Independence Days Challenge..forward HOE:)

Well, phew! Life is getting busy, busy, busy! Mark finishes school this week. We are moving stuff to the new house and working on things there. Tristan and I start our new farming job this week. And I am filling in at the bookstore for a couple of days.

And Tristan is finishing his blacksmithing class. He hopes to take advantage of the open forge day they will have there every week this summer. This is a skill and art he is really excited about. This fall he plans to attend the local tech school to get some welding experience. He wants to work as well so he can save his money for this very COOL school that he is interested in attending. As a homeschooler who is not really thinking of college, it is exciting for him to find an avenue of study that fits his learning style; which will provide him a skill. I will confess to moments of concern this past year when it seemed he was drifting and did not really have any focus on anything. This is not to say that he does not enjoy many hobbies but, in terms of transitioning to adulthood and some of the responsibilities that come with it, he did not seem to be following any path that would lead him in this direction. But I should remember the lesson of homeschooling that I am taught repeatedly during this venture: when he is ready he will learn it. Thank goodness:)

Meanwhile, the Independence Days Challenge is keeping me on track with the work of the season. It would be so easy to get waylaid with everything we have going right now.

Plant: pole beans in the old garden. We are putting in a small raised bed at the new house. My intention at first was to duplicate plant veggies that would be coming into season at both places at the same time so I could have beans, zukes. I went to the farmer's market in Farmington and met our very local organic farmer. She had seedlings; buy 4 get one free, so I found tomatoes, basil, leeks and kale. I was so grateful for the leeks and kale because we did not plant those this year and we really enjoy these. So we will have some at the new house. I did not think we would have basil either. I was planning to buy crates of tomatoes for canning but now we will have some fresh toms for our plate. I planted at these seedlings at the new place and also planted some acorn squash. I planted pole beans at the old place.

Harvest: spinach, scallions, yarrow, irises chive blossoms

Preserved: chive blossom vinegar, tincture of yarrow,frozen spinach. Still have a bit of spinach left to pick.

Support local food systems: Went to the farmer's market. I also found out that our local farmer attends a market in our new town on Saturday mornings. I bought garlic scapes from her as well. She has a CSA where we can buy shares in small increments throughout the season which will work well for us while we are moving. Dropped teen off at work for his first day of work at local farm. I begin on Wednesday.

Eat the food: Meat loaf from local beef. Salads.

Waste not: the usual composting, recycling, dropping stuff off at the thriftstore

Want not: A local thrift store is closing in Farmington. They were having a 25% off sale the other day. I found a couple of yards of cotton fabric and a skirt pattern. Canning jars and an old milk crate. I use the milk crates for storing canning jars. During canning season the jars have a way of multiplying and spreading over every surface of the kitchen. So, at least during the season there is one container that is easy to get to when something is ready to be canned or is easy to put away when not in use.

Kitchen Memories

When I think of how I reached this homesteading life I lead, I can point to an evolution in a life from single mother to married homeowner. I can think about those times when I daydreamed with a MotherEarth News on my lap. I can remember the feeling of satisfaction as I learned new skills that allowed me to be more self-sufficient; gardening a small community garden plot, learning to knit and purl, the first batch of strawberry jam..err syrup. I learned to trade time at work with time spent using my own skill.

But really the journey begins in the kitchens of my childhood.

I have memories of my mother in a frenzy of flour, sugar, molasses and chocolate chips as she baked cookies for Christmas presents one year. My mom was not the best cook. She could cook a good porkchop into shoe leather. She would get in a rut with menus where every week we could rely on tuna noodle on Tuesdays and chili on Fridays. Wednesdays really were Prince spaghetti nights in our house. But cookies, she could bake. My memory of my kitchen at home is always of me standing so high to the kitchen counter, waiting for a little hand of chocolate chips as they tumbled from the bag into the bowl. She was so adept at scooping a consistent amount of dough from the bowl to the baking sheet with two teaspoons. Cookies were a real treat in our home. Dessert was not something that showed up on our table on a regular basis. But when it did appear, it often appeared as cookies.

When my mother worked on weekends my brother and I used to spend the weekends at my grandparents house. This was where the real lessons took place. I would help my grandfather in the small veggie patch he grew in the backyard. My grandmother taught me how to embroider and crochet. Food is so connected to my memories of my grandparents. My grandfather always made us soft boiled eggs for breakfast. Only he could cook it just the right way. My grandmother used to make spam ( yes spam) and egg salad sandwiches with bread and butter pickles. My grandfather was designated potato masher. But there was one smell that IS Saturdays at my grandparents and that is the smell of homemade tomato sauce simmering on the stovetop all day.

And then there were the pickles. Every Christmas my Aunt Lil would give our family a pint of bread and butter pickles. My Aunt always had a big, big veggie garden. During the summer we would be gifted with paper bags full of corn, tomatoes, cukes and the ubiquitous zucchini. For so many years I wondered at the pickles. How did they find themselves in the jar? Finally one year when I was around ten years old I was welcomed into the kitchen to help with the pickle making. I was given chopping duties because the pickles could be thick and my unexperienced hands could manage thick. The cooperative effort of everyone in the kitchen is the greatest memory of pickling, even if after the pickle magic was diminished.

When I think about the abilities I want to instill in my sons, I think the most important skill is knowing how to cook good, healthy, simple food. Tristan can bake bread and is creative in his choice of ingredients for the dinners he prepares for us. But there has not been a bad meal yet. Evan wants to stand so high to the counter and not only sample the chocolate chips but add and stir the ingredients himself. The best lesson and memory I can give him is to allow him to stir to his hearts content....

Independence Days Challenge

The sun shines today. We have had a good solid drenching over the last week. The grass is tall, the weeds are many and the spinach has bolted. The laundry must be hung today.

We are all a little busy. Mark has end of the year concerts to prepare for. Tristan is finishing up his blacksmithing class and peer leadership meetings. Evan is torn between the construction of train sets indoors and trike riding outside. It is a conundrum, let me tell you;) I am busy with special orders for knitting and filling in at the bookstore while I wait to hear about a start date for my summer farm job. In the meanwhile, boxes are getting filled, a garden gets planted kinda sorta, lists are made...

Planted: Pole Beans, zucchini, cukes

Harvested: lettuce, chive blossoms, spinach, green onions,eggs

Preserved: 3 quarts of spinach. Today it will all be pulled up and I will freeze some more and dehydrate the rest. We use the dehydrated spinach in breads. I will use the frozen for homemade ravioli and soups. 2 pints of chive blossom vinegar.

Eat the food: homemade ravioli using spinach and our own eggs. Local chicken, our own salads, and dinner rolls with dehydrated garlic scape and scallions from last years harvest for a nice herb bread. Yum!

Local food systems: We have not really been very strong with this season. The closest farmer's markets are both about an hour away. Our local farmstand, where I will be working, has not opened for the season yet. But we are managing to get by on much of our own garden gleanings and food storage, with an occasional meat purchase from the feed store.

Waste not:composting, recycling..the usual

Want not: The new house has a cold room and a REALLY old refrigerator;perhaps circa 1960's. Mark had the fridge going this week because he is staying there during the week. Well, the fridge is a big ole' energy hog. While we learn to use the cold room, we thought we would use a small dorm refrigerator. We have a chest freezer for putting food by. So we don't really need a big fridge. I was able to find one through freecycle. Also, the bathtub at the new place is really small, leaky and kinda nasty in a moldy caulking way. When Mark and I were wedded my in-laws asked us what we wanted. We wanted a claw foot tub. Well my father-in-law found one for us and will be delivering it by the end of the month. Best of all it was just sitting in an attic and someone gave it to my Father-in-law. He also has a bunk bed that he is handing down to us.

So easy to despair...

The oil geyser in the Gulf of Mexico is really a tragedy beyond our imaginations. Each day that goes by without success at stemming the flow of oil seems to add layers of complexity to the solutions of this disaster. The long reaching implications of this disaster will be felt for a decades. The photos of the spill are surreal. The sheen on the water menacing. The photos of oil drenched birds just devastating. The live feed is a horror that can only happen in this age instant news gathering. The potential for this disaster to spread beyond the gulf is great. This really is a game changer.

And yet this game changer is the result of a failure of leadership that extends long before a blow out preventer failed. We can point to a failed government response to the spill. A failure of leadership at the head of BP. A failure of government to create an energy policy for this country that weans us off of oil. But really it is a failure of leadership to convey to the public at- large the challenges we will face in our daily lives if we do not powerdown.

Every Monday, I write my Independence Days Challenge update. I participate in this challenge for several reasons. It keeps me on track throughout the growing season. It creates habits in our lifestyle that are seasonal. It easily points the way to incorporate self-sufficiency in my life. But the real reason that I participate in this challenge is because of Peak Oil. Oil and all it by-products touch everything in our lives that we touch. EVERYTHING. The gas for our cars is the most obvious. The food on our table is so dependent on oil, it is scary to ponder what would happen if its means of getting to my table were disrupted for even a couple of days. But everything from the toothbrush we use in the morning, to the band aid we put on our child's skinned knee, to the pillow we lay our head on at night has found its way into our home by the power of oil.

We have no short term memory in this country. It was just two years ago that the price for a barrel of oil reached the unimagined price of 147.00. Gasoline was 4.50 a gallon in my neighborhood. It took nearly 40.00 to fill the tank of our Subaru Legacy station wagon. We managed to stretch that tank of gas by practicing conservation. But what I remember most about that time was the inflation of food prices at the grocery store. It cost more for the food to find its way to the shelves of the store and that increase was passed on to my bottom line. At the time independent truckers were parking their trucks because they could not afford to pay for the diesel for their tanks. The fear that many residents of Maine would be without heat was very real. Many homes in Maine are still dependent on heating oil.

The geyser in the the gulf is tragic. But when taken in the context of peak oil it seems inevitable. The easy oil is no longer as easy to get to. The technology to pump every last drop out of the wells in the oil fields in the US has assured that we are using it all. The countries that have the remaining easy oil are not in friendly neighborhoods or their own supply is in decline. Boondoggles such as biofuels that use FOOD for fuel or shale oil whose energy investment does not equal its energy return are last ditch efforts to keep this train on its rails. We are not the only country that wants to use the remaining easy oil. So we drill in deep water horizons. We argue whether to open ANWR. We go to war to secure our dependence on oil. We talk of alternatives as though the infrastructure to switch our energy economy were as simple as a few solar panels and hybrid cars. When what we really should be doing is re-localizing, producing more of our own food, living in self-sustaining communities.

After hearing this piece on Morning Edition, I think we have a way to go....

This moment....

By hand...

Evan and I sat down with needle and thread to embroider. We are finally getting some rain and find ourselves indoors. I had some aida cloth. He chose the colors, I thread the blunt needle, made a knot to keep it together for him. Then he set to work. I would finish the last stitch and fasten it for him. Before beginning another color.

Such a look of concentration. It was a amazing to watch him at work. He would turn his work back and forth making sure to have the needle enter on the right side as the thread so that it did not get wrapped the wrong way.

This was his final product. Jackson Pollack with thread:) I think I will try drawing a little truck for him to try next time. Evan is all about wheels:)

I finished Evan's playmat. It was my first real quilting project. I wanted it to reflect the world he knows. So there are hills, lakes, rivers, dirt roads, trees and farms. It was a lot of fun to make!

Independence Days Challenge ...time for rain dances

Each car that drives down our dirt road is followed by a trail of dust. The ground is parched, the rain barrels are dry, the garden is thirsty for a long drink.

In the garden, I am digging up bits of perennials to transplant to another garden 2 hours away. In this bi-home life we will have for a couple of months, I continue to revisit and revise garden plans. In our current home I think only beans, zucchini and cukes will go in the ground. We are building a raised bed at the new home to grow winter squash, more beans, carrots. In our new home I am collecting seed from parsnip, sorrel and rhubarb. We are transporting garbage cans of sheep poo ...we are a thrifty lot and want to start our new garden with the graces of our lovely ewes instead of buying manure. When we plan our larger garden then we will invest in some good cow compost. I hope to have a winter garden started at the new home in August. I was able to take a pitch fork to the ground and found dark sandy loam; compared to the heavy clay we have here, it is divine.

Mark has two and half weeks left of school. Tristan has a couple of weeks left of his blacksmithing class. Tristan and I begin our summer farm job in a week or so. We are beginning to make lists now. We are still looking for a renter for our house. But few folks want to rent a house that is for sale. It is understandable but frustrating. These are the rules we are supposed to follow because of the mortgage we have but it is a catch -22. But there is time and we are investigating our options.

The work of home continues...

Plant: transplanted mullein, oregano, garlic chives, yarrow. My garden has bits of wild in it. Wild Yarrow and Mullein are abundant on our property. I make tinctures from these and wanted to make sure that I had some in the ground at the new place. My dream for the new place is to plant a medicine wheel garden.

Harvest: spinach, scallions, lettuce, eggs

Preserve: 4 quarts of spinach frozen

Local Foods: We are so fortunate to live in a state where local foods are part of the culture of Maine. I am looking for the source of a blurb I heard on Maine public radio this morning which stated that the number of small direct market farms has been growing in Maine and New Hampshire. However, in Maine the number of people that can be supported by the food grown locally is 40% compared to 6% in New Hampshire. We bought local sausage to cook at our new home yesterday. I also had a great conversation with my very handsome and smart husband this past weekend. We eat a lot of local food, but we live in a region of the state where we have to drive an hour to a farmer's market. There is resistance among some of the more established farms to starting a local farmer's market. Many other farms are hay and corn farms.We grow a lot of our own food but we are still pretty dependent of the grocery store. I have always wanted to look into getting as local as possible. If not a 100 mile diet, a state of Maine diet. Once we move we feel that we will have an easier time of plugging in those holes we have a hard time filling now.

Waste not: We are cleaning out more stuff. I thought I did this last year. Oh well, took several bags of stuff to the thrift store.

Want not: cleaned out freezer, cleaned and organized pantry.