’t realize how much weeding we do on the fly. Just everyday picking a few here and there really keeps us on top of them. But when we got back, Rick filled a five gallon bucket at least six times with weeds!

Also, after we arrived home, I was having a discussion with a friend who had recently watched “Escaping Suburbia” and was talking about Peak Oil, becoming self sufficient and all of that. Later that afternoon, as I was walking to the post office, I passed a store called Farris Survival, which up until then, I thought was a camping store. But since I was walking past (instead of driving) I could see that they had rain barrels in there. So I decided to look around.

It is not a camping store. They sell water barrels and water filters and books and bulk beans and grains and grain mills and freeze dried bulk foods, and buckets and Mylar bags and basically everything you would need to survive in the event of apocalypse, government take over, or peak oil except guns. They didn’t have a wooden barrel (I’ve been looking for one to turn into a smoker), but he did have a lot on information. All his grains and beans are organic and sold in 25 plus pound bags. He let H try using the grain mill and sent us home with a big ziplock back full of heirloom red quinoa to try.

Plant something – nothing

Harvest something – eggs, spinach, radishes, weeds galore. Richard was house/dog/chicken/BEE sitting for us, so he did all the egg harvesting. There were two full dozen in the fridge when we got home. And he told us he had made several quiches to take to work and had been eating eggs galore the whole time we were gone.

Preserve something – nothing, however, I bought a few more glass jars (big ones) for the pantry.

Waste Not – compost and recycling, of course, scraps to chickens, etc.

Want Not – bought 6 five pound bags of flour in Tennessee. The price of organic flour there was INSANE! $2.50-$3.50 per bag, while here it can get as high as $7.50. Also, when we got back, the neighbors across the street were having a garage sale, so I bought a big play pen thing with a shade cover – it will be perfect for working at the farm.

Build Community Food Systems – Bob Farris gave us a mess of quinoa. Most of which we’ll eat, but we’re going to plant some as well. And now we know of a good resource for lots of other things!

Eat the Food – tomatoes and corn (Rick found more in the freezer), pork, spinach and radishes, eggs. Peaches in Nashville from the Nashville Farmer’s market. More to write here next week! 😉

Categories: Beekeeping, Chickens, Food, Garden, Independence Days | Leave a comment

Independence Days Week 12: Grapes & Bee Hive!

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Anisa

So been CRAZY busy this week, and wanted to get something up. We’re getting ready for a trip to Tennessee, so I preemptively crossed that off my 101 in 1001 list. Which reminded me that I could cross a few more items off as well. A month or two ago we paid off the 4Runner (WOOHOO!), and a few weeks ago, my friend Genny let me try her raw milk. Surprisingly, it tastes just like… milk. 😀 I don’t know what else I would have expected.

Anyway, in short, here’s what we did this week:

Plant something – Grapes Grapes Grapes Grape Grapes! Ok – not that many grapes. We were able to get cuttings from our friends, Rich & Rachel and so we hope to have some yummy concord grapes in a year or two!

Harvest something – eggs, lettuce, spinach

Preserve something – well no food in this category, but we put another coat of stain on the fence, as it had been a couple years – so now it is preserved for a couple years more!

Waste Not – compost and recycling, reused some scrap wood for the…. BEE HIVE! Yes yes, we have built a bee hive! Now we just need a swarm and we’ll be rolling in the honey (welllll not rolling in it, but you know what I mean)! Also sorted through H’s outgrown clothes for E, and E’s outgrown clothes to give to friends or Goodwill. Went through kids’ toys as well and made a bag for Goodwill. I have a reputation for being a Toy Nazi in this house, so there are never too many toys to go through. But the TN in me struck Monday morning. I tried to temper it a bit by putting a couple more of the boys’ toy baskets on the floor where they can reach them without help.

Want Not – um – built a bee hive, duh! Looking at ordering some bulk chicken locally, but have not taken any action yet.

Build Community Food Systems – so thinking the said grapes count here. ??

Eat the Food – yep, we did! My favorite from the week was BLT’s with avocado. The tomatoes weren’t the best, but we used our lettuce and bacon – yum!

A few bee hive building pictures for you…

Categories: Beekeeping, Food, Garden, Independence Days, Urban Homesteading | 8 Comments

Independence Days – Week 11

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Anisa

This week was much better than some of the previous weeks. Turns out that getting some exercise (endorphins) and spending some time outside in the sun (vitamin D) can do wonders for the mood, body, mind and spirit. The beginning of the week was actually a little rough (it was all cloudy and overcast) but the weekend made up for it nicely, with the sunshine and the gardening! Also it helps that I was able to see friends more this week as well.

Here’s a picture of the bulk storage I mentioned in last week’s update. And here’s what we were up to this week:

Plant something – watermelon, pumpkins, spinach, basil, more tomatoes, marigolds, turnips… um also some grass seed where we’re trying to patch up the damaged back lawn. We don’t have a lot of grass back there, but what little there is has been burned by Josie over the winter. We’re hoping it will recover a bit.

Harvest something – eggs, lettuce, spinach

Preserve something – um – nothing, and I actually have to take back last week’s asparagus (it was on Rick’s docket to-do, but we ended up eating it all instead!).

Waste Not – compost and recycling, reused some scrap boards in the garden. Also decided that we’ve been silly not giving the grass clippings to the chickens, so they got two bags full on Sunday. It’s been raining a lot, and the grass had grown like crazy – lucky birds loved it!

Want Not – made an impromptu garden plot in the back yard – with a raised bed. We used our own compost – finally – in this bed, and Rick made it out of some left-over scrap lumber. I really love how it looks. It has tomatoes (for me and H to snack (or as Rick would say, “graze”) on, basil, and carrots. Plus some marigolds. This is pretty much H’s little plot. Especially since it’s in the back yard, and he loves carrots and tomatoes. And the raised bed is nice, so he knows where he can’t step. Plus he picked out the marigolds all by himself.

Build Community Food Systems – gave some extra tomato plants to the neighbors, had another neighbor’s five-year old daughter help us plant in the back yard. It was so cute and fun and I got some great snapshots of her and H. (Stay tuned for the pictures – will try to get them posted this week).

Eat the Food – mmm…. spinach and lettuce from the volunteer plants has been delish. Opened the last jar of pumpkin butter. Rick magically found more tomatoes (I swear I don’t know how he keeps doing this?!?!!) in the freezer so we’ve been enjoying those. Bacon and ham steaks (ham and eggs fried rice!) and eggs, of course. Also another batch of hummus. Finished the last of the antelope burger and some kale in some tasty Italian wedding soup (or our own rustic version at least)! For that we used the recipe in this post, but we substituted antelope for turkey, kale for escarole and our tomatoes from the freezer for the canned (a common substitution in our house).

Categories: Chickens, Community, Food, Garden, Independence Days | 3 Comments

Independence Days – Weeks 9-10

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Anisa

The garden is a bit behind where I’d like it to be, but there is still time, as Rick keeps reminding me. So here’s what has gone down in the last week or two or three. 😉

Plant something – tomatoes, beets, kohlrabi, eggplant, quinoa, onions, kale, rhubarb, squash, radishes… this is off the top of my head, so I might be forgetting something?

Harvest something – eggs, lettuce, spinach, asparagus

Preserve something – asparagus.

Waste Not – compost and recycling.

Want Not – Realized that I could use my empty canning jars to store some bulk items like rice and granola. This looks so much nicer in my cabinet and it’s much easier to find things then a bunch of bags all jumbled together!

Build Community Food Systems – um – I don’t think there’s much here. We did have the neighbor over for dinner one night? And I did find out that my friend Julie joined the farm and will be working on the same day as me (woohoo!) this summer. 🙂

Eat the Food – Jelly, ribs, and corn gone; been munchin’ fresh asparagus, made a big batch of hummus for the first time. Rick’s been diligently using all our frozen tomatoes and every time I think they’re all gone, he magically pulls another bag from somewhere! The peaches are still delicious. The pickled beets are gone now. The boys have been using frozen melon in smoothies.

What about you?

Categories: Food, Garden, Independence Days | 3 Comments

Independence Days – Week 6

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Anisa

Plant something – nothing (AGAIN! UGH!)

Harvest something – eggs and dandelion greens

Preserve something – nothing

Waste Not – compost and recycling. Also – been thinking that Rick’s biking to work might fall in this category, since it saves gas? Gave away the old washer & dryer on Freecycle as well as a few very tired cloth diapers.

Want Not – Rick roto-tilled the garden and the place where we’re going to plant Concord grapevines this year. So excited! Also, I found a place to make a new cover for our bike trailer for less than a replacement cover from the maker would have been if a cover were available (it’s not). This is so great since we love this trailer and I got such a good deal on it. (And we use the bikes so much in the summer).

Build Community Food Systems – nothing

Eat the Food – some pickles, tomatoes, pesto, pork shoulder, peaches….. trying to eat exclusively from the pantry & freezer this week since I feel a little meated out (with all the beef and chicken we ate over the last month or so).

Categories: Food, Independence Days | 1 Comment

Independence Days – Weeks 4 & 5

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Anisa

I realize this report is late late late. I’ve already started documenting week six for us as well, but I wanted to get these past two weeks posted, so I’m not SO far behind.

It’s been a busy couple weeks here at the homestead, and we still have nothing in the ground. But good friends were in town, and we were able to see them and spend some fun time together. I did contact someone about a dairy cow share (though it is SO expensive, I’m not sure if we’ll do it). And I was able to get some yummy fruit!

I’ve struggled finding blog writing time, though I am finding I have a bit more to say these days. Now if only I could manage to get both boys to nap at the same time, I might get to write it.

Plant something – nothing

Harvest something – eggs

Preserve something – nothing

Waste Not – compost and recycling

Want Not – Week 4: sold my small size cloth diapers. Yay for recouping some of the cost, and rebuilding the kiddos bank account. Also finally joined free cycle. Planning on offering a few things on there next week.

Week 5: Rick finished the compost bin. Unfortunately, H & Josie are fascinated with it and keep opening it up and then the chickens join in and we end up with compost over half the yard… so still a work in progress I guess on that front.

Build Community Food Systems – Week 4: 30 # organic heirloom tangelos from Arizona. A farm friend got a bunch of boxes all at once and shared with friends. And they are SO good!

Week 5: I called the landlord of the four-plex across the alley from us. We’ve noticed that over the last few years, although they have a lovely mature green grape vine nobody ever harvests them. So we asked and he said we could help ourselves (not sure if this really benefits anyone but us, but at least the grapes won’t be wasted)!

Eat the Food – used the last of the carrots and asparagus, two hams at Easter, tangelos for the ham glaze, can’t remember what else…

Um – also so big this week, I received my certification to teach! yay! I’ve went ahead and ordered my business cards and some charts! Yay yay!!!

Categories: Food, Independence Days | 2 Comments

2010 Independence Days – Week 3

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Anisa

Plant something – we have volunteer spinach & lettuce! (ok, I know that’s not planting, but yay)! We did hit the garden center this week and came home with bucu seeds. So far, I’m sad to say, nothing new has hit the dirt – but I’m not supposed to post what I haven’t done!

Harvest something – eggs had a banner week for 2010 thus far: aprox 27!

Preserve something – nothing

Waste Not – compost and recycling. Rick worked on the compost bin construction this weekend. It should be done next week!

Want Not – so fortunate – Rick’s grandparents gave us a gift certificate to the garden center for Christmas, so we used two-thirds of it on seeds this week. We have a little left to go towards tomato plants and any flowers I may want come April/May. Also – we got a packet of seeds from Rick other grandpa – kholrabi from Slovakia! These seeds are super special and we are so excited to plant them!

Build Community Food Systems – served up all that green chili (I made aprox 3 gallons last Saturday) on Tuesday.

Eat the Food – asparagus soup again (we had friends over), carrots from the freezer for corned-beef & cabbage on Wednesday and pot roast on Friday (this was a beefy week – very unusual, we NEVER buy beef!),

No recipe to share this week.

Categories: Chickens, Food, Independence Days | 2 Comments

Let Them Eat Cake

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Anisa

When chicken food gets wet it disintegrates. H dumped the chicken water into the chicken food, making sort of a “mash” in the bottom of their round food pan. When I asked what he was doing, he said, “They’re having cake today.”