P.S.

This is a short thankyou to all you kind readers for your encouragement and kind words about our impending change. It is so nice to hear the positive words. My hope for the blog is that our small solar system will allow me to write the posts for this blog and then post them online at the local library. Most libraries in Maine have wireless internet. We definitely plan to document our trials, tribulations and grand successes.

Thanks!

Just breathe...

The season winds down. A slowing clock. Outside the leaves are just dabbed with a hint of aging color. Each night a vigil is held with plastic hovering over early jalapeno peppers and contesca romanesco zuchinni; veggies of warmer climates not accustomed to this short northern summer.

Life is busy. The canners are busy putting the food up that we will rely on for good soups on shorter, much colder days. Each day is a whirlwind full of plans, jobs and chores in the garden, around the wood pile...until...until... equinox, equilbrium...the day light recedes further and further and we find ourselves enveloped in wool.

Autumn, the season of preparation. While we travel through this season we stop for a walk in the woods, a day at the fair, a meal shared with friends, some time around a fire pit. We do this to hold on to the sun. We do this to hold on the heat. We do this to cherish as a fond memory when we find ourselves cozied up around a woodstove in January as a brisk north wind rocks the house with its bitter chill.

Independence Day Challenge Year 2, The 20th week

Ok, I will not let the suspense linger any longer... We have found a place to live which will allow us to be be under the same roof by the time the snow flies. It will also mean that we will be living a dream that Hubby and I have shared since our first date. We are going off grid.

We found a small cabin on a hill in Western Maine with a beautiful view, seven acres and a sturdy, aesthetically pleasing cabin with great southern exposure. It is on a town maintained road. There are several farms on the road and a blueberry barren in the neighborhood. The town itself is nice. There are several organic farms within biking distance. It is a little tiny cabin but it will not take much to make it spacious enough for every one. The catch is no water and and no electricity.....

We are exploring some ideas for some power. We found this plug and play solar system that will provide most of what we need. We have several back-up oil lamps and we will probably find some battery lanterns to hang in the kids rooms. Because the house is on top of a hill we will investigate DIY wind power.

As for water, well, we will dig a well in the spring. WE will hook up our water catchment for use until the snow flies. But we will have to haul water for the winter season. Hubby will get this on his way home from work. We will bathe at the University gymnasium that hubby gets a discount at through his school district. REgular exercise would not be a bad thing either! We have a power washer for small loads of laundry and will take care of larger loads at the laundry mat. All this will be upgraded in the spring. I told a friend about this and she had an interesting take on it. She said," It is just a matter of setting up and refining a system."

There is a gas cookstove and we will bring our woodstove with us. The space is very air tight, so we should be all set with the firewood we have put up for the winter already.

We have a friend that does not have a refrigerator and she lives off grid so we will be exploiting her knowledge to its fullest extent.

The land itself is beautiful. It is fairly open. With seven acres we will be able to get some of our firewood off the land through fall down. There is a stream on the property.

We are doing this through owner financing with very favorable terms. We need time to let our current home and our land sell. We will try to find renters for our home by listing it at the local University. But once everything shakes out....we should own the place outright in 10 years or less.

Hubby and I have both discussed that our feelings about this are mixed with both excitement and understanding of the amount of work that lies ahead of us. We know that it will be challenging this winter. But our family will be under the same roof which should make dealing with any challenge that presents itself easier than our current arrangement. We had investigated very similar situation this past spring but that did not work out and then hubby got the new job. So at first there was a sense of OMG ,do we really want to do this? After all it IS going to be challenging for a while. But then we thought, " Yup, it is going to be challenging, but it is what it is". It is what is would be no matter where we decided to do this. Because we aren't millionaires who can buy the prefect green dream. And we don't want to be. Starting a "homestead" is done in increments. It is a matter of adaptation and refining. It will be a great learning adventure!

I look forward to sharing this journey with you!

Planted: winter rye

Harvested: cabbage, rutabaga, leeks, kale, zukes,

Preserved: corn, dehydrated apples, dehydrated zukes, apple cider vinegar

Managed reserves/ Prepped: 2 dozen canning jars on sale, everything else was at a standstill until we knew what we were going to do about housing.

Reduced waste: a friend gave me her kitchen table. We will use our current table as a desk in the teens bedroom or give it back to my aunt for safe keeping. It is a family table. Saved apple scraps for cider vinegar. We gave some garden scraps to our neighbor who has 4 piggies they are growing.

Local foods: went to local orchard and picked up a case of apples, I joined Wendy's Challenge.

Eat the food: Hubby made Cawl Cannin a potato, leek, local bacon, yummy, yummy soup!

I'm taking up the Challenge!

Yes I am! I am taking up the great challenge Wendy at Surviving the Suburbs will have for the month of October.

Essentially, for one month I will not step foot in a big box store, or chain store that does not serve JUST my region . I will ONLY shop local. I will confess my lapses on Sunday. I will do this because if I shop at a Home Despot then I contribute to the hardship of my local Hardware store in these tough economic times. I will do this because when I shop local, I may pay a little more but I strengthen my community and my local economy. Sometimes, I get better quality which saves me money in the long run.

This is one step in the move to localization that Kunstler and Jeff Rubin say we must do in order to adapt to depletion of resources. I think this is a great challenge for looking at what sorts of things are available from local retailers.

This weeks IDC update will be available later today. We have big news to share also...soo.. I will build the suspense till later today...

FYI Mainers!

I know that I have a few readers from Maine. I just want to pass on that I was at the Hannaford Grocery store today and they had canning jars on sale for 50% off. I usually buy them second hand but for a dozen pints I paid 4.74!

Score!

Apple Season and a time for reflection...

My friend, Anne and I ventured to the Orchard yesterday. It was not open for picking yet; but we were able to score a case of early Mac's . With everything that is on the to-do list my hope is to wind up most of the canning in the next week or so; unless some windfall comes our way.

Each year, another skill or recipe is added to the list of methods I use to fill my larder. Each year, my self sufficiency increases. Last year, I made several batches of wine. Following the recipe to the letter, each preparation was an event. This year wine making confidence has built to a point of aptitude and adventure as I explore the wine making of other fruits and combinations of fruits.

This year I have explored the use of several herbs that have just magically appeared in my garden. Mullein has sprouted up all over. I made some garlic and mullein oil for ear aches for this winter. Yarrow has also had quite a year in the garden. I have a tincture of yarrow for wounds and I have dehydrated some for other purposes. The rose hips are plentiful this year and I will make some jelly with it. It will be saved as special jelly this winter when we need an extra boost of Vitamin C on our toast. For many of these preparations I use two books, The Medicine Maker's Handbook by John Green and Common Herbs for Natural Health by Juliette de Bairacli Levy.

With apple season here, I have a long list of things I want to make. New this year is apple pie filling. I think this would be an easy way to throw together a crisp, pie or extra treat on the oatmeal in the morning. I am also going to try making apple cider vinegar from the scraps of cores and peels. This looks like a great recipe. I would add putting a small label with the date on the jar to help keep track of when your vinegar is mature. I will have several jars going over the next few weeks and I want to keep consistency in the making.

All these skills and recipes reflect an older wisdom of the kitchen that has been lost to the microwave and the instant dinner in a box. It is an exciting to learn and practice and hopefully pass the knowledge on.

Independence Day Challenge Year 2, The 19th week

The end of summer is nigh...ooh sounds so ominous!

September is a busy month around the homestead. Hubby heads back to work, the back-to school routine is finding its way back into our days, there is a long to-do list, there are heaps of food around and most of our dinners are local and from our own homegrown efforts.

This past weekend I hit up the local farmstand. They are not certified organic but they try to use as few interventions as possible. They always sell in quantities for preserving; which is something I was very aware of the other day while there. As I was inquiring about 40lbs of canner tomatoes, I was aware that there several conversations occurring that centered around recipes for preservation. One woman talked about zucchini relish, another about her pickled cauliflower. One woman's pile of produce grew while she discussed that she had not put up anything yet because she had given up on her garden; but that her Labor day weekend would be spent preserving her purchase of that day. I was gifted dill heads for some dilly beans. Every store in the region has a canning jar display. I know more people are putting food up but I think that food preservation has always been a big part of the culture in these parts.

We are awaiting the final word on the home we hope to rent and we are still awaiting approval from the bank and other agencies for rental of our current home. Financially, it will be a little tight be we should manage to cover all our expenses with enough to still put into savings. But we have done the 2 household thing for a week now and everyone is out of sorts. We need to be together as a family.

In the meantime the work of the season continues. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed with it all. There are 2 dozen ears of corn to process for the freezer, 5 gallons of carrots and 2 more beds to dig up and process, a bag of beets from the farmer's market to pickle. We did not grow a pig this year, so I need to concentrate on some meat for the freezer soon. I go apple picking this week. My hope is to pick 4 pecks. One peck for dehydrating, one for sauce, one for apple pie filling and one for us to eat. I will pick more in October to have for just eating for the rest of the autumn. This year I am going to try making apple cider vinegar from the apple scraps.

Plant: spinach, beets, winter rye

Harvest: carrots, tomatoes ( gotta toss the rest of the blighted plants), zucchini, mint, sage, yarrow, rutabaga, onions, cilantro, early jalapeno peppers, paprika peppers, basil, kale.

Preserve: pickled carrots, diced tomatoes, tomato puree,tomato salsa, dehydrated mint, dehydrated sage, frozen beans, dilly beans, rhubarb frozen.

Local foods: picked up 40lbs tomatoes, 10 pounds of pole beans, 2 dozen ears of corn, dill heads at the local farmstand. A neighbor gave me some kholrabi and rhubarb from her garden.

Manage reserves/prep: restocked sugar and flour, tidied pantry, mowed lawn and mulched the garden...ugh the weeds have taken over...

reduced waste: gave many bags of outgrown clothing to kholrabi neighbor for her grandson. The no money waste plan is working fabulously.

Eat the food: We are eating the last of the roasts from last year's pig. All the veggies we eat are local and from our own garden. Alas we passed our chickens on to a good neighbor. We did not want our free range roosters to get randy with anyone looking at the house and they were eating the seed I had planted in the garden. Their coop was not "show ready" and was dismantled this summer. They had been living in the barn and roaming free. So we will be buying local eggs until we can have birds again. It is strange, they were the first "homesteady" thing we did when we came out here. Now that they are gone, I miss the scavenger hunt for the eggs. It always felt like a gift when I found one in the coop or barn.