Independence Days Week 5

Wow! It's already week five of the Independence Days challenge, and it's been both motivating and satisfying to look back on what we've managed to accomplish.

Plant:

I transplanted about 300 tomato plants and around 150 pepper plants. For those who don't know, we have a small CSA, which accounts for the crazy numbers. Though I admit to being nearly incapable of killing anything green. Deliberately anyway, though I sure did my best with these guys. We have a hodge-podge of plants in the market garden that only time will tell what they are. I tried to plant them based on similarity, so we may have some semblance of organization down there.

Harvest:

Harvested variety of lettuces, kale, chard, radishes, strawberries, green onions, snap peas, thyme, cilantro, sorrel, chives, milk and eggs.

Preserve:

Picked 6 quarts of strawberries and made jam out of 4 quarts to yield 16 half pints. Froze 2 quarts for use in smoothies and ice cream.

Skimmed 9 quarts of cream! This will go towards making butter and ice cream. Yummmmmm!


Store:

Put up 3 bottles of "cheap ass" vodka, according to Jim, for use in making tinctures; 3 bottles lamp oil; matches; organic lemon juice; 50# hard red winter wheat berries; 25# arborio rice; 25# brown basmati rice; 50# organic sugar; vanilla; Em's favorite graham sticks.

Prep:

Picked up 25 buckeye chicks to round out our breeding program. Purchased a book called Spinning in the Old Way, which talks about spinning obviously, but also about wool prep. Jim picked up 10 cattle panels.

Manage:

Weeded in the market garden, laid tarp to keep down weeds in the staging area, covered spinach with shade cloth, continued to slug-hunt, pulled out soaker hoses.

Cook:

I made ricotta cheese for the first time this week, and it was pretty tasty, though the curds were quite firm—almost mozzerella like. The first batch didn't come out at all, but the piggies and the chickens didn't mind one little bit; they thought it was just marvelous.

We also made our first ice cream, and boy was it just amazing! We made vanilla for everyone to fix up the way they like. Jules and Em had chocolate syrup, Jim and I had sugared strawberry topping I quickly whipped up from our garden, Sam had both! Em kept saying, "It's like heaven in cream form!"

Add:

CSA delivery to three local families. Natural foods co-op, volunteered for unloading and check in.

Reduce:

Used my chico bags again while shopping. I love having them right in my purse for those times I forget to grab my canvas market bags.

Learn:

Learning all about cheese making.