Red State Green

I cooked local leg of lamb in my solar oven. I put it in at around 11:30 am, rock hard frozen. At 4 pm it was done perfectly, using free energy and the house not heated at all.
I could get used to this

My son loves canned peaches, so when I saw the listing for peaches in the co-op,
(cue dreamy music)
I thought of beautiful jars filled with perfect golden slices, layered ever-so-nicely, rows upon rows in my pantry …

That’s not how it went today.
First, I had the idea to get the skins off by putting them in boiling […]

Other than harvesting some of my wheat, I didn’t get much done today. Oh, I did dry some of the mint I bought from the co-op, and put the rest in water to root. Hopefully we’ll have a second type of mint growing out front soon.
I discovered that I also have Lemon Mint growing out […]

I’m not sure if it’s been the heat, allergies, or just plain old funk, but I haven’t been able to get much done the last few days. I’m supposed to be at the co-op right now, as I normally go volunteer there on sorting day.
Food is getting more and more expensive even there, but it’s […]

Well, it’s been more of the hot lately, but I think I’ve been reading the news too much. Gas prices, foreclosures, homelessness, food supply issues … all on the rise. And none of the candidates seems to have a clue.
For me, it just reinforces my feelings that we need to become self-reliant, take care of […]

Today was too hot to do much outside, but I did go to my friend’s house for lunch today. She has chicks and goats, and just moved up from Texas. It was great to get to see her again; a nice afternoon overall.
We had local leg of lamb for dinner: very yummy.

Finally got some rain last night, and all but one of my rainbarrels is full.
Yesterday we had friends over for a BBQ, plenty of local meat and a good time. Today we had lots of leftovers.
Planted two tomatoes and a watermelon, harvested a lot more peas, put some local hydroponic tomatoes from the co-op in […]

A video interview with Robert Waldrop, president of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, showing off his home garden and talking a little about the co-op. There’s quite a bit of background noise in the video but it’s worth watching.
Bob’s a buddy of mine so I’m pretty excited that he got the interview.

Today I mainly just did what I always do.
Except I went to a coffeeshop with some friends and one of them (the lady I gave the tomato plants to) gave me one of her strawberry plants! So I’ll have three now. I’m putting each one in a different plot to see how they […]

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 […]