Red State Green

Long day.

Harvested more snowpea pods, froze them. Also harvested lettuces and carrots. (oh, and weeds for the bunnies )

Went to the food co-op to help sort items, as today was delivery day. Worked there four hours, then came home and took Leon out to run around, then went and picked up our food.

I got a strawberry plant, some leeks/onions to plant, and a stevia plant (which is quite yummy). I also got some wheat to put into my stash.

I bought a pan of frozen lasagna from the co-op on purpose to have tonight, as I knew I’d be tired out. Very, very good.

Yesterday was busy again… well, today was, too.

Harvested a lot of snow peapods. I have a quart bag full in the freezer now. I also am getting a collection of peas drying for seed for the fall.

The cutworm-eaten tomato tops haven’t survived. At least I started a lot of them.

Went shopping and found the material I want to use to refurbish a pair of pants I really like but don’t fit anymore, as well as got six pounds of organic spaghetti and four pounds of regional organic rolled oats to add to my stash.

Yesterday, I cooked the last pork shoulder from the little (if 100# is little ) piggie Judy showed me how to butcher. It was excellent baked with a mustard/powdered cloves rub. Today we had pork shepherd pie for dinner, and we still have meat for a couple of sandwiches and a nice meaty bone for soup or stew.

I’ve never forgotten the little piggie. There’s something different about looking into the eyes of the animal you’re preparing to eat. Every time I have some of her, I remember the calm contentment in her eyes. I don’t know; it probably sounds goofy, but the remembering feels almost sacred. So much different than buying a piece of meat wrapped in plastic.

And for you veggie people, I feel much the same about growing my own fruit and vegetables. I think plants know if you care for them too.

Remarks given to the Vestas Wind Technology Training Center, today, in Portland, Oregon.

The full text here.

Discuss.

I’m not keeping up with this daily thing, am I?

Well, there was a prom, and then there was Mother’s day, and I got sick on Mother’s day, and it all just went by the wayside. Today is better. Kind of tired, but at least not sick.
I did plant two more tomato plants and a bell pepper today. Yes, we’re going to have a lot of them. We really like salsa.

The sunflowers and the butternut squash are sprouting. A cutworm got another one of my tomato plants, but I managed to salvage the top of this one. We’ll see if it re-roots.

Picked some more snow peas. Froze all of them.

Buffalo burgers on the menu for tonight. We’re easy when it comes to food, nothing fancy.

No, I didn’t write yesterday. Yes, I’m fine.

My husband took yesterday off (he tends to take his vacation days one at a time), and we got some things done around the house. Went grocery shopping, etc.

Planted several tomatoes and a pepper plant. The first ones I planted seem to have recovered from the ordeal and are making new leaves.

We have an abundance of water after this last storm, and a couple buckets’ worth ended up in our old rusty wheelbarrow (that needs a new tire). This rusty water has iron in it, and I used that to water the tomatoes. Hopefully that will help them do well.

Harvested snow peapods and peas, carrots, chard, lettuces. I’ve started to pick the larger heads of lettuce as I’m afraid they’ll bolt any minute, it’s been so hot. If they do, it’s not a tragedy, but I do like salad so I want to keep it around as long as I can.

Preserved: froze more snow peas and pods. I keep these in quart freezer bags and add more as I pick and wash them. If you’ve never grown snow peas they are wonderful plants, as you can eat just about all of them (I suppose you could eat the roots, but I wouldn’t want to).

Preps: bought some more LED flashlights and a pocket knife, as well as a new hacksaw. I’ve never owned a pocket knife before, but my sons have them and they seem to come in handy. (they love whipping them out to cut something for me )

Last night I read about tanning leather and feltmaking while working on the socks I’m knitting. One sock is almost done except the toe. The way I’ve been taught is to stop at the completion of a step and go to the other sock, so they’re both done about the same time. So I’m going round and round on the foot of the other one now, which is good for reading.

I think planning is almost as important as doing (doing is always better, but planning should come first). So I’m going to add planning as something I put down here.

We’ve had issues with … chores. Three teenagers who would much rather do anything else than work around the house, you know. So I’ve made a list of what needs doing and I’m going to encase it in one of those paper protectors that you can write on with a dry erase pen. People can mark off when they’ve done a job, and then we can SEE who’s doing the work around here! (heh.)

Anyway, I’m off to a spinning show up in Edmond.

My food dehydrator came in today, but it’s still sitting in the box in the front hallway.

I’m not feeling well so I haven’t done much other than pick peas and bring Leon out to run around.

Oh, and I did wash a few dishes, but I didn’t compost the water. The ground is still squishy wet from the rainstorm the last two days.

I made corncakes for breakfast. You cook them like pancakes. I got the recipe from an old lady who said it was her favorite thing to eat as a little girl. Here’s the recipe:

1 cup corn meal (stone ground tastes the best, according to her)

1 cup milk

1 egg

I add 1 tsp baking powder, otherwise they’re rather flat. But the recipe is really simple and the kids like it. These are great with syrup.

I don’t remember what I had for lunch, but dinner was chicken soup with salad from the garden.

We have soup a lot, because my husband likes it. Here’s what I do: whenever we have meat of any kind (even hamburgers), I put some water in the pan and get all the little scrapings, fat, juices, and any extra vegetables (for example, if we had a roast), put it in a Rubbermaid container and freeze it. When I get more, I put it on top of what’s already in one, until the container is full, then it goes in the deep freezer.

Most of the time I try to put like meat with like (all the chicken water in one container, etc.), but the combinations are interesting if you don’t. When I want soup I get a full container and thaw it, then heat it up. Sometimes I add more veggies, or some grain, or some bouillon, depending on what it needs.

If we have any left over I freeze it again after a day or so, but we usually don’t have that happen too often. A lot of times I’ll cook rice in the broth and make pilaf, or make a gravy with it and put it over noodles, or something. You can get a lot of meals from meat.

Not much got done outside, there are two inch puddles everywhere. It’s times like these I wish I had more rain barrels: mine are filled, the 5-gallon buckets around them are full, and the water’s still overflowing everything.

Note to self: do not let Shadow (one of our rabbits) go out when it’s raining. Leon (the other rabbit) has sense enough to stay on the porch but she doesn’t. She got into the wood chip pile while sopping wet and it took an hour to get the little pieces of wood out of her fur.

Bought gas today, $3.42 for unleaded. That hasn’t changed in a couple of weeks.

Made egg rice for breakfast (leftover rice, local eggs),  leftover stir-fry for lunch, made tacos for dinner. Local grass-fed beef, lettuce from the garden.

Maybe it’s the weather but I’m tired and it’s only eight pm.

Harvested lettuces, snow peas, and carrots. The romaine lettuce is getting really big.

Froze more snow pea pods (and peas). I braided the shallots I pulled the other day (click to enlarge):

They’re hanging near the stove right now.

Breakfast was quesadillas with regional tortillas and local sharp cheddar cheese; lunch for me was more of the same, with raisins and ice tea.

Hubby and kids had leftovers again at home for dinner; my daughter and I went to get our nails done and ate at Sbarro in the mall. She has her prom on Saturday.

It doesn’t sound like I did all that much but I’m tired right now. Maybe it’s the weather, we had thunderstorms all night last night and I didn’t sleep well.

… so far. They’re predicting storms the next few days.

Today I repotted a bunch of tomato and pepper seedlings, and stuck the largest ones on the back porch in preparation to putting them in the yard.

Harvested snow peas. Froze more peas.

Put more dishwater on the compost pile, and added the rabbit litter to a new plot I’m making in the back, for sweet potatoes.

I’m getting together with some people to buy some solar dehydrators at a good price. If you’re interested in going in with us, contact me.
Breakfast was local eggs, scrambled, with a variety of leftover stuff from the freezer: waffles, corn cakes, pancakes. For me, lunch was the same.

Dinner was lovely. Stir-fried local buffalo with carrots, snow peas, onion and garlic from my garden, with a locally-bottled soy ginger sauce, and more of that Louisiana brown rice. Yum.

Of course, now I have to start over as far as frozen snow peas from the yard, but that was worth it. What’s food for, if not to enjoy?

I have a theory, gleaned from the two time periods (back about fifteen years ago and now) that I started a new garden for food production. There seems to be definite stages people go through:

1. Fumbling around — This is usually what happens the first year in a new place: half-heartedly putting things in the ground, scattering seeds without a purpose, that sort of thing. If you’re lucky things grow, if not, this is where a lot of people conclude they have a ‘black thumb’, get bored, and do something else. Someone who’s really lucky gets a few salads, a few ears of corn, some tomatoes.
2. Taking it seriously — The second year and maybe the third: you read books or articles about your climate, buy compost or mulch, start a compost bin. You might even plant trees or vines. Some people take general notes about what grew and what didn’t. Some things grow, some don’t. You learn to cover your plants when it freezes, and to water once in a while. This time, you notice you can go out back on a regular basis — maybe once a week — and get a salad, or your favorite vegetable/fruit in season.
3. The practiced gardener — By now (three or four years into it), you know your property, where the good places are to grow things, where the lettuces wilt and where the sunflowers don’t get enough sun. You’re getting solid supplementation to your diet out of the garden. It wouldn’t feed you comfortably at all if the world exploded around you, but you wouldn’t quite starve. You can’t put much away yet, unless you decided to grow a lot at a time. Your fruit and nut trees are just little things still.
4. The experienced food gardener — Five to ten years into it … you’re able to grow enough vegetables to put away on a regular basis, to be eaten later in the year. You save seeds, and have begun to find (and make) breeds of plants that you like and that like your garden. Your fruit and nut trees have started to bear, and you enjoy their fruit in season. There aren’t enough fruits yet to can or put away, except later in this phase. You start learning to can, to make jams and jellies, how to freeze things, how to dry or ferment your harvest, and what recipes your family likes best.
5. The expert gardener — You know your lot, what grows best where, and how much to plant to get the amount you need for the year. You have a routine through the seasons and can pretty much rely on feeding your family most of their fruits and vegetables from your yard, either fresh or canned. As you get really good at it you begin to amass a storehouse of canned and frozen goods, a backup for years when crops don’t do as well. Your fruit trees and vines are mature and bear well, and you have an abundance to give away.

This is where I was before I moved. The funny thing is that you really do have to start over in a sense when you move, as each lot is different and it takes time to learn the new microclimates for your property. It’s more pronounced when you move halfway across the country as I did. I definitely fumbled my first year.

Now some go on to sell their produce or canned goods, and that’s beyond what I know about. But although I’ve talked about the learning curve for the home food gardener, I don’t think people realize there really is one!

So now’s the time to start planting. What did you plant today?