Red State Green

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 expensive in odd ways. Meat is very pricey (I only buy grassfed, or organic if I can’t get that), while wheat berries seem to be inexpensive from what I’m hearing in other areas.

Something I realized yesterday was how MUCH food it takes to feed a family. I could easily tear through all the onions I’ve planted/harvested in a week or so, if that was all we had to eat. It’s quite sobering, and perhaps why the funk. For me, when I’m sick, especially respiratory stuff, something is messing with my mind.

I did do a few things:

Harvested more shallots. I plan to replant a good portion of them.

Got a propane stove top thing that I can use out back. I’ve gotten a collection of ways to cook and make fire, it’s sort of become a hobby to see how many ways I can find.

I also received word that the expandable fence/gate which was on backorder is being shipped. I got this because Leon is an escape artist and there’s no gate going to the driveway. Blocking it with boards or old wire seems to do no good; he manages to get through gaps I didn’t even see were there. We’ve had several adventures with him in the garage or under the car, and I’m getting too old to chase him around. It’s like having small children all over again!

The cheesemaking experiment seems to be panning out! I now have a nice molded half-sphere, about the size of a half a big softball, on a plate covered with cheesecloth. I salted the outside, and now all I’m doing is waiting for it to dry and get a rind on it. I’m fairly excited about this one — if I get this down, then milk going ‘bad’ will never be an issue again.

(click on picture for the full article)

When the weather turned violent and stormy on Tuesday evening, Lori Mehmen, who lives in the small farming town of Orchard in northeastern Iowa, looked out her front door and saw a funnel cloud bearing down — and evidently had the presence of mind to grab her digital camera and capture this shot before taking cover.

Beautiful and terrifying sight.

It’s been hot and humid here this week, rained twice, with some golf-ball sized hail the other night. Fortunately nothing got damaged. I’ve been under the weather (still not feeling all that well today), which is why I haven’t been posting.

My plants all seem smaller than usual for this time of year, I’m not sure why. My corn tasseled but didn’t make any ears, so no sweet corn. There are a couple of tomatoes forming, though, which is good. The potatoes are doing pretty well, also — some are going like crazy, some don’t seem to be growing at all.

Planted: carrots, rice (got that in a trade!), sweet potatoes, Indian corn (the multicolored kind — supposed to be good for cornmeal), and some air potatoes I bought in the fall which were making tendrils all over my pantry.

Harvested: garlic, an onion, shallots, blackberries

Preserved: curing the garlic and shallots (ate the onion!)

Resource management: more cleaning, shredding, composting. Found out the bunnies LOVE banana peels, which are hard to compost. Repackaged the beans I had bought earlier, discovered I really didn’t have very many. Went to the store and bought some pinto beans (among other things), and had a lovely talk with an old lady behind me in line about how to make beans, what it was like in the 40’s when she grew up, and so on.

New skill: I’m in the middle of a cheesemaking adventure. I’m pressing cheese curds right now. It’s been set up since yesterday, and I’ve reduced the volume of this mass of curds by well over half, so it’s going well. I realized today that I had forgotten to salt the curds, so I did just now, and tasted the spoon after mixing. It tastes a bit fruity, a bit like yogurt, and at the end a definite cheddar taste. So I think I’m onto something here. I’ll write more about this later.

I also learned that if you add wheat gluten and a cup of white flour to whole wheat flour, rolls come out much nicer.

Nine meals from anarchy - how Britain is facing a very real food crisis

…There might be 11 million gardeners in Britain, but your delicious summer peas won’t go far when your kids are hungry and the baked beans have run out….

I hope all of you have made steps to feed yourselves, and have more than three days food on hand. If not, there’s still time to get prepared.

Sometimes you just need a break from the internet. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone but play nice.

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 our own properties, our own food supply, our own families, and stop waiting for ‘the government’ to ’save us’.

Anyway, enough of the politics. A few things *have* happened while I moped around

Planted: carrots, sunchokes

Harvested: the first of the blackberries (!), peas, more shallots

Preserved: Froze the snow peas. The shallots and garlic are all curing out on the porch. I’m saving out the biggest ones to plant in a bit.

Resource management: Cleaned out the rabbit bins and composted the litter. Shredded up more old phone book for new litter (we are the mother lode of old phone books, there are several phone book companies here, who each think we need two or three a year). Plucked both the bunnies! They seem way more comfortable, and I have some lovely wool to spin, once I learn to spin better …

Preparations: Well, I bought a case of organic locally-grown peaches from the co-op. When they get here in a few weeks, I plan on canning most of them (one of my sons loves canned peaches, and I’m sick of buying them — not anywhere near locally grown — at Wal-Mart). I’ve never canned peaches before, so it should be fun.

More local: put my order in at the co-op, actually remembered to order things I forgot to last month like bacon (we’ve come to the end of the piggie’s bacon so I have to order it again). Once a month buying makes you plan a bit more. It’s good to do.

Well, that’s all from here. Hope you’re having a good day.

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.

I think last month, my calculations were off for the Riot.

Here’s what I got when doing them again (and we’ve had an excellent month):

This month –

Gasoline: 16.4 gal (for 4 people) - 10% of US average

Electricity: 1981 kWh - 219.1%

Water: 4230 gal (for 5 people) - 28.2%

Natural Gas: 8.2 Therms - 10%

For the year (which averages in all the profligacy of the first months)–

Gasoline: 27.1% of US average

Electricity: 301.8%

Natural gas: 34.6% (I think what I did was calculate for the year rather than for the month last time for this one)

Water: 38.5%

Here’s where I started, for comparison –

Gasoline: 59%

Electricity: 425%

Natural Gas: 42%

Water: 44%

Making progress.

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 my food dehydrator (they were getting a bit soft), and watched a video on how to make hard cider.  (My kind of project!) I also worked on my next pair of socks.

A good day all around.

One thing I forgot when I did my “learn to feed yourself” series was the abundance of food we have right outside our doors. (otherwise known as eating the “weeds” or “wild food”)

Many of our so-called “weeds” were either used by the indigenous peoples for centuries, or else were brought here by immigrants. Much of what you see around you is edible.

Now I have to do the public service announcement: 1) don’t eat something if you’re not sure what it is. (Good advice even for the stuff at the grocery store!) and 2) don’t eat something near roadways, in chemically treated lawns or in/around polluted water. (yuck)

Anyway, here’s some easy to recognize tasty foods:

• Dandelion

Dandelion leaves can be cooked like greens, the flowers can be used to make wine, and the roots, when roasted and ground, make a good decaf substitute. And they’re everywhere! Your neighbors will thank you for pulling them.

• Purslane

These are amazingly good cooked, and the young leaves can be used in salads.

• Sow thistle

Sometimes people mistake these for dandelions, but if you look at the two pictures, they’re different creatures. These are good cooked as greens.

• chickweed

This is great in salads! Very mild taste, like lettuce.

Those are the ones I eat most often. Take a close look at your weeds, and see if you can find the edible ones!

There are books and websites for plant identification, but the best way to learn if a plant is edible is to talk to someone who knows! Look for forager or wild food groups, your county extension, a local college botanist, or the old timer in the neighborhood who’s knowledgeable about plants. You’ll get to meet others and have fun too.