Independence Days – Weeks 12 and 13

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Amie wowed at Times Square

Missed last week because of sickness and a trip to the Big Apple – about which soon!

Plant. Nothing, except for ongoing sprout experiments.

Harvest. Herbs for drying, wheat grass from sprouter, chard and one or two carrots from garden.

Preserve. Drying catnip, mint, sage, oregano, thyme. Drying apples. Baked more sugar pumpkins (now on major sale) and froze the puree.

Waste not. Mulched bags and bags of leaves from our neighbor. He rounds up our leaves for us (yes, with his dreaded gasoline powered leaf blower – read here for my old rant) and in exchange we let him dump his leaves on the (as yet) undeveloped part of our property. Whatever we don’t compost stays there as a mulch and weed suppressor.

Want not. I am finding Sharon’s Food Storage Quickies very helpful, and this week on her recommendation I bought 5 lbs of rolled oats. Also bought 20 lbs of whole wheat flour (in freezer). I started experimenting with a more organized list of our food storage and emergency supplies.

Build community food systems. Talked with a friend and several of the moms at Amie’s preschool about raw milk. Food is always an easy connector with acquaintances and neighbors, and usually they’re very encouraging of our efforts. I’m usually very careful about how I word our food adventures, though: I never imply any judgment of their food choices, I just tell my own tale. The  raw milk tale is definitely a good one (I’ll tell it here soon).

Eat the food. My first bread was undercooked, the second overcooked, and on the third I forgot to make the cut on top – so it can expand – and it came out a wonderful shape not fit for photography. After so many people scrunching up their noses when we mentioned duck eggs, we loved them with wheat grass in an omelet. A pity the lady who sells them to our supplier is going to stop for the Winter. We decided to eat more fish, as our meat consumption is even lower now than it was (Amie and DH eat meat once a week, I have it at most once a month). I wonder and tilapia like to share a pond?

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