Getting Back in the Harness

It has been a long time since I did any blogging, especially on this site.  In the time since my last post we have turned our lives upside down and moves to SW Oregon, and retired.

We now are on a 5.5 acre 'farm'...or more accurately, very large yard badly overgrown with blackberries.  But we don't mind that so much.  As weeds go, blackberries are pretty great, still there can too much of a good thing.  We also left our great food storage cellars behind, as well as our productive raised bed planters.

So there is a lot to do just to get back to the line of scrimmage so to speak.  We also have somewhat different preparedness needs here than we did back in Delta.  We are also getting older, so that is something that has to be taken into account as well.

I guess that is the main thought to this post.  Things change in all of our lives.  Sometimes we don't see that change for a while because life is so busy.  Annie and I got several reminders of how much things had changed as we packed and went through the backs of the closets.  One of the most striking things that we came across were old 72 Hour backpacks for the kids that still had their children's clothes in them.  And they are grown moms and dads themselves.

It would be nice to 'get prepared' and then put it on automatic and go about life.  There are certainly milestones that can be accomplished, but in large part it is a pattern of living, a pattern of thought that has to be cultivated much like a garden.

Well, time to get busy.  I have a wood stove to install, bills to pay, church work to do.  No rest for the wicked.  Hope you all have a nice day.

Zucchini Chips

Zucchini chips:

Peel and gut the zucchini and chop it into chip sizes. I cheated and used the fine slicing blade on our Kitchen Aide food processor.

Sprinkle generously with a flavor of your choice - we tried white cheddar and Parmesan popcorn flavors and Splenda/cinnamon and that was what we like best. The dried chips seemed to have a slightly sweet natural flavor that went better with the cinnamon.

 

Don't be shy about putting on the flavorings. The moisture in the zucchini dissolves the flavorings and prevents the fan from blowing off the spices.  It takes about 10 hours at 125 deg F.

So they probably aren't cheeto's, but then they have almost no calories either.

Get Ready, Get Set.......Garden

We have a lot of snow on the ground right now, and I think that more is coming.  But I can't help but feel good about spring. 

The garden books have been coming fairly regularly, and even worse, the baby chick catalogs.  I'm not really thinking of getting any chicks yet, but I know that it is about time to get ready to plant the early garden.

I was just in a planning meeting for our coming spring outage.  We will be totally concentrated on the outage work from about March 16 until the end of April.  So I know I only have about 6 weeks to get in the cool weather crops.  If I don't get them in before the outage, they will still grow, but it will get hot, and they won't really like it.

What to plant for the early garden?  You can plant these crops as early as you can turn the soil.  It doesn't matter if there is still some frost in it.

• Lettuce
• Arugula
• Peas, both garden and snow
• Onions, both seed or sets
• Carrots 
• Beets
• Swiss Chard

I think you could also plant 

• Cabbage
• Kale
• Turnips
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Potatoes

I'm a little nervous about the potatoes that early, but I think the rest of them would be OK.  The thing is, the seeds won't germinate until the soil warms up, and then when the little plants come up, they are already pretty used to the outdoors and are tougher then if you got them from a green house and transplanted them (think broccoli, cauliflower,  and cabbage).  I'm sure that you could get a hard enough cold snap late in the spring to kill them, but they are pretty tough.  Not like apricot blossoms or tomatoes.


Anyway, this is just a little reminder to my Nearest and Dearest.  I like to buy my seed from Mountain Valley Seeds.  They come in a foil pouch, and are resealable, and you can buy in quantity at a reasonable price.  Happy digging!

Anatomy of a Breakdown

Anatomy of a Breakdown

I thought this was a great article.  Tess Pennington analyzes just what happens when you are caught up in a large scale disaster.  

She outlines the stages that are experienced when people are separated from the electrical grid, from clean water, sewage, transportation and/or gasoline, and normal food and water distribution.  You should probably read the article as it is good and informative, but not hard, but I'm going to give a short outline of it if you are pressed for time.

1.  The Warning: 

There usually is a warning, and often times the warning comes several days in advance of the disaster, earthquakes being exempted from this generalization.  Tornadoes sometimes only have scant warning.  For one reason or another there is a part of the population that decides to stay behind.

2. Shock and Awe: (1 to 2 days)

What a great phrase, but accurate.  It is hard to wrap your mind around the colossal forces that are unleased by these huge and/or violent storms, or the earth moving around like a carnival ride.  It is so far out of our experience that we can't comprehend it.  Those that stay behind are almost always somewhat unprepared for what overtakes them, and the majority are very unprepared.

3. The Breakdown: (3-7 days)

Here is the time when people run out of water, out of food, out of fuel.  The find themselves stranded and shocked by the loss of home and community.  Many of these unfortunate are the ones that the news guy sticks the mic in front of and asks how they feel.  Duh....not great.  Those news guys can be so annoying.

People are expecting things to go back to normal, but with powerlines down, substations trashed, often water mains broken, pumping stations damaged, things don't come back to normal very soon.  The roads might be torn up, rescue resources are stretched to the max and people are hungry, thirsty, cold/hot and very pissed off that their entitled needs aren't met.  Looting begins. You are pretty much on your own then.

4. Recovery: (8-30+ days)

Sometimes this takes years, and things are never the same.

We have a long history of self sufficiency, but we often are lulled into complacency as well.  Lots of times we think that a year's supply of food is a ridiculous amount to have, or we despair that we can hardly afford to pay for this weeks food, yet alone to build up a reserve.

We can't do it all at once.  It is a day-by-day process.  We have to learn to eat differently.  We have to take advantage of all the little resources that are at hand.  Often a good source of food is to process the food that we normally would throw away as being out-of-date, or fruit that is a little soft or bruised.

You can dry it, bottle it, make soup out of it, and bottle the soup.  We throw away hundreds of milk and beverage conatiners that would work just fine to store water in.  We throw away many glass jars that can be used to can jellys and jams, many with pop up lids can be used again and again (we will talk another time about what can be safely bottled in what jar), but you don't always have to buy brand new jars.

WalMart has a hundred camping items that will work pretty well in an emergency.  Buy one per week. 

Try to get by even for a night eating out of your food storage, cooking and lighting with your alternate sources of heat and light.  We had a power outage for a couple of hours early in the Spring.  We were fine for the essentials but couldn't sew, couldn't blog, couldn't surf, couldn't watch TV.....how embarrassing that was.

The truth is that is we don't prepare ourselves for troubled times, we will be unprepared, we will be afraid, and we will probably have to go out into the crowds of frightened and anxious people and won't be able to stay quietly in our homes.

Just a few thoughts.  Read the article, there is a lot more there than I have.

Fall Planting Guide

This year's garden wasn't as big in square footage as some of our past gardens for a variety of reasons (big tree removal and a busy summer), but it was somewhat saved by a three row, late summer planting of beets, chard, and arugula.

I don't know how many of you like to eat boiled greens, and actually there should be a fancy French term that would make them sound better.  Boiled Greens.....if I didn't know that they were so good, I wouldn't have anything to do with them either.  What is so good about them, you might ask?  Well they are easy to grow, fresh, and full of vitamins, a good source of calcium and fiber.  And.....basically not fattening at all if you don't put a pound of butter on them.

There are a lot of crops that you can plant in the late summer/early fall that will give you another crop.  Most people look at you strangely if you tell them you just planted another row or two in your garden, and it is late August or early September.  But that is fine.  The weather is typically warm enough to allow the seeds to germinate quickly and to grow well, but not so hot that they plants get stressed from lack of water, or become strong flavored from the heat.  You won't get a second crop of sweet corn, or any watermelon etc, so don't even think about it.  You can get great crops of salad greens (lettuce, cabbage, arugula etc.), and boiled greens (verts bouillis..... as the FrAnch are fond of saying...) (chard, collard greens, beets, spinach, mustard greens etc.).  If you had known and planned well, or have a time machine, you could probably get a second crop of peas.  Onions will over winter...beets and chard will be very mild flavored from growing in cooler weather.  We have had chard overwinter, but it usually in the really cold weather.

Sometimes, in late summer or early fall the stores have moved the seeds to the back of their storage room, or have gotten rid of their stock of seeds completely.  This can be a frustration.  We get our seeds from Mountain Valley Seeds, and they are always ready to ship.  They ship all of their seeds in airtight mylar covered zip baggys, so they are protected from light and moisture.  If you keep them in a cool place the seeds will last for a long time.  Also, Mountain Valley ships in quantity if you want.  So if you think you will be eating a lot of one variety, or want to plant a small field, they are the ones to order from.

Here is a good guide to fall planting that you can save to your computer as a PDF or print or not.  Not only does it give you an idea of days to harvest, but also of frost tolerance and of other characteristics.  For instance, it shows that beets have a better flavor when grown in cool weather.  We have noticed that broccoli is mild and sweet when grown in cooler weather, and gets a really strong taste in the heat of the summer.  I haven't planted a late crop of broccoli, but we noticed that the second growth after the main harvest was always better tasting than the main crop.  I don't know if our plants were water deprived in the heat, or if it was the heat itself that gave it the strong taste, but the second growth was always better.

I guess that is about it for now.  Happy harvesting! 

Why Bother?

It is the end of the season, just about.  Our garden was interrupted by  the partial removal of a large locust tree, and as a result of a busy spring and summer, and other projects around the house, I didn't plant the garden that we have had for the last few years.  We did get the raised beds planted, and I got some late chard, beets, and arugula planted in the main garden.  But that is OK.  Now we are contemplating a move to a house with a small farm, or a really, really large and overgrown yard.  We are contemplating raising chickens, milking goats, raising and even more of our own food, and I have to ask myself why I bother.  It is better that I ask that question first, and have some kind of an answer ready, because a lot of people ask me why, and sometimes I flounder with my answers.
 
When I started this blog several years ago,  there were multiple, immediate crisis' going on in the financial world and I felt that this might be a way to help make family members more aware of how dependent we all are to institutions and infrastructure that might fail, or that we might not be able to access, for any reason.

Time has moved on.  The crisis of Lehman Brothers has morphed into the Eurozone crisis..... and that will probably move on to something else.  More immediately,  we have had children out of work for extended periods of time, others that struggle to make ends meet as they raise families and try to complete their schooling.   So our family wasn't at the economic center of the hurricane, but they got plenty of wind and rain and 'power outages'.  

So in the here and now I find myself contemplating the future, contemplating a move, retirement, and a completely different life.  And so the question:  'Why bother?  Why do you want to tie yourself down.  Don't you know that you can drive to Costco (at probably any given distance) and get more food cheaper than you can raise it, and much easier?  Why do you want to bother?'

Part of my love for the rural and pastoral is a love for peace and quiet.  Part of raising a garden or raising stock is about a connection with my past, with Grandparents, and Great-Grandparents, patient, hardworking, full of faith and hope.  When I am digging, hoeing, planting, gathering, weeding, building....I remember stories of lives and times gone by, and I hope that I can live up to their standards of conduct and faith.  

Part of it is the good things that you raise. And you know how clean the lettuce is.  You know how much (if any) sprays were used.  What you pick is fresh and at it's peak of flavor and nutrition.   It is good not to have to run to the store every time you need an apple or an onion- you always end up buying other things too.  

Economy, nutrition, nostalgia, contemplation, and peace of mind.  Your mileage may vary, and gardens and stock care might be just a big pain in your backside, but I guess these are some of the reasons why I bother to raise a garden, and why I'll probably go to the bother of gathering eggs, and milking until I'm too old to raise a shovel.

(P.S. Here is a Prairie Home Companion audio clip on small town life and gardens supplied by Mike - {Thanks Mike} )

Raised Beds On the Cheap- The Frugal Farmer

I ran into a nice video on building raised beds with recycled pallet wood.  Your mileage may vary in that you might not be able to find pallets with the same dimensions.... but you are smart and can probably adapt this video to other scrap wood that you might be able to acquire.




Enjoy.  Our raised beds are made from cinderblock and are probably more durable than wood, and we are pleased with them, but they cost more, and they were quite a bit of work to build, especially the capstones.


Also, re-claiming pallet wood:

FYI - Not Much Rain This Summer

Just a quick note - huge areas of corn have been affected by the dry weather in the mid-west this year.  Our whole food system is based on there being plentiful corn.  Meat, dairy, poultry, and ethanol for a gasoline additive all depend on the abundance  and cheapness of corn.

What the ultimate effects of the drought will be, I don't know, but I can't imagine food becoming cheaper, or gas for that matter either.  It seems like once food prices go up, they are sticky, and they tend to stay up as long as the businesses can keep them up.

Just sayin'.........as an old friend said once, after looking at the results of my hay stacking efforts 'Well, it looks like h--- now, but it'll look better in a snow drift'.  And so it is with our efforts to fill the pantry during the harvest.  It may not seem like much now, but you will be glad you did later on.

Here is an animated drought map for the last 12 weeks.

On Your Mark, Get Set......... Plant!

When the weather is cold, and the snow is deep, the seed companies send out the catalogs.  I'm always glad to see them.  I don't mind the winter cold so much, but the yard looks dreary is generally improved by a good snow.  Even though the early pitch to gardeners is probably mostly motivated by trying to beat out the competition on getting the first order of the sun deprived gardeners of the country, it is still a nice service to all of us.

Gardening is a funny pass time.  It doesn't beckon and call you out, or even invite you to think much about the coming season until it finally gets warm.  It's hard to get excited about getting the early, cool weather seeds in the ground when the weather hasn't even gotten to the cool stage yet.  It seems much better to tackle an indoor project, or just goof around with a game or YouTube when the temperature is low and the wind is blowing.  And after last night's storm, I know I will be inside for a while - you do have to be able to see the ground before you can do much digging.

So, on a snowy day what is there to do?  Well, a couple of weeks ago when it was still dry, but we were getting ready to take down a dead tree, I thought it might be time to stop using the rototiller for a lawn/garden ornament and took it, the lawn mower and the weed whip down to a small engine repair place to be repaired.  He was able to get to work on them right away, and will have them back to me in plenty of time to put them to work.  Also, the tree removal people gave us a 50% off price on removing a dead locust tree because they needed the work and it was not too busy.  You know that the first nice weekend in April there will be the start of the tidal wave of garden interest.  The stores will be packed, the small engine guys will be over loaded and the tree trimmers will be more expensive.

We got the tree down, many of the branches converted to firewood, and the trunk loaded and transported to a friend that has a sawmill.

 Early spring is a good time to start your gardening.  As soon as the soil is thawed you can start to plant your early season crops - peas, carrots, beets, potatoes, onions, chard, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, kale, turnips.  We are talking seeds - don't rush out to buy the early plants from the green house because they will get killed as we are still in frost season.

Another thing that I like about early spring is you don't have to do it all..... later in the year it is so much work.  Work, work work...dig, plant,  water, weed.  Now it is cool.  You can get a bag or two of steer manure from Home Depot or Wal-Mart or from the steer (if there are any in your neighborhood), spread it out on the row you are going to work on and do a little digging- you want to break up the soil and mix in the manure,  then break up the clods with the rake until you have a nice seed bed, then plant the seeds, cover them to the appropriate depth and call it a day.  You don't even have to water.  It is kind of surprising later in the season,  when it gets warm, how much you got done.  The cool weather crops will be very happy, and they will grow well for you.  Don't expect any peas if you plant them on June 1.

There is a lot of work to be done in the spring.   Digging in the garden, especially early in the spring often reminds me of a story that Grandma told me.  She probably told it only once or twice but since spending the years that we spent on the farm, it made a huge impression on me.  The story is pretty short - It was that my Grandpa always used to go out early in the spring to get the ditches in shape.  His ditches weren't leveled by laser, there was no concrete lining or steel head gates.  They ran along the highest part of a field, and were usually sod.  He would go along each spring and shape the sod, clean out the sand and silt, and shovel smaller lateral ditches to further divide the water to the rows.  Grandma said that he put a file in his back pocket and would go out and shovel all day.  That's the story, but this is how it plays in my mind....

I imagine that the shovel was kept almost as sharp as a bread knife - you can't cut sod with a dull shovel.  So I see him out there, all alone, the grass just coming up, wind blowing a little.  It's cold if you are standing around, but he isn't.  The shovel flashes regularly in the sun.  His arms are corded with muscle.  His hat is pulled down around his ears.  He works steadily, hour after hour, a break at noon, more shoveling in the afternoon until about 4 p.m.  Then he comes in and forks hay to the cows, milks 3 or 4 cows, feeds the chickens, chops and saws some wood for the stove and then comes in for dinner.  He sits down and Grandma and Harlan, little children then, climb onto his lap.  He eats his supper in the warm kitchen with his sweet little family.  He is so tired, but happy with his work and his life.  They put the kids to bed, maybe they read from the Bible.  They might have a radio....I don't know.  But soon it is morning again, the sun up just a little earlier, milk, feed stock, take the shovel and head back to the ditches.  And all without an iPod..........

I guess that is about it.  Back to taxes..... Some of you have told me that you wanted a reminder of when to get your gardens started.  Now is the time.  Start small, make it easy.   It should be a happy hobby that gives you some peace, some exercise, and some good food.   

Ward Christmas Party Chicken Slaughter

(This was actually written about December 20, 2011, so if it seems a little dated, it is.)

Got your attention?  It's not exactly bait and switch title, but close.  There was a chicken massacre before the Ward Christmas party, but I don't know where or when it actually took place, a chicken gulag somewhere.  I use a little more care when I volunteer offhandedly to help with Ward parties.  I spoke at the wrong time to the wrong person (R.S. President) and before I knew it (seriously - in 3 minutes she had talked to the Bishop and changed the menu from the traditional ham to dutch oven chicken - it was official) , I was in charge of the meat for the Ward Christmas party - about 200 people.

I know there was a chicken massacre because Annie and I bought 29 trays of drumsticks, thighs and breasts in preparation.  We actually kind of lost count of the number until we went to the dump.  It got to be a blur.  Three trays (styrofoam) filled a dutch oven, so that makes 9-2/3 ovens packed with chicken.

Unfortunately, I only have two ovens of any size, and since it was pretty bitterly cold I thought it best to cook them inside - ahead of time- rather than outside on the day of the party like you might do in the summer.  We did this once before, maybe 25 years ago - and it worked out well.  I just borrowed a bunch of ovens and stacked them.

In cold weather, and especially if there is wind, it is a lot harder to get the chicken done to falling-off-the-bone tender.  If you'll pardon the expression, I chickened out.  The sequence went like this: I packed one dutch oven with chicken parts, cooked it, put a new dutch oven in the big oven.  Put the hot one outside to cool, deboned the chicken, made gravy from the juice, packed meat and gravy in a 1 gallon ziplock and repacked the oven with raw chicken, put the new hot one outside.......lather-rinse-repeat.  It took a couple of days to get them all done, and then it was time to thaw the bags of chicken and gravy.  But, you can feed a big family or small army with dutch ovens.  The more the merrier. In the end we fed the ward and there was some left over.

It was a long introduction, but what I really wanted to post about was the left-overs.  We had two big dutch ovens, and three of our biggest Farberware kettles full of de-boned chicken when the party started.  When it ended, there was probably almost 2 gallons of chicken still in one kettle.  I tried to get everyone to take some home, but they were surprisingly reluctant and in the end we took it home.  In addition to the cooked chicken, there was the bones.  29 trays of chicken will create a bunch of bones - our turkey roaster was crammed-jammed full of them.  I could barely get the lid on.  The first boiling gave us about 8 quarts of rich broth.  What to do with all of this good food?!  Our freezer is pretty well full, and needs to be defrosted anyway, so freezing it would probably work, but it is a lot of work.

Last night I brought in two of the kettles and stuffed 7 quarts full of chicken and broth, and after about an hour of  gentle heating in hot water, I pressure canned them.  I'm not sure how much there will be in the end.  I'm sure that there is another 7 quarts that will be ready to go tonight, and then I will boil the bones one more time, and I think I will get at least one more 7 quart batch.

I guess that the reason for this post is to illustrate that food is available for storage when you least expect it.  Since we had the ward dinner and ended up with the left-over chicken and all the bones and broth, we found that a friend in our ward has a contact at one of the local grocery stores and gets ripe-to-over-ripe fruits and vegetables on a routine basis.  Sometimes she calls us at about 8 pm - you are not really thinking about food storage at that time of night.  We go over and she has a wide variety if produce in anywhere from good-but-ripe, to cut-out-the-bruise to hmmmm-this-should-go-on-the-garden condition.  It's not likely that you will be able to get access to the cast-off's of your local store, but the point is that you don't have to buy everything at full price.  When corn is 10-for-$1, it's time to bottle/freeze corn.  Do the strawberries look a little ripe?  You might be able to strike a deal, especially at a stand or smaller store.

Note: In the end we had 18 quarts of chicken and broth.

Path To Freedom

These guys are inspiring, at least to me. They have 1/5 of an acre, but produce so a tremendous amount of produce and fruit. I think they have 350 species of herb, fruit, vegetable, and berry on their little spot of ground.

We have just been trying to use every square foot of ground for something - just not weeds, and it is quite a challenge. But it seems like every day or two there is enough produce that I have to bottle or freeze something. For example, the garden huckleberrys ripen slowly, so every few days we pick the ripe ones and make a little batch of jam. This last batch was great - GH with apples and zucchinni for bulk.

Well, that's all for now. It is time to get busy on Saturdays work. If you want to get some ideas on what you can do with your yard, go and visit this site. They give a great example of what you can do with home production of food.

Production and Storage

We have heard a lot about food storage, but equally important is home production. You might never end up producing like the Dervaes (Urbanhomestead.org ) family does, but their example shows us what is possible.

You might look at this as being as extreme as Walt Nelson, and if you think that our economy is going to be healed, you will think it is totally silly. I guess it is a lot about what you think the future will bring. If you want to see how the Great Depression affected people watch 'Sea Biscuit' and then back-to-back watch 'Cinderella Man'. Let me tell you that you will experience a 'Great Depression' right there. Yikes! Everyone didn't wakeup poor one morning, although some did. But it wore them down.

When you have an sick economy one of two things happen. Either you have a deflation, much like what is going on now, and people can't find jobs, many are out of work and while there might be food in the locality, people can't afford to buy it because they can't get the money. Roughly 2 billion people in the world live like this every day. They get by on less than $2.50/day. And this deflation is pushing them to starvation.

The other thing that happens is that you get an inflation, and the inflation rate gets pretty high. If you don't have a job, so much the worse for you, but if you do have a job the money that you get isn't worth anything.

Some of these problems can be blunted by home production. In an inflation or deflation there are less opportunities to actually create wealth. You can't work overtime, or might not even have a job. The only opportunities that you have are those that you create yourself. Home production might be the single easiest way to have that second job.

You can't do this overnight. You can't wait until the wolf is at the door to have a productive yard and garden. My goal is to bring more of my lawn under production each year. We planted five grape plants this year, and Annie found a bunch of great information on pruning and starting new plants. We planted two thornless black berries as well, and I have about 10 little plums and apricots ready to be transplanted. We built cast block raised beds in the sunniest part of the yard, and had a wonderful crop. After removing a shade tree, we actually got sweetcorn and had a great squash year. It doesn't happen at once. Start now. Spade, rototill or plow under some of the Kentucky Blue. You don't have to take the whole yard, or even change the looks of the yard. Just come out from the fence 4-8 feet, depending you the size of your yard. Put as many leaves, grass clippings and garden scraps as you can on the soil. Whether you can buy bulk manure or have to buy the bagged stuff from Walmart, put about 2-3" of manure on these new beds. It will take several years to build up the fertility, but your yard will surprise you with the produce that it will supply you with.