My New Cookstove

I let slip in the last post that I am indeed getting a new cook stove this season. Yay! It's my anniversary/ mother's day/ birthday gift for 2009, and I promised to lay off the quest for solar until at least 2010. Basically, I called in a lot of favors for this one, and it's the most expensive "appliance" I've ever owned. It's not in the house yet, but it is on order.

I went back and forth on what exactly I wanted to get. I had considered a refurbished cook stove and was scouring nearby Craigslists for one when I ran across a like-new, 2 year old Waterford Stanley up in PA. While it was half the price of a new one, Jim didn't like the green or the Victorian design.



It did, however, get me thinking that if I could find one at a reasonable price, a new stove made more sense than an old one from the standpoint of efficiency as well as longevity. Jim was moving in the direction of a wood stove, so it wasn't too hard to convince him to go with a stove that offered more than just heat.

So I found this stove: the Baker's Oven, which seemed an ideal solution. It would fit in the space nicely, offered more than just heat, yet wasn't too much of a stretch beyond just a typical wood stove. Nothing froo-froo or out of time. I also loved the idea of being able to see the fire. Plus, it was a much better price than any of the true cook stoves, and so a better sell to my other half.



Out of Australia and out of stock. I continued my search, which soon brought me to the stove I ended up ordering and the company that so far has been a joy to deal with. AntiqueStoves.com offered a great price, so I decided to explore a little further. The owner of the company spent quite a bit of time on the phone with me, helping to assess my needs against the stoves that might best fulfill those needs. After asking several questions and listening carefully to my answers, he strongly recommended against the Baker's Oven on the grounds that it would likely disappoint and frustrate me in the long run.

Its strengths—size and hybrid nature—were also its weaknesses, he argued, in terms of serving as a true cook stove. If all I really wanted was a wood stove for ambiance and space heating with the ability to cook in the event of a power outage, then the Baker's Oven was just the ticket. But if I really wanted a cook stove to do the majority of my cool-season cooking, then he recommended I check out the Gem Pac, which was a lot more stove for the same money.


I absolutely love it, and it promises to be a real workhorse. While the next model up would have been lovely for a number of reasons, Ed didn't think it would suit the layout of our house, which is not set up at all for cross ventilation or circulation. (*sigh* It was built on the electric heating/ cooling plan for the duration.) He believed we'd quickly heat ourselves out of the space without being able to benefit from the Flame View's increased heating capabilities. While it had a couple of nice features, specifically the view of the flame as well as the larger, side-load firebox, it was also significantly more expensive.

Ultimately, I opted for the Gem Pac from Margin Stoves, a small Amish company out of Canada that uses Antique Stoves as a distributor. I was also able to get a rear mount 20 gallon hot water reservoir, which Jim plans to plumb directly into our hot water heater. Very cool. Of course, I could have done this with the Flame View as well, but this feature wasn't offered at other stove companies I investigated. Both stoves have an optional integrated side water reservoir that's made out of copper, but only holds 5 gallons and runs about $100 more, but that didn't seem nearly as appealing.

The stove should be delivered some time in March or April, giving us the whole summer to get the stove set up and plumbed. It will go in the corner of my kitchen directly opposite my electric ovens, displacing the coat tree and a small side table. Here's its spot: in the corner just behind and to the left of Em; we'll just slide the table and sideboard to the right a bit. It'll feel like such a real farmhouse kitchen! I'll be sure to post pictures once it arrives.

New Era of Responsibility

Yesterday on the National Mall, President Obama reminded us all of the "price and promise of citizenship" and called for a "new era of responsibility."

Amen.

While I could quibble with some of his choices and some of his ideas (most notably harnessing the "soil" to run our cars and factories), overwhelmingly I breathe a sigh of relief to have a leader willing at least to address climate change in serious and substantial ways, willing to admonish us all for our "collective failure to make hard choices," and willing to call on us all to reconsider the "ways we use energy."

Now, what the future brings depends upon each of us to take up Obama's call in ways we see fit, adding our individual preferences and opinions to a collective surge toward energy independence. Up to each of us is the task of making our individual opinions heard and seen by providing a model to move forward in ecologically responsible ways.

With each step we take, so too do our nations move forward. With each willing step, we show others a way forward. Do not look to Obama to do this hard work; we must look deep within ourselves, for there the responsibility lies. This is the gift he offers: the motivation to find within ourselves a higher purpose and a noble sacrifice, the opportunity to "choose our better history" as men and women "obscure in [our] labor."

If "everywhere we look, there is work to be done," what work will you choose? How will you answer this call to service and sacrifice and usher in a new era of responsibility?

I hope folks will commit to making at least one change in the comments section, and we'll work together to hold ourselves responsible for these changes. In that spirit, I'll close with my own pledge for energy reduction and learning to live with less because this is how I choose to define "progress" and "growth." This is the legacy I want to leave my children's children: a way of living in harmony with technology and sustainability.

• We will eliminate our second refrigerator, which at first blush seems like a major luxury, but with our dairy cow plus egg and meat sales, we've felt we really needed that second refrigerator. We're in the process of figuring out how to maximize our inside refrigeration space and change our habits with regard to refrigerated food. My goal is to have the garage fridge unplugged and decommissioned by February.

• We will be getting a cookstove this year (yay!), which should be up and running by the fall burning season. It will enable us to cook, warm the upstairs, and heat water simultaneously without coal-generated electricity. Jim plans to plumb it into our electric hot water heater to reduce the amount of electricity we draw to heat our household water.

• We will install our outdoor shower with solar hot water this spring, and I'll even dig the post holes myself rather than waiting on Jim to do it. (Yes, you all heard that, and Woody, I'm sure you'll take his side and hold me to it. *grin* ) Between this and the cookstove, we ought to achieve a roughly comparable seasonal reduction of electric-heated water as we would if we installed an expensive solar hot water system. That's our hope anyway.

C'mon, what are your ideas? What will you pledge?

New Year's Resolutions

That reflective time of year again where we're invited to look back on the outgoing year and assess where we've been and determine where we'd still like to go. Taking the time to write my goals here not only gives me a record, but it also holds me more accountable... to a certain degree anyway. Lord knows I can be my own worst enemy.

1) Bring my actual lifestyle more in line with my ideals on a sustained basis.

This is something I'd like to work on across the board—translating those good intentions that are always so resolute at about 3am yet tend to fall by the wayside by about 3pm. Or, I'll be really good about stuff for a burst of time, only to fall back into bad habits and the ease of disregard or denial. Entropy is my enemy. This resolution, of course, blankets all that follow, so this will be my governing principle for 2009.

2) Be better about record keeping and writing in my journal.

Yep, this would be one of those things that I'll be really good about for a while only to drop off mid-season, only to resolve to be better about it, only to drop off again. Fits and starts. Bursts of disciplined energy. Must. Keep. It. Going. I need to find a way to integrate journaling into my day so it doesn't get left out. I've tried doing it right before going to bed, but sometimes I'm just too tired. I've tried doing it first thing in the morning, but I get side tracked checking the news, and emails, and all your blogs....

3) Get back into a pattern of morning meditation and stretching.

As I get older, my body rebels. Recovery and bounce back take so much longer than they used to on those days when I push myself too hard. Consistent care and stretching will go a long way. Focus more on health, less on dis-ease both in myself and in the world at large, cultivating the positive and releasing the negative.

4) Get out more as a family.

We used to rock climb on a fairly regular basis before we moved, and we'd all like to get back into that. The animals make it tricky to do much camping, but we can certainly do more day hikes and camping in the backyard. We need to explore our local areas more and take the time to get out and do the things we enjoy.

5) Dig out the front yard and get the medicinal garden going for real.

Last year the family cow preempted my front garden budget, so that vision was put on hold for a while. 2009 will be the year of the herb. I have a gorgeous plan sketched out that one of these days I'll scan and upload. It includes several spiral walking paths along with a host of edible plants in addition to the medicinals. On a bright note, we have been dumping all our coffee grounds in what will be a blueberry/ cranberry bed, which is at least the beginning of conditioning the soil for these acid lovers. I also heeled several varieties of plants that I started into my kids' gardens, so I should have several established plants to pull from in addition to starting even more from seed.

6) Continue to reduce our impact on the earth and help inspire others on their journeys.

I'd like to find a way to reinvigorate the community group I tried to start last year and to keep a circle of local support going, which helped inspire and motivate us all, myself included. I'd like to move forward with some of the more expensive updates to our household that will help make us more sustainable, including the washing machine and refrigerator issues. Additionally, I'd like to open our farm to interns through local and regional channels, as well as, perhaps, WWOOF.

7) Community outreach.

Linked to number 6, but not limited to sustainability, this would include broader community projects and giving, particularly in terms of food and health. The kids, too, would like to become involved in our local Appalachian trail group and our 4-H clubs, and I'd like to do more with our Rural Heritage Museum. My goal, too, is to be more proactive about creating my own local social support network and to become more active in our homeschooling group.

8) Work more with my kids on their goals.

The kids are getting old enough that I'd like to begin actively encouraging them to set goals and supporting them in what they need to achieve those goals. Up until now, while I've certainly tried to support them in any way possible, I've been content to model goal-setting for the most part, allowing them to focus on valuable play time and all the learning that comes from that. Now that they're getting older, I'd like to see them learn and grow through more deliberate goal-setting and working towards larger projects. In particular, I want to focus this year on helping Em pursue her drawing and designing, encouraging and enabling Julia's entrepreneurship and 4-H goals, and fostering Sam's desires to learn karate and blacksmithing.

9) Spending less and giving more.

I'm still working on my relationship to consumerism. While I've never been a huge shopper, I still find our budget disappearing every month, which ends up being somewhat puzzling. Of course, much of it has gone towards stocking the pantry, farm infrastructure and such, but I'd like to get to a point where that kind of spending starts to pay off. The flip side of this goal is my hope that as we get our infrastructure set up that we'll be able to free up more money to donate. More than that, though, I'd like to continue to encourage and support an economy of caring and sharing, of bartering and mutual assistance where the benefits go toward real, local folks rather than faceless corporations by acting locally to produce global change.

10) Continue my own ongoing education efforts.

I'd like to continue to learn and grow in new areas, fostering and modeling a love of learning and life. My goal is to cultivate projects that benefit myself, my family, my community, and my planet, and to share what I've learned with others. Mostly, I'd like to continue to find ways to make this world a better place, to use my energy for global good, and to nurture and nourish those close to me.

May this new year bring us all the resolution to achieve our goals, the health to maintain our energy, and the strength to sacrifice for greater good.

Peace and Joy.

Tools and Goals 2008

To Do 2008:

• put seed order together
• pull roosters from laying flock
• set up breeding flocks
• start microgreens
• begin sprouting
• start seedlings
• continue watering in tunnel
• clean up strawberries
• move berries
• finish fencing
• finish painting barn
• plant trees
• schedule pig butcher
• order egg cartons
• learn to shear sheep
• shear sheep
• buy ram
• buy buck
• feelers for Dexter Jersey heifer
• Jules' rabbits
• order bees
• build bee hives
• learn to make goat's milk soap
• use the pressure canner
• plant more medicinal plants
• learn to make tinctures and infusions
• harvest more wild edibles
• continue working on hedgerows
• rework front yard into edible/ medicinal garden
• learn to tan hides
• learn to use our drop spindle
• learn to felt
• save seeds √√
• second high tunnel
• make Navajo spindles
• round bale contacts
• well pump

Tools for 2008:

• air tight storage bins for larder
• bike
• butcher knife
• butter molds
• candle molds
• canoe
• cheese press
• dutch oven
• Foxfire series
• hand-pump or solar well
• herbal preparation guides
• hot water bottles
• ice cream maker
• irrigation lines
• Little House on the Praire series
  (Thanks Maggie!)
• meatgrinder/ sausage stuffer
• milk machine
• mortar and pestle
• Nutrimill grain mill
• pressure canner
• tanning tools and guides
• water tanks
• wind up led flashlights/ headlamps
• wool carders
• Yogotherm small cooler instead

Happy Holidays!

I'm busy baking away, as I imagine many out there are as well, but I wanted to pop in and wish every one happy holidays.

The sun has returned, but we've yet to see it here in our neck o' the woods where we've been gray, gloomy and rainy for ages now it seems. We just missed a white Christmas as the cold snap broke yesterday, leaving us with ice and inches of rain and mud but nothing like what's hit other parts of the country. This weather has made me keenly aware how tenuous off-grid solar would be for us: I think we'd be going into month 3 of no power at this point. I feel very grateful for the electricity that enables me to make nourishing food and wonderful treats as well as for all the other many blessings in my life.

I feel grateful for our basement family room that has taken us 3 years to create, which is now nearly done. Down here, it's always sunny with our yellow walls, warm with our woodstove, and filled with love and happy faces. Here, I can leave the outside gloom behind and snuggle in my cozy cave, dreaming of spring while I plan and rest.

I feel grateful for food and job security, for our land and animals, for all the choices we've made that have contributed to our relative insulation from the hardships hitting homes all around the world this season. I feel especially grateful that we've managed to disentangle ourselves from so many failing systems, and I feel hopeful that we can rebuild local ties from the ground up in ways that empower individuals. Mostly, at this reflective time of year, I feel grateful for my ability to remain optimistic and to be in a position to make plans for outreach and help in the coming year.

We'll be caroling and delivering cookies to neighbors tomorrow, something the girls have really pushed for, and something I've come to see the wisdom behind even if it means I have to sing. ;) We'll be adding another link in the community chain we're working to forge, hopefully bringing a little bit of light into other people's homes from a place they least expect it. We're still the new folks on the block around here, so making connections is important. We delivered cookies our first Christmas here, but have missed the last two years for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's hard to be the outsider in a rural community, but I've noticed that there's not much interaction among folks here on our road, partly because we're so spread out. Maybe we can be the spark that ignites a new energy of neighborliness by reaching out and sharing a little of our time and ourselves. Maybe this small connection can create the space for larger connections when the time arises.

Happy holidays to all, wishing you peace, love, and joy this season.

I did it... twice in one day.

Pressure canning that is.

Today was the day I faced the pressure canner and figured it out. I started with some black beans that I'd soaked and cooked and then finished the day with 9 pints of chicken broth.

Yay me!

The Larder

At a very basic level, food storage translates into independence, but being able to ride out emergencies, shortages, and disasters is an important skill that many in our culture have lost. Most of us have come to expect the immediate and constant availability of aisles and aisles of groceries, convenient serving sizes, and loads of flashy packaging. Except in small pockets of our culture, the well-stocked larder is a thing of the past because, after all, one unspoken promise of the American Dream is the luxury of a well-stocked grocery open 24 hours a day, or at the very least a local quickie convenience store: "we want our Little Debbie snack cakes and we want them now!" (Though perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to denigrate the shelf life of twinkies, which may in fact survive both nuclear holocaust and the apocalypse. I can see the sci-fi feature now: Twinkie vs. Roach: the End of Days.)

This doesn't even delve into weather extremes, market whims or predatory speculators or even political unrest. Whether folks believe there will be outright shortages reaching into the complacent coziness of the American kitchen, the signs of rising prices and wildly fluxuating availability are quite clear around the world. And the emphasis on throwing energy and resources at biofuels means that the relative insulation Americans have enjoyed is likely over. Climbing food prices are making headlines from NPR to the Washington Post to the Boston Globe all the way to the Wall Street Journal, where pundits are talking about food storage as a better investment than banks these days. Americans are no longer as untouchable as we've been lead to believe.

So all this leads to the questions of what food storage might look like and how we can take responsibility for insulating ourselves, our families, and our community. There's loads of information out there about food storage and emergency preparedness from a range of perspectives, and I encourage folks to read through several of the sites for ideas. Different approaches will resonate for different people, but the insurance of a well-stocked larder is worth the investment. Do it right, and there's nothing to lose because it will all get eaten, and as the Wall Street fella points out, buying now will make your rapidly deflating dollar stretch its food value.

Here are some sites to get you started:

• Red Cross
• 7 Mistakes of Food Storage
• Food Storage FAQs
• Sharon Astyk's Food Storage Course
  

Our larder before and after organizing this weekend:













I've been working on trying to fill our larder for the past year, basically. It's been a long time coming together, but it's finally taking shape. We're to the point where we have back up stores of most everything we use on a regular basis, much of which is store bought obviously, but there's home made there as well. There are 3 Virginia-style hams hanging that aren't visible from this angle, and there are several jars of jam, salsa, and chutney still on the shelves. There are also several wire baskets just waiting to be filled with onions and squash, among other goodies.

My plan is to learn to pressure can this year and fill up even more of the shelves with home-canned food, particularly my tomato sauce, paste, and stewed tomatoes, which I admit that I've been freezing because it's easier and less intimidating. I have a pressure canner on semi-permanent loan from a neighbor, though I'd like to pick up my own in the next year or so. I've been doing some research only to find out that I can't pressure can on my glass-top stove, so I'll be purchasing a propane burner that will enable me to do much of it outside. That should be welcome come August!

What the picture doesn't show are the numerous bags sitting down in the potato bin under the shelves. I'm still searching for some good air tight containers for storing my grains and flours. Those will likely go along the open wall to the left of the photo. Ikea has some nice scoopable bins, but they're neither food grade nor air tight, so I'm still looking. Someone online mentioned Panera Bread as a good source for 3 gallon pickle buckets, so I may try giving them a call this week, though I'd rather something larger that didn't smell like pickles.

Obviously, not all that you see in the photo is necessary food storage. Much of it just comes through bulk purchasing the kids' favorites from our local buying co-op, like the Fruity Munch cereal and Annie's cheddar bunnies, for instance. Also, you'll see plenty of white stuff alongside the whole grains because that's what my family prefers. I've tried and tried to get them to switch to whole wheat pasta and bread, to no avail, so I do what I can. What it comes down to, though, is that I store what we eat rather than what I wish we'd eat, and even this kind of stuff is important for keeping up morale and appetite during emergency situations, especially for kids.

Behind the wire baskets are several gallon juice containers that I've been saving, which hold potable water for emergencies. Recommendations run about a gallon per person per day, so it's not much water storage, but it'll get us through a pinch. We also have a pretty good water purifier in our camping gear that offers some back up. We have an electric well pump, so our water supply is sadly dependent on electricity, a problem of which we are keenly aware and working to remedy.

There are, of course, loads of other foods available in our yard and in our freezer that aren't accounted for in the following inventory. I think of it kind of like a checks and balances integrated system with the larder, the freezer, the gardens, and the pastures each working to support the other so that we will always have food and options. Of course there are no guarantees in life, but the more diverse and local the food systems, the more flexibility and possibility are built in, and being able to roll with what's available is part of being prepared.

What's below is by no means an exhaustive list; it's just an inventory of what we have now, giving me insight into where we still need to go and attesting to how far we've come. I'll also admit to being a bit of a history geek, so I'm always mindful of how useful such lists can be for those who seek to learn about our culture and times down the road. Hopefully, too, this list may offer some useful information for folks out there just beginning to think about how their food storage might take shape. Sometimes seeing someone else's details helps us figure out our own. I'd love to hear about others' ideas and systems, so please feel free to leave those in the comments section.

On a practical note, this room is our well-pump room; it's below ground and keeps a fairly constant cool temperature. We're considering further insulating the inside wall this winter against the heat from our wood stove. This room, however, isn't ideal for storing some vegetables, so we'll continue to investigate root cellar possibilities, but the more I learn to grow during the winter, the more I'm convinced that fresh is the way to go whenever possible. The winter garden will never do away with food storage, nor should it, but more of my energy will go towards fresh eating year round and storing produce practically—prepping only the stuff we'll eat and not just because I can. Those green beans never seem to taste very good, to be honest, and I'd rather just eat my fill while they're fresh and bid them a fond farewell until next year.

Larder Inventory:
3 hams

50# wheat berries--hard red spring
20# all purpose flour
50# bread flour
35# whole wheat pastry flour
10# whole wheat flour (in freezer)
50# yellow popcorn
~10# white popcorn
~5# quinoa
25# realsalt
~35# non-iodized curing salt
25# black beans
~20# white jasmine rice
20# rolled oats
~45# yellow grits
~20# dried pasta

35# peanut oil
12 jars coconut oil
2.5 liters olive oil

1# roasted coffee beans
20# chocolate chips
48# baking soda
12# epsom salts
3qts hydrogen peroxide
3qts isopropyl alcohol
4qts apple cider vinegar

22 12oz cans evaporated milk
3 pints green tomato chutney
13 pints pickled green tomatoes
12 pints green tomato salsa
11 half pints strawberry jam
6 half pints grape jam
4 half pints black raspberry jam
8 15oz cans peaches
5 8oz jars chicken bouillon
5 8oz jars beef bouillon
3 27oz cans green chili
2 16oz jars salsa
1 16oz jar green chili
9 4oz cans green chili

1 bulk toilet paper
various and sundry cereals and snacks
~6 gallons Clorox bleach
2 gallons distilled white vinegar

On order:

50# wheat berries--hard winter red
25# arborio rice
25# brown basmati rice

She's sooooo pretty! *sigh*

The kids and I went to look at a jersey cow today, and I really, really like her! As you can see, she's listening intently to what we're doing, unsure why we're there and she's separate from all her cohorts.

This is Lavish. She's 60 days in milk, as a first freshener. She was also AI-ed today, and they're willing to keep her through another cycle to try to be sure it took. Not necessarily fantastic timing for a calf, but still pretty great to not have to worry about having her bred for another year. She had no calving problems, and they still have her calf, whom their daughter will be showing this year for 4-H cloverbuds.

She's halter trained and milking machine trained—has never been hand milked since she comes from a dairy with about 300+ head. Until today, that is.

She not only let me milk her, but also each of the kids, one of them multiple times since he couldn't leave her alone. (rolling eyes and shaking head at my over-zealous boy who also somehow managed to shimmy under the electric fence while we were there without getting shocked) All the kids really liked her and want to bring her home. So does their mama.

Look at that face, shmutzy nose and all:

UPDATE: 4/24/08

Okay, I'm obsessing a bit. I know... shocker to those who know me. But anyway, I took the plunge and sent in the deposit today, so pending a negative Johnes test, Lavish will be coming home to live with us at the end of May. Yikes, now I have to get ready!

All Work and No Play...

We've been busy, busy, busy around here, and we've gotten so much done.

Over the past week we've been building the beehives so we can have them all set up by the time our nucs arrive in mid-May. "Nuc" is short for nucleus, and it's one way to order bees. It's called a nucleus because it is basically a small, working hive that will create the nucleus of the colony. Nucs are more expensive than packaged bees because they're already established mini-hives—the queen has already been accepted and begun laying eggs, giving a jump start to the colony. I have 2 coming.

I ordered my hives from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm in N.C. and I opted to go with the standard deep 10 frame hive, though I'd seriously considering going with a medium hive because of the weight involved. A hive body full of brood and honey can weigh as much as 100 lbs., so I was hesitant to go with something I might not be able to handle by myself. (Yes, this was a rare moment of trying to spare Jim from being dragged into yet another one of my projects, but as you can see, that was merely a fleeting thought.) Our hives are mostly finished, and I'm hoping to stain them today with a water-based stain. Once finished, I'll set them up out in our hedgerow between the market garden and the berry garden.

Speaking of which, this past week the kids and I transplanted around 350 strawberry plants from the kitchen garden out to the berry garden along with about 50 raspberries. Last year I transplanted around 100 raspberries, most of which got crushed in the drought since we don't have irrigation up there. 15 or so survived, and this year I plan to use woven polymulch to help retain moisture and reduce weed pressure, hopefully given these plants a fighting chance.

The kids are amazing workers, especially Julia, who's happy to spend hours out working with me or Jim. I'm consistently amazed that they're so eager to help as often as they are—they truly enjoy being outside and working because it's their choice. They can work as much or as little as they want, and sometimes they do as much playing as working, but they just like being out with us. When they're really working on the farm, they do get paid, and they all earned quite a bit of money with the transplanting. We never had an allowance for inside work, so it was a bit weird for me to consider how we could integrate them into the farm finances, but I wanted for them to have a chance to earn money when they wanted to. So far, the system has worked out beautifully because it still has free-choice at its foundation, along with the premise that the work is, ultimately, the parent's responsibility, so there's no guilt or pressure—just opportunity.

I also managed to get 50 lbs. of red nordland seed potatoes cut up for planting. We've been letting them chit, or eye out, in the garage for the past week, and the nordlands were ready to go in. The banana fingerlings are just about ready as well, but our yukon golds still need more time. This will work out well because it will allow us to get an early crop and a later crop, making for better storage. I can't wait to have our own potatoes again, especially after last year's poor performance with the drought. I will never be without potatoes again if there's anything to be done about it! There is just no comparison—as with so many things—between home grown potatoes and store bought.

Yesterday, I got 50 trees planted, and Jim and Jules got all those seed potatoes in the ground, which I'm sure he'll post about soon. I planted 25 tulip poplars, a native Eastern poplar that is fast growing and super for wildlife and bees. I planted two groves of 11 poplars on the western border of our pastures to provide afternoon shade for our animals. The remaining 3 I planted in front of where I plan to locate the bee hives to eventually provide some afternoon shade for them as well. Our land has very little shade and nearly all of it is along the eastern boundary, meaning morning shade, leaving the animals exposed to the harshest rays of the day. I'm hoping to rectify that a bit with these poplars.

I also planted 25 hybrid willows down in a low, seasonally boggy spot of our barnyard. My plan is to use this both for shade and coppicing for use around the farm and firewood. Willow is great for everything from baskets to trellis to fencing to furniture, not to mention the fact that it's also fast growing and an excellent pollen source for bees. Next spring I may add some black locust to the hedgerow as well, though it can be poisonous to livestock, so I'll need to think carefully about placement. We have some wild cherry out there now, which is also poisonous, so I'll probably try to work it into those areas. At any rate, I'm just babbling now, so I'll sign off and just enjoy all the rain we're getting that's watering in all our hard work.

Garden Napoleon

We managed to knock several things off our to do list this weekend, including the plowing of two new garden areas, which means we'll finally be able to get the potatoes and the oats in the ground. Jim finished the last of the perimeter fencing last weekend, freeing him to plow, and luckily the weather cooperated.

Jim was able to rig a plow borrowed from a neighbor to fit the tractor, letting him create the beginnings of two new gardens for me. We're doubling the size of the market garden this year, and we had the pigs doing much of the clearing work for us all last year. They removed all the turf and plowed a bit for us, but still the new ground is pretty compacted and really needed a good, deep turning over. I'm hoping to move away from till and plow as the gardens improve, but for the near future, anyway, we're just not there yet in the lower gardens. The kitchen garden has been showing dramatic improvements with the compost, however, so I'm hopeful.

We have good soil—silty loam—with pretty good nutrient levels though with quite a bit of shale. (That unplowed portion is home to a couple rows of carrots.) I'm due for soil tests again in the spring, so I'll have a better sense of what these new gardens will do by then. My previous soil tests in these areas were for the pasture as a whole because I hadn't gone all Napoleon yet. Now that I've taken over more and more land, I'll need to redo the soil tests. I'll be doing compost testing as well this year, which should give me a better idea of what's going on with my soil and where it needs amendments, as I continue to figure out how best to work land and animals and plants together. This is our largest garden at about 1/3 of an acre; it's the main market garden and will be comprised mostly of row crops, corn, and potatoes. The kitchen garden is only about 50' x 50' or less than 1/16 of an acre, and it will be used nearly exclusively as a winter garden and summer greens garden with shadecloth over the hoops.

I've added another garden this year as a test plot for grains: hulless oats, quinoa, and amaranth. This is where the pigs were penned in the barnyard this past winter and will likely be a permanent rotation with them. I'm hoping to eek in a cover crop of beets after the grains and before moving the pigs in for the winter, which will provide some self-harvested food for them. This particular soil is quite compacted because of overuse and under-improvement. It's basically been the sacrifice area for our own animals and the horses that lived here for about 20 years before we bought the place and was covered mostly with plantain, medic, and other beneficial weeds, but unfortunately to the exclusion of grasses. This area is roughly 60' x 100' or about 1/8 of an acre. We also have a berry garden, which expands yearly with transplants but is still pretty small, and we'll be adding a medicinal garden in the front yard as well. All in all, I still have under an acre in production.

Jim still needs to disc, and once he's done that, my plan is to put the chickens on the plot for a few days to help with pest control. Of course, this is easier said than done, and I'm sure Jim will be shaking his head upon reading of these plans. The chickens, geese, and Maya and her piglets are all that's left in the barnyard, and we'll be moving them out into pasture rotation within the next month as soon as we work out the rest of the paddock fencing. With the plowing of the grain plot, the piggies got some fresh barnyard, which we'll overseed with a pasture mix in the next couple of weeks, hoping to get in on some last spring rains and begin to improve the condition of the pasture for winter grazing. The chickens and geese should go out very soon. With the piggies, the plan is that Maya will be moved out first, to begin the weaning process and to give us space to cull a couple of the boar piglets for roasting before moving the remaining feeder pigs into a separate paddock.

Early Spring Harvest

I've been so spoiled this year in terms of four-season harvesting, and (God's forgive the hubris) I hope to be even more spoiled next year since I'll be able to plant the tunnels so much earlier. This past year we had tomatoes in the kitchen garden into October, and though I started several lettuces and cold crops in seed trays, I still didn't get them in soon enough. That means that I spent much of this winter epitomizing the impatient gardener, waiting for the seedlings to grow into something while they spent most of the winter hunkered down and near-dormant waiting for some sunshine. Still, we managed to enjoy lots of really delicious mixed baby green harvests throughout even the darkest days of winter. Those frozen green beans I put up at the end of summer have gone nearly untouched because as good as they are fresh, they're not nearly as good frozen and just don't cut it next to real, fresh produce. Truly, I've been so amazed at how easy it is to eat seasonally when one is used to that fresh-out-of-the-garden taste. It's just not worth eating the other stuff!

This was our dinner harvest the other evening. The first tender asparagus shoots, d'Avignon radishes, and purly chives, along with a medley of lettuce greens—red and green salad bowl, speckled bibb, and black seeded simpson—which are growing like crazy now that the sunshine is back, rewarding all my forced patience over the winter twofold. The lettuces look absolutely gorgeous, and the spinach is coming in beautifully. Unfortunately, the recent warm weather is continuing to cause bolting in the high tunnel despite the fact that we got the plastic down last weekend. The brand new tatsoi seedlings and some radishes are already sending up flower shoots. (pouty face here) The arugula, turnips and sorrel are all wanting to flower, as is the michihli and kohlrabi. I keep pinching them out, but it's a losing battle, and I'll probably pull the turnips this weekend to make room for another sowing of something.

The dark-days challenge is officially over, but that doesn't mean that I'll stop regaling folks with fine dining photos. I just like food way too much not to share it! And let's face it, a love of food is the reason we do what we do here at the farm; it informs every decision, every seed, every shovel. So... onto the menu: this evening we enjoyed a delicious zero mile salad topped with a balsamic vinaigrette, bleu cheese, and pasta, along with steamed, tender asparagus that was the sweetest, juiciest asparagus I've ever tasted, and our favorite standby—ciabatta bread. What my plate doesn't show is my husband's carnivorous last minute addition of a flank steak from local grass-fed beef. My motto may be "don't forget the cheese," but his is most definitely "don't forget the meat!"

Doings

This is a tough time of the year for me... the kind of waiting game, knowing that I'm about to have a ton to do with planting, etc. but still not quite warm enough to be doing it. I'm chomping at the bit, looking for little projects, avoiding some others, waiting for bigger things to get done like the plowing, waiting for the weather to cooperate and the soil to be dry enough. Waiting. And trying to find little things to occupy my time.

But little doings add up, too, and it's not just the big stuff that keeps one ahead of the game come season. Of course, many of these things involve spending money rather than doing work, but still... here's a list of some of those little things:

• ordered bee hives:
  After much hemming and hawing over size, I ordered two standard deep hives from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm in North Carolina. A standard hive full of brood and honey can weigh up to 100 lbs, so I was seriously contemplating going with a medium hive instead, which will weigh around 60 or 70 lbs. Ultimately, I decided to go with standard equipment in the hope that it will make life slightly easier in the long run, although it seems nothing is completely standard in the bee world.
  
  Brushy Mountain offered free shipping to beginning beekeepers enrolled in a bee course this year, so I took them up on the generous offer. Unfortunately, things are backordered and they're running a bit behind schedule, so I'm hoping to have enough time to assemble the hives before my nucs are ready, around the 2nd week of May. I'm pretty sure that the only things I'll need to assemble are the hive frames, so it shouldn't take too long. Of course, there are 40 of those, so...
  


• ordered amaranth and quinoa seed:
  This year, we'll be planting three test plots of grains: hulless oats, amaranth, and quinoa. I was able to get my oats from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, my favorite local source, but I needed to do some shopping around for the other grains and ended up getting a pretty good deal from Wild Garden Seed out in Oregon. They're not local by any stretch, but they look to be a good company, and they sold the seed in bulk rather than by packet only.
  
  I ordered 1/4 lb of burgandy amaranth, an ounce of Hopi red dye amaranth, and 1/4 lb of red head quinoa. I also decided to try a packet of huauzontle, a grain I'd never heard of before, based on their description. A chenopodium like quinoa, it's related to lamb's quarters, but is an ancient Aztec green/ grain version that is supposed to be more reliable than lamb's quarters in addition to being a beautiful red color. I'm not sure yet how I'll grow it with regards to cross pollination, but I wanted some nonetheless; I may use it solely for microgreens and salad greens.
  


• ordered 25 tulip poplar trees and 25 hybrid willows:
  We live on such a small acreage that I've been searching for some way to produce at least a portion of our own wood fuel, and while these are both soft woods, making them less ideal than traditional hardwoods like oak, they also grow quickly—about 6' per year—making them good possibilities for a staggered yearly harvest. Willow, in particular, can be coppiced, the practice of cutting the trunk to the ground, allowing multiple side shoots to grow, which can then be harvested for firewood.
  
  Another advantage of planting these species will hopefully be to provide quick-growing shade in our pastures for the livestock, something we've been wanting to do since we moved in. Our land is primarily pasture, with a long hedge-row running along the back that provides some morning shade, but no afternoon shade. The pastures can be brutally hot during the high summer, often about 5-10° hotter than the house yard. The hedgerow, too, is overgrown with several invasive species, including honeysuckle and Chinese sumac, which we've been working to clear since we moved in to enable the native Eastern cedars and staghorn sumac to gain footholds. We're hoping to use our goats to help with some of this now that Jim's pulled the fenceline through the tangled mess.
  
  I opted to go with native tulip poplars rather than the faster growing hybrid poplar because this native species is such an important food source for wildlife like the Eastern swallowtail and my bees. In fact, both poplar and willow are great food sources for honeybees: the willow will provide one of the first important sources of pollen, while the tulip poplar will provide a key nectar source. So, my hope is to accomplish several things with these two species of trees on our property.
  


• transplanted and divided some ornamentals:
  This is just typical gardener fare, moving and dividing and tweaking the gardens up by the house. Nothing terribly exciting, but it lets me get my hands in the dirt and feel like I'm actually getting stuff done.


• trying to get hens to set on collected fertilized eggs:
  And not being terribly successful, I must say. The hens have their own ideas and timelines and seem to be completely ignoring mine. So, I may be ordering chicks again this year as I try to identify which hens will be willing to act as my broody hens next year. I think, too, that I'll do a better job keeping the roosters separate to prolong our fertilization window. Unfortunately, this year, one of the roos got out into the general hen population, messing up my careful segregation. Live and learn.


• over-seeded pastures:
  With our rotation, we pull all the animals off the pastures sometime after Thanksgiving, giving the land a chance to rest all winter long. This also gets the animals closer to the barn, making winter feeding and watering much easier. We'll be turning them out into rotation in the next couple of weeks, keeping them off the parts I over-seeded for another couple weeks. The drought hit the pastures pretty hard last year, so I'm anxious to see how the grass comes back. Right now I'm seeing the cool season grasses but won't see the warm season for a little while yet.


• continue to water seedlings in high and low tunnels:
  I have several sowings of radishes, as well as tatsoi, turnip, beet, kale and chard growing now. Our temps are still dipping into the 20s at night, so the plastic will stay on for at least another week.


• planted two rows of peas in market garden:
  It's been too wet to plow on the weekends, so I had Jim use the walk-behind tiller against the fenceline to allow me to get at least the first sowing of peas in the ground. Hopefully either this week or next, he'll get the whole garden plowed, and I'll be able to begin some serious planting. Our seed potatoes won't be shipped out until the first week of April, so we should be able to get them in the ground shortly thereafter. I need to get the broccoli, onions, and carrots in asap, though I do have a round of carrots maturing now for harvest in the next few weeks.
  

Strawbale Building Workshop

This weekend, I had the most amazing time at a strawbale building workshop, taught by a local eco-architect, Sigi Koko of Down to Earth Designs. She's an amazing, vibrant person, as well as an excellent teacher, and I'm so pleased to have had the chance to work with her. (Thanks Jenny for the heads up!)

The project was a tasting room for a new local winery in Frederick County, Maryland, Black Ankle Vineyards. Owners Ed Boyce and Sarah O'Herron are strongly influenced by biodynamic philosophy and in keeping with that, they produced as much of the building materials on site as possible. Most of the wood was milled from their own land, the rye straw was all grown and harvested on site, and they've even worked closely with a papercrete company to produce countertops made from grape vines, seeds, and skins from last year's harvest. It's very cool. They'll also be using some wormy maple from the grounds for tabletops. It should be absolutely beautiful when finished, and a delightful place for Jim and I to go. Since the owners have 5 children, their plans are to make the gardens kid-friendly.

This was a post and beam project with straw infill, meaning that the straw itself primarily functions as an insulator, and what an amazing insulator it is with R-42 value! The roof will be insulated with an expanding soy foam, and the concrete floors will be finished with a soy colorant. The building will also include a cob-covered masonry stove, some living roof area, as well as cob walls and benches in the outdoor rooms. (Note: these links aren't necessarily the actual products being used.)

My team and I worked on an outside corner wall with a window (below) that flows into an internal wall and window, which means we had loads of specialty cuts to make in our bales. Here we are standing on our strawbale scaffold against our internal wall just before we laid the last course under the beam. Eventually, strawbales will be laid on the cut side on top of this final course, all the way up the cathedral wall where it will meet the ceiling insulation.

The weekend was amazing, and fun, and filled with all kinds of challenging weather, including a rain and hail storm which soaked me to the skin in the frantic run to tarp the outside walls, demonstrating the clear value to post and beam construction in our area of the country. If this had been a load-bearing or "Nebraska style" strawbale, there would have been no roof in place!

After work was done, we were all treated to a tour of the winery and an informal tasting back in the tasting room to toast all our effort. What an amazing experience! Now, I'll have all kinds of experiential knowledge when I finally convince Jim to build our own strawbale on 100 acres somewhere.

The Cow We're Not Going to Get

This is Cabaret, a Dexter heifer that I went to look at on Saturday. She's a good looking heifer, but she won't be coming home with us after all. While I was very impressed with the herd, I don't feel that we'd get the milk I'm looking for in a homestead milking cow.

I've decided at this point to let the rare breeds go and to try to find myself a Jersey cow already in milk. If that fails, I'll go with a heifer.

My decision is based primarily on our needs here at the farm and what will best meet those needs. I'd like to have plenty of milk for drinking, butter, cheese, ice cream, etc. as well as to use as supplemental feed for our chickens and pigs. With the rising cost of feed—and organic feed prices are going through the roof!—I'd also like to be able to offset our off-the-farm feed with milk and whey.

We'd be able to run the cow and her calf on our pasture together with our sheep and goats, which would also have several benefits for the farm. They graze differently and at different heights, making for better pasture management, and they don't share parasites, so they'd help control internal parasites for each other.

Yes, we'll need to feed the cow, but round bales cost considerably less than organic pellet feed, so I'm hopeful that our overall feed costs will go down. Besides, I like the idea of producing more of our feed on farm. Although Jim remains unconvinced, I think that when everything falls out we'll come out ahead. Besides, having our own milk's gotta be healthier than big dairy—even local big dairy.

Making a Difference

We are tired of leaders who rather than asking what we can do for our country, ask nothing of us at all.

This is a line from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius's response to Bush's State of the Union Address last night, and it represents a recurring criticism of the Bush administration since 9/11. In times of crisis from 9/11 to Katrina, Bush's mantra has been to consume more, a response that has caused many folks to long for the leadership of a Kennedy or FDR.

The rising cost of fuel and food has victory garden back on the lips of many Americans, focusing personal, grassroots energy into a simple pinpoint of bright light for hope and change. "What can I do to help?" can be answered quite simply by the response, "Plant a garden." People are creating their own ways of making a difference and finding leadership in example where they can.

One such example is Barbara Kingsolver, author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, who directly links her project to peak oil in an interview with Heifer International:

I felt like this is the time to write this book. Most of us understand the world is at peak oil production. We are looking at a future in which cheap fossil fuel and all the things it can buy are running out.

This one place—eating locally, even just one day a week—was a point of intervention that could easily be implemented by anyone with the mind to do it. The local foods movement is a groundswell, as disillusioned Americans seek out opportunities to make a difference without an administration bold enough to lead the way.

There are grassroots support circles popping up all over the country, focused on creating community, facilitating discussion, and finding ways to implement change at the individual level. The Northwest Earth Institute has spearheaded just such an organization and has compiled several different discussion guides on topics ranging from carbon reduction to voluntary simplicity to deep ecology. Similar organizations are popping up all over the country, in Canada, and elsewhere in the world. Click here to see if there's one in your area or consider starting your own.

I'm in the process of starting a Simplicity-Matters discussion circle here in our area, a DC-Maryland regional sister organization to the Northwest Earth Institute. Our discussion circle starts February 7th, and we'll be discussing the book Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds. I hope to track my own process of working through the book here at Touch the Earth Farm blog, and I'd like to invite folks to follow along and to offer encouragement and suggestions along the way.

Ongoing Education

This year, I've attended several conferences, seminars, and workshops offered in the area, which have been very helpful and interesting. Recently I attended the annual MOFFA (Maryland Organic Food and Farmers Association) meeting, where I sat in on workshops about sustainable living, raw milk, and pastured poultry/ small ruminants. All were interesting and informative.

In the fall, I attended an all day fecal count workshop where I learned to do my own fecal testing and identify the major internal parasites for our area, and how to breed selectively for both resistance and resilience to parasites. I'm hoping to follow up this spring with a certification workshop in FAMACHA, an evaluation technique designed to assess the anemic affects of the haemonchus parasite, which can kill both sheep and goats. This training will enable me to further develop our strategic worming defense here on the farm, which I hope to combine with herbal preventative maintenance and eliminate chemical worming on the farm (already very infrequent) altogether.

Last weekend I spent Friday and Saturday at the Future Harvest-CASA conference in Hagerstown, Maryland, and I was pleased and proud to be numbered amongst such a great group of knowledgeable, caring stewards of the land. The conference was really well run, and the workshops and speaker line up were interesting and informative, and the food—all locally grown—was fabulous.

In addition to the conference, I attended an Organics 101 workshop Friday morning, which was really interesting and informative. I met the owners of One Straw Farm, Joan and Drew Norman, who were both really nice, down-to-earth people, willing to share, help, and reach out to other farmers. Having been in the organics business since 1985, they were a wealth of information, and I really enjoyed being able to talk to them and pick their brains about dealing with the certification process.

I also attended a really great workshop with Dr. Susan Beal, DVM a homeopathic vet who deals with both large and small animals. Her workshop, "Treating Animals with Natural Medicine," was really interesting, especially in light of my recent medicinal garden planning.

Also high on my list of favorites was a lecture by Jerry Fischer, the Maryland Department of Agriculture bee inspector, who reconfirmed my commitment to getting a honey bee hive set up this year on the farm. I think there's a real urgency out there for folks willing to commit the time and energy to re-establishing the honey bee population, considering that 30% of all food crops are dependent upon honey bee pollination yet colonies are collapsing all over the country due to stress, pesticides, and other factors.

The Future Harvest conference, too, had some interesting talks on recent legislation, most notably the "naturally raised" claim by agribusiness. The keynote speech by Cynthia Barstow, author of The Eco-Foods Guide, was an interesting examination in the rise of consumer interest in organic, local, and artisinal foods.

The best parts about these conferences and workshops have been the networking with other farmers as well as the take-home materials. While I could've compiled much of the stuff on my own or online, the quick reference sources I've received have been really valuable. Not to mention being able to ask a real live person who's been there, done that. Some, but not all, of these programs have been offered through the extension office or in conjunction with the staff, all of whom I've found to be helpful and interested in working with me rather than for the government, a heartening realization.

Forging community is becoming incredibly important as we move into a post-peak oil world. Attending workshops and conferences helps create that community locally rather than relying on online networks—which certainly have their place, but can too easily replace that real human connection in our own community, for me anyway.

Reflections on Sustainability: Gasoline

Well, folks, I saved the worst for last because, let's be honest, what makes all of this possible is Jim's job down in the "technology corridor" of D.C., which means that he commutes about 50 miles each way, every day. So, just like the rest of the world, cheap oil is what currently makes our lives possible. Time for brutal honesty and a serious reality check.

I can rationalize that usage in a number of ways, not the least being that the kids and I stick very close to home and use very little gas in our daily lives, thus offsetting Jim's usage significantly. All of our shopping is within 5 miles with all of it neatly clustered together, enabling me to do whatever errands I need done once a week, if that, for only 12 miles worth of driving, at most. So while Jim commutes further to work than he used to at our old home, as a family we drive significantly less because of our proximity to everything and our change in lifestyle. The fact that the kids don't commute to school every day offsets that number even further. Nor do we do any running around to various activities multiple times a week, as so many families do because that's not what the kids choose to do with their lives. So, Jim's driving really does constitute nearly all of our family driving, except when the kids and I go on road trips, which we do 2-3 times a year. What we don't do is fly...ever. Well, Jim does for work, but as a family we simply don't fly, making our car miles our total transportation miles.

I did a bit of investigating... yes as much to make myself feel better as to put it all into perspective. The average gasoline usage for Maryland is 447.5 gallons per person per year. No, you didn't read that wrong: that statistic is per capita, meaning every man, woman, and child, and best I can tell, those are basic transportation numbers without factoring in food miles, etc. You can check out the numbers for your state here if you're interested.

So, while Jim averages about 700 gallons per year, as a family of 5, we stay well under the 2,237.5 gallon average. Wow! Think about it, an average family of 5 in Maryland uses 2, 237.5 gallons of gasoline per year! We use 1/3 of that on a regular basis, or at worst less than 1/2 even when factoring in road trips, which probably average about 4,000 miles per year at about 26 miles to the gallon in the van. Jim's car, a Honda civic, gets about 34-35 mpg during his commute, which is all highway driving, again an important factor in the equation in terms of emissions and mpgs. All things considered, our gasoline habits are far better than the average American's usage, despite the length of Jim's commute.

What are we doing to make it better? Very good question. Jim's negotiating a 9/80 work week for the new year, which would eliminate 2 days of driving per month, saving roughly 65 gallons per year. I'll continue to try to talk him into finding someone to car pool with—as the only one he's found is currently full—a simple change that would help significantly. At this point, his car gets pretty good mileage, so buying a hybrid makes no sense, considering the kind of driving he does, though that may be a distinct possibility in the future once this car gives up the ghost.

Around the farm we use very few fossil fuels, and we're reducing our dependency on those even further each year. We got the tractor with the farm, and in the past, we've used it to plow the new gardens, doing the tough job of ripping up pasture sod. Now, we have our piggies to help with that. While they've done a great job prepping the new garden space by rooting and removing the vegetation, we've seen what an incredible job they're able to do on previously plowed ground, which means that by locating the market garden in a permanent plot, we'll be able to avoid plowing/ tilling altogether by letting the pigs do the work for us, which was part of the plan.

Sending the chickens over the garden to follow the pigs helps break the big clods and remove insect pests, further reducing the need to disc or rely on any kind of fossil-fuel-based chemical insect control. In fact, the organic growing methods we practice completely eliminate any dependence on fossil-fuel chemicals for our farm. Our sheep and goats do the bulk of the mowing for us, which means we're no longer using the bush hog, so no tractor hours there either, and our rotation system spreads the manure pretty evenly, eliminating the need for a spreader.


What do we use the tractor for? Turning compost. Hauling water barrels out to the pasture twice a week. Most everything else we do by hand, but having water available to spray down the piggies is a must during the hot season, and I'm grateful to have a central water source out in the pasture to aid in hand-hauling the water. If Jim's able to get the driven well in place, hopefully we'll eliminate that need as well, making the tractor nothing more than a pretty toy on the farm.

I still mow the lawn on occasion, but we've been working towards eliminating as much of the lawn as possible, while still leaving a nice patch in the back for play. Our plan this spring is to plant over the front lawn entirely, turning unused space into productive growing and edible landscaping space. This is something I've been talking Jim into for years now, and I'm so excited to finally be able to do it! I'll be planting some filbert trees, for sure, and I'm still looking into what else I'd like to get in there—probably a few more blueberry bushes, and maybe I'll transplant some raspberries and blackberries out there as well. Of course, I'll also intersperse all with flowers, finally getting that cutting garden I've always wanted as well.

There's much to be done to reduce gasoline dependence, no doubt, but lifestyle changes can and do make a significant difference. And like so much else, there's no easy answer. Jim's commute has enabled us to make so many other significant changes in our lives that wouldn't be possible living closer to D.C. We've certainly come a long way from the single car family we were when we lived in New Mexico where Jim was able to bike to work every day, but that's the down side of regional differences, for sure. My hope is that our nation will turn towards improving our public transportation system as the price of oil continues to rise. Should that happen, we're located in a pretty good spot for a commuter rail, though by that time, maybe long term plan will kick in and the commute will become obsolete.

Reflections on Sustainability: Food

Food is another area I feel good about. Of course there's always more to do, but overall we produce a tremendous amount of our own food and rely very little on grocery stores or the industrial food chain. The few exceptions to that would be some of the kids' snack food and cereal, though even that we buy in bulk, and of course, the staples like flour and other grains. Most of what we don't produce ourselves, we try to get locally, and we've been pretty successful at making that happen, meaning that grains aside, most of our meals are 90% local or better.

This past year, even with the drought and the new CSA, we managed to preserve a fair amount of food. I processed many pounds of tomatoes, making paste and
dried tomatoes, as well as green tomato salsa, chutney, and pickles, which I'd never tried before. I made cucumber pickles, which turned out kinda soft unfortunately, but they make great homemade tartar sauce I just found out. Cool! I put up several pints of jam, which is still holding out despite the fact that we eat a lot of it. We have grape, strawberry, and black raspberry—my personal favorite. I also froze quite a bit of cantaloupe, basil, and string beans from the garden. This year I learned how to cure meat, and you can see our hams hanging in the larder. They're now sufficiently aged, and we plan to cook our first one soon. The hard part is finding time for the lengthy process: my grandmother's country ham recipe calls for a 4 hour soak, a brief cooking period followed by an 8 hour resting period, which then gets repeated, making for a whole day worth of prep! Of course what's missing this year from this photo is the huge potato bin we had the year before—a problem that will be rectified in '08.

While I did a fair amount of water-bath canning, I still haven't tried my hand at pressure canning. My goal next year is to process most of our tomatoes that way, freeing up more freezer space. I have tons of quart jars that I got from my neighbor when we moved in, but I have to say that I really prefer the pint jars, I think, for many things, paste included. We just don't go through a whole quart at first opening, and I'd rather open another jar if I need it than risk letting any of my precious food go bad. I also prefer freezing things like beans because they just taste better to me, and I think the freezing preserves more of the nutrients than canning. So while I have the luxury, I'll freeze.

Here, you can see our freezer filled with broilers, turkeys, homemade beef stock, local apples, and, now, goose as well. Our other freezer is filled to the brim with a side of local, grass-fed beef, our tomatoes, melon, beans, heritage chickens, duck, and what little pork we still have. It's just about time to take our tamworth feeder pig into the butcher, and boy are we looking forward to having sausage again! We have plenty of ham, so this time around we'll be turning all the ham into sausage, and maybe even a shoulder, too, though we do love our pulled pork.

We've also been slowly adding to our repertoire. This year Jim butchered one of our goats, adding chevon to our freezer downstairs, and we're slowly gearing up for lamb produced on farm as well. My plan is to purchase a ram in '08, which will hopefully mean lamb in spring of '09. We raise Navajo-Churro sheep, known as a triple purpose breed for their meat, dairy, and wool. Considering my ewes are incredibly skittish, the dairy part is highly doubtful this go 'round, though we do get dairy from our goats (the small fact that no one here will drink it... yet... notwithstanding).

What we still don't do here on the farm is beef, and I keep going back and forth on whether that's possible with the little land we have. At this point, I've moved away from wanting a Jersey and am now enamored with Dexter cattle, a small, heritage breed known for both dairy and beef, as well as its ability to work. Jim, however, remains unconvinced that he wants to be further tied down to the farm with a dairy cow—a hesitation I totally understand and often share. Currently, I'm considering starting with a young heifer calf, which will enable me to train her from the start ("yeah right," everyone's thinking, "remember how hard it was to train Latte to milk?") . Yes, I remember how hard it was to train my little Nigerian Dwarf goat to milk, but hey, that's experience under my belt, right? Having a cow would round out our homestead nicely, allowing us to run them with the sheep and take advantage of the symbiotic pasture relationship between the two ruminants. It would provide meat and dairy for us as well as off-setting feed costs for the other animals. The biggest downsides are the time-commitment and the winter hay costs since we can't produce our own hay (there's that long-term plan again). So, who knows what '08 will bring on that front, as we continue to mull and debate.

Another huge leap we've taken for 2008 is building our own 14' x 34' high tunnel to try our hand at year-round gardening. Built from rebar, pvc, 2" x 4"s, and 6 mil greenhouse plastic, our high tunnel is planted with sorrel, turnips, foliage turnips, parsnips, bok choi, green onions, kohlrabi, cilantro, arugula, spinach, and several cold-hardy lettuces. Our biggest disadvantage this year was having to wait for the space, as our tomatoes were planted in the kitchen garden. With the expansion of our market garden, the kitchen garden will now be given over exclusively to winter garden space, allowing us to start our crops much earlier and have them full-grown by this time of the year. Of course, Jim's not thrilled by the fact that my goal for next year is to build a companion hoop house for the other side of the garden where I have my herbs, now under a low tunnel. This one will only be about 10' x 34' though, meaning it should shed snow even better than this design. If he doesn't want to do it, however, the kids and I will be perfectly capable. He just usually takes over once we start something along those lines. (evil grin here)

Another goal for 2008 is to figure out how to integrate edible cover crops into our pig rotation, allowing us to produce more of our animals' food on-site. Any suggestions or success stories on that front would be muchly appreciated!

I also plan to begin grinding my own grains for '08, increasing nutrition and taking one more step away from industrial processing. Yes, I know, I'm a hold out, but I just haven't found it within me to justify the expense and the time before now.

Food, glorious food! Here's to great eating in 2008!