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!

Home Made Batteries

Here is a fun little video on how to make batteries from pennies, cardboard and vinegar, or pennies, washers, cardboard and vinegar.  Oh, and of course, electrical tape.  Seriously this could be a handy thing if you badly needed a battery.  It's probably  a lot easier to keep some extra batteries around the house, but this was pretty impressive anyway.




This guy has a lot of interesting things on his site.  This project reminded me of Phoebe's brother melting things....  :)






this:

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} )

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.

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.