The Scarf is Done...

...Yipee Yahoo! Tho I am sure all you experienced knitters out there will not be sufficiently impressed by my little accomplishment, I am thrilled (so there :)

Steven likes it (so I won't point out all the flaws) and it's the school colors...mostly cause I ran out of blue yarn and had to improvise.

But hey, I got to practice stripes!

Unfortunately, the gold yarn must have been a bit thicker cause it's wider at one end....either that or I started loosening up as I was knitting.....oh well.

I'm already on to another scarf and a pair of fingerless gloves. It's very relaxing and nice to have something to do while we are watching TV; now I don't feel so guilty during House.

...to be continued.

Pantry Challenge

Just to let you gals know, if you are participating in the Product Replacement challenge, I'll be posting Monday with my recipe and results (it turned out to be something different than planned...what were the odds?). Let me know when/if you get your post up and I'll do a recap summery and post links to your blogs. If you can't manage it by then, no worries, just let me know and I'll put them on later in the month .... I don't know about you but this month sure went by faster than I expected!

Fog

...is just about the only weather we get and I kind of like it,
(hey, it's something!)

This is the parkway that we dug up in the fall and the potato plants that we're HOPING will produce wonderful spuds in the Spring. All the plants are up; most just barely poking out of the dirt.

Here's the biggest of the bunch....this was the first plant up in the fall (planted in Nov.) and we thought we had lost it in a couple of the December freezes. I just wish I could see what was happening underground!

I'm not Paranoid

...tee hee :)

No New Clothes for a Year

I've been a bit remiss in posting about our shopping ban so I thought I'd give you a quick recap. Christmas actually went pretty well with a few exceptions on the No China rule. Of all the gifts we bought (and there weren't that many) only 2 sweatshirts (Annie and Wils) and a quilt (Annie) bore the dreaded Made in China label.

We searched several stores and given the limitations of our kids tastes and the complete lack of any other country of origin (seriously... PacSun must just send a tanker over there and load up) we ended up the aforementioned items on clearance (hey, at least we got a deal :)

I posted earlier about the Made in USA wine glasses we bought for Brad....and there were several video games for the boys (hard to tell how many hands are involved in that process but the ones we got were Made in the US )...several other sweatshirts and t-shirts (El Salvador and Mexico) and candy in the stockings.

This is where the whole "we don't have money so we can't buy much" helped us out. We came away with a fairly good feeling of having at least made an effort and we're reading labels way more often than ever before.

The no clothes ban posts are going to get monotonous....we just don't miss buying new clothes (mostly because the No Clothes only applies to Steven and I). I did rip a pair of my everyday jeans and will need to patch them so they don't become yet another pair of 'work jeans' but that's OK; with my weight up (again!) the thought of dressing rooms is terrifying. Oh and did I say 'I ripped' my pants?...I meant the PUPPY ripped them. He gets rather affectionate when we come home from ...anywhere ...and likes to nip. He has VERY sharp teeth and he is blissfully unaware that I can't replace these jeans.
Gotta love 'em.

So, the buying diet is going fine for now. We do have 8 months to go and I'm sure we'll have issues come up, but so far so good. The other side benefit of these restrictions is that I tend to not want to buy anything. I find myself with the mindset that I can't ...that it would be against the rules to spend money...at all! Right now I feel comfortable buying food, seeds, books and anything on our preserving list. That is not a bad thing!

The Future of Seeds...is our Future

Seed ordering time is one of my favorite parts of the gardening process. I love getting the catalogs, perusing thru the pretty photos and circling things I'd like to try growing. We usually try planting at least one new veggie or variety of something common - like purple beans or striped eggplant. It's fun to see the myriads of colors and shapes and sizes of vegetables that we would never have access to in the supermarket.

Unfortunately, it has now become more than just a pleasant diversion from the norm. Ordering...planting...and saving seeds has become an important act of defiance against big Ag and all that is wrong with industrial farming in this country. What companies we choose to order from and where our seeds come from will have an impact on the future of food here and all over the world. With companies like Monsanto seeking to monopolize or destroy every seed on earth, it is imperative to become educated and take steps against this evil giant.



Here's an excerpt from one of the articles about Monsanto that is reason enough to avoid their products (and we now try to avoid buying anything connected with the company).......

But even if the GE-seeds were wonderful and all that was promised, the real problem with them are the patents they come with. The biotech companies are monopolizing seeds themselves, actually privatizing the DNA of life. They sell the GE-seeds at many times the price of normal seeds. In India, where Bt-cotton farmers have been committing suicide in huge numbers because of debt, Monsanto sells Bt-cotton seed at 1000% higher than normal seeds.

And the seeds come with a contract that must be signed, preventing farmers from collecting seeds off their own land at the end of the season - an historic rupture of humankind's free access to natural growth. For it is important to notice that the biotech multinationals are not just claiming a patent on their process of altering the seeds but claim to own growth itself.

As astounding a move as that is on human resources of survival, they are doing more. They are removing actively and aggressively and thoroughly removing access to normal "open pollinated" seeds, the ones we have known since the beginning of time, that farmers have collected and saved and shared among each other.

In the Midwest, where Monsanto sells GE-corn and GE-soy and now owns most of it, it also bought up the "normal seed" companies so farmers no longer have places to go for normal corn or soy. And though GE-corn cross pollinates over miles and miles with normal corn so maintaining organic corn is nearly impossible now, if its GE-crop is found on a farmer's land, Monsanto sues. It's a rare farmer who can stand up them, even if the farmer has done nothing wrong.

Please ....read full article...and get really angry. But then, realize that you can DO something. These may seem like small things but the impact will be huge....

...Stop buying from seed companies that do business with Monsanto and if you are unsure....ask the companies where they get their seed (Seminis was just bought by Monsanto....use that name and see if you get a reaction). When you consider that between 85-90% of seeds sold can be traced back to this single entity, it will be difficult to avoid their products. But it can be done, and the more we all make the effort the easier it will become.

...Join Seed Savers, a wonderful organization committed to preserving garden biodiversity and nurturing our fragile genetic heritage....and a great place to buy seeds.

...Save your own seeds, something I am definitely going to be doing more of in the future.

For this year, I am really happy to have found another resource.....

Freedom gardens has put together a list of seeds to order on their new website. Tho the site is not up and running it is still possible to order the seeds....Yippee yahoo.

We will also be ordering from ....

Seed Savers Exchange
Seeds of Change (owned by MARS candy company, but still committed to organic)
Fedco
Peaceful Valley

Even when I try not to...

You see life as an amazing mix of possibilities, ideas, and fascinations.
Sometimes you feel like you don't have enough time to take it all in.

You love learning. Whether you're in school or not, you're probably immersed in several subjects right now.
When you're not learning, you're busy reflecting. You think a lot about the people you know and the things you've experienced.



Thanks Julie....I love these things.
The rest of you.... go find your own word!

Peace

My friend Jean posted yesterday about the need to pray for our new president in the coming weeks, months...years. His will be an incredibly difficult job and frankly, even in good times, I don't know why anyone would want it. The thing that got me thinking was the concept of a 'peaceful transition'. Every four years we have all come to expect and accept the transition of power in this country. We really take for granted that we can be diametrically opposed to a politician but when the election is over...that's it. We acknowledge, we move on, we pray for our new leaders. No do-overs. You don't have to look far to see how incredibly rare that is. It's something about this country that I am truly proud of, and I think it's a good example to the world (and I don't say that very often folks).

And what about peaceful transitions in my own life? Those moments (days, months) where we are faced with changing circumstances, where our plans are thwarted, our dreams dashed, where disappointment seems to be the order of the day. Maybe if I dealt with Gods life transitions with as much acceptance as I do the changes in government, I'd be happier. Maybe I'd find my Joy if I didn't try to instigate a coup every time I was dissatisfied with the direction God was leading me.

My prayer for the coming year is wisdom for the President, safety for his family, selflessness for his advisers....and peace for us all.

I'm Baaaacccck !

I really missed being on the computer for the past couple of days (tho I did manage to post a few comments). We had to completely reformat the hard-drive and are now working at getting our files and programs back up without re-introducing the virus. Thanks Mom for the Norton....that should help. I'm hoping to get Photoshop running today, most of my pics are too big to post before shrinking the files down.

Pretty amazing what I got done with no distractions tho...amazing or just plain sad. I completely cleaned up the back patio, did 6 loads of laundry, canned 2 batches of juice (will post on that tomorrow...need photos) weeded the garden, finished a book....whew!

As fun as this blogging world is and despite the many wonderful people I've met online....there is a whole other world here at home (imagine that). So I guess maybe I need to learn to discipline myself a bit better as far as computer time goes....or not :)

Something else we did out in the three dimensional world this weekend was to purchase a planter barrel (made in US) for another batch of potatoes. This is my first year growing potatoes and I'm still kind of experimenting with planting times. Most books and articles are geared for spring planting and even our local Master Gardener recommends March (tho I didn't read that until AFTER I planted mine in November). Thankfully tho, about half of the potato plants are up and seem to be surviving the cold, tho they are very slow growing right now. I'm sure this past week of 70 degree weather has been wonderful for them but that's supposed to end tomorrow.

Anyway, I bought some red potatoes which ended up sprouting before I could use them, so they are going into the planter next month. I'm hoping the weather cooperates and we get enuf warmth towards the end of Feb. to get them started; they should be ok on my windowsill until then.

I will post on the potatoes that we've already planted sometime this week -again, I want photos. We dug up the parkway strip in front of the house and put little mini-fences around them so people walking by or parking their cars wouldn't step on them. It's actually the most sunny spot in our yard and seemed wasted with just the weedy flowers that were growing there. Not sure if we'll continue doing this tho, it'll depend on whether people mess with (aka steal) the veggies. Not that I don't trust my fellow human beings, but certain things might prove to be a bit of a temptation, say a ripe red tomato. For now, I'm thinking not many people walking by are going to... a) know these are potatoes ...and... b) have a shovel handy to dig them up :)

Last summer a good friend of ours planted zuchinni in her parkway and said she did lose a few but most people left them alone. For our summer crop I'm thinking of trying peanuts! (yes, another underground plant....I have trust issues)

Respite

Our computer has a virus so it may be a few days before I can post or comment again.....I miss it already. (that's just sad)

Local Food

Our neighbor is like many people in California who own citrus trees and don't bother picking and eating the fruit. We benefit from this....considerably...and I don't think we appreciate it the way we should. I was on a blog just yesterday where the gal was waxing poetic about the delicious grapefruit that she had splurged on and what a rare treat it was (I'm sure she was back East somewhere). How spoiled are we?

I pretty much take for granted that someone will be giving us citrus. One neighbor is our supplier of limes, another friend 2 blocks away and a relative within 1/4 mile both give us oranges (enuf to juice and freeze), my brother gets lemons from his landscaping clients (and he  shares) and now we have a supplier for our grapefruit fix.

So today for lunch I had home-made bread and grapefruit....can't get much more local than that!

Take a look around your town, your neighborhood, chances are there are few fruit trees that are being ignored. Picking the fruit would benefit your family and might actually help someone who only sees the tree as a mess to clean up after. Couldn't hurt to ask.

(and Jean - we appreciate all the grapefruit we have gotten from you guys, I just didn't want to assume we'd take yours.... we will, I just didn't want to assume :)

Got TV?

Anyone who reads this blog (all 5 of you) knows that we in the Garver house are a bit concerned about what we see as hard times ahead. Maybe only for some of us, maybe for all of us, but in my brain I see some tough times a 'comin and because of that reality we are striving to be at least minimally prepared. I love scouring blogs for help, insight, and tips to make our lives better and less dependent on the marketplace. So I had to laugh today at the lead story in the newspaper- Worried about your TV -complete with a photo of a couple sitting in front of their fuzzy television set.

We have a TV....we have several TVs....we don't have satellite or cable (cost-cutting) and only one of our TVs has the converter box. Even with the coupon we could only afford one box, and the other coupon expired. I figure after Feb. 17th we'll just watch more movies. We managed to live without ESPN and HGTV for 7 months now, I'm almost certain we will survive this crisis as well.

The article chronicles the woes of the 1.7 million people on the waiting list for converter box coupons as the deadline for switching to digital looms and the government program to subsidize the switch has run out of funds. What will Americans do without their television? Why doesn't the government "get their act together"...as Congress "scrambles to approve more money for the program" and officials representing President-elect Obama want to "delay the switch past Feb. 17th because 8 million households are still not ready for the transition".

Lions and tigers and bears...Oh My!

Is it just me or is this all a bit ridiculous? Why is the government paying for this in the first place? Is television now considered a need vs. a want? Lets put those silly health care, GMO food, mortgage crisis, war in the mideast, less important issues on the back burner...we have to get this TV problem solved!

I'm leaving now.... and shaking my head...and rolling my eyes.

Changes

Steve and I finally decided to refine our Sharecropping idea and tone down the size and scope of our dream. Yesterday, I got up the nerve (yes, I was actually nervous) to go talk to our neighbor Joyce about gardening in her absolutely bare back yard and ....she agreed!


I spent a bit of time thinking about how to present the idea, how to make sure she would understand that we weren't going to disturb her, that it would be a good thing to have fresh produce, how pretty the garden would make her yard look, that we would make it any size she felt comfortable, how we would stop at any time if the situation wasn't working for her. I got about 2 sentences out of my mouth and she said "That would be great!". I said she might want to take some time to think about the whole thing and she said..."I'd love it...I'm never doing anything with that yard...ever." Whew....all that worrying for nothing. She couldn't have been more positive and excited about the whole project. She told us it was a relief to have someone else take care of the yard.

......Yippee Yahoo Yippee Yahoo......

The blogging plan is to chronicle this new garden project on the Sharecroppers blog and all other projects, home garden adventures, food preservation, sustainable living issues, Verizon rants, family hoo-ha, on this blog.

In the meantime tho, I just had to post here because I am SO excited about starting this project. As much as I loved the idea of 1/2acre in the country, being right across the street and a much more manageable size just seems right. We are, after all, a couple of 51 yr. olds and the scope of the previous garden/farm was just a bit intimidating. We have not completely abandoned the idea but it's on the back burner for now.




Today we went over and measured out the garden space. I wanted to see just how much actual square footage we would be able to plant and how long a fence we would need to build (she has a dog). We already posted on Freecycle to see if we can get some old fence wood to fashion a picket fence from and Joyce has some scrap wood that we can use also. I am determined to make this garden as attractive as if it was in my own yard. I want her to want us to stay....a LONG time.

The dirt has not been cultivated in quite awhile and there are a few interesting garden ornaments in the yard....

...but I know we will make this a wonderful garden, productive and good-looking. And the idea of sharing our ability to garden with someone we really like just tickles the both of us.


Tomorrow I'll graph out the beds on paper and get a better idea how much we can produce in this much space. I am very excited!

But why is it Yellow?

The homesteading community is full of wonderful people doing amazing things when it comes to becoming less dependent on the behemoths of food producers that care not a wit about our health and well-being. These gals (and their families) have inspired me to try things I would never have considered just a year ago ...slaughtering chickens comes to mind :0 <----does anyone know a better 'eek' face?

Anyhoo, yesterday I made butter...yes butter. Why, you may ask, would you decide to make butter? Well, I'll tell you. I was making a wonderful pumpkin cranberry bread to use up an acorn squash I had sitting on the counter (for about 2 weeks) and in the middle of putting together the fairly long list of ingredients (and because I had not read the recipe before I started) I discovered that the recipe called for buttermilk. Rather than go to all the trouble of driving to the grocery store (not to mention having to get out of my comfy sweats and run a brush thru my hair) I remembered a recent article on the wonderful blog Urban Hennery where she had made butter at home using a recipe from One Green generation. In making said butter the liquid that ends up separating out of the solid butter is buttermilk (and I thought that buttermilk was soured milk....don't judge me). Even if you're not interested in the whole butter making experiment, at least check out these blogs, they are both great resources for all things sustainable....not to mention the amazing photographs (she says without any jealousy) (well, hardly any).

So, I got buttermilk for my bread (which turned out quite good thank-you) and absolutely delicious butter. As far doing this on a regular basis, we probably wouldn't, at least not from store bought cream. A pint of cream yielded 1 cup butter and 1 cup buttermilk (approx). So I did the math....and I went with the prices of non-organic because we can't get organic cream and buttermilk....just butter (I am in the process of finding sources for both). I figure the prices of all three would be higher (I know the organic butter is) but would still be about the same comparatively.

Pint of cream ............$3.50

1 cup butter ...........$2.00 ($4.00 lb.)
1 cup buttermilk ..................$ .45 ($1.80 quart divided by 4)

So.......$3.50 of cream yielded $2.45 worth of butter and buttermilk

No real financial reason to make my own huh?

But it was fun, and weirdly enough....very empowering. Not sure why, but being able to make something that is a staple in our house (and right up there with chocolate in the must have department) is such a thrill. Maybe because I started to realize that we can do this...we can wean ourselves from some of the foods that we depend on others to produce. Now if I can only find the space to house a cow.....

And to answer my own question.... I always assumed butter was yellow because dyes are added (which is sometimes true but obviously I didn't add anything and had started out with white cream)

I did a little research and found this on Yahoo answers...

When milk is processed into butter, the butter cream separates from the watery liquid (which is actually sold as skim milk). the butter cream contains all the fat which has a high concentration of vitamin A. Vitamin A has a natural yellowish tint. When churned, it is oxidized and aerated, and turns even yellower and another separation occurs when the fat lumps and the butter milk (sold as, you guessed it "buttermilk) is squeezed out. how do I know this? I grew up in a dairy farm in Wisconsin:)

Apparantly, dye is added to some butters because they do end up being fairly white and others to make them even darker....yet another reason to check labels.

Busted!

That is a pillow in the back of the photo ...MY pillow to be exact. And I guess the more gramatically correct description would be 'was a pillow'. Good thing he's so darn cute :)

And yet I kept smiling

When the checkout gal at the grocery store is holding up your receipt and asking the other sales people if they've ever seen a bigger total.....it's not necessarily a banner moment. I think I have a new goal for 2009....become a stranger to the employees at the grocery store. By the end of the year I want them to ask me where I've been all month, not wonder about me after 2 days!

I still have tears in my eyes

Yes he's my son...but this is too too funny!

(go read it....we'll wait)

Row Covers

It's been so cold at night and tho I said we weren't going to bother with row covers this year....we did. The lettuce bed that used to be our front yard just seemed the best (ok, easiest) one to start with and we had some rebar lying around.

Steve cut the stakes about 30 inches long, bent them slightly, pushed them into the ground alongside the box and slid the PVC down over the stakes. The nice thing about the system is it's movable and will store easily over the summer.

We also had some black plastic in the shed and used rocks to hold it in place.

We've been putting the covers on at dusk every night ...

...and taking them off first thing in the morning. We'll probably do this till March or so, depending on the weather. The lettuce has been pretty stunted since it got cold, we're hoping this will help.

Next week....we're doing one of the broccoli beds in the back yard :)

Replacement Item #1

And the winner of the 'what shall we replace first' in our pantry challenge...drum roll please....Golden Mushroom soup! This is the base for a wonderful chicken dinner that is a favorite at our house. I can't even remember the original name, but my kids call it Cheese Chicken....for reasons that shall become obvious when I post the recipe. I can't actually make the meal until Sam is done with his fast because it is his absolute favorite and that would just be cruel. But I can make the soup and have it ready to go.

I found a couple of yummy sounding Cream of Mushroom soup recipes on Epicurious and AllRecipes....but no Golden Mushroom. The list of the ingredients on the cans (scary by the way) comparing the two leads me to believe that simply adding tomato sauce to a homemade creamy mushroom soup will do the trick. And as long as I'm making the golden mushroom, I'll probably make a big batch of the mushroom soup and can half the jars sans tomato sauce....we use both these soups quite a bit. My first go at the challenge will be a 2-fer :)

I love to make soups, they are one of my favorite winter meals, but never really thought about making the cream soups that I use to cook with....it just seems ingrained to always have the Campbells on hand. It's a habit I intend to break.

To be continued...

Pantry Product Replacement Challenge

I've decided to make this resolution into a challenge for 2009.....care to join?

The challenge - take one item from your pantry (or freezer) every month (that's just 12 items people :) and reproduce it from scratch. Soups, sauces, dressings, crackers....be creative (anyone have a recipe for pretzels?)

As much as possible use local sources for the ingredients of your homemade version as well as garden produce. But even if you don't have a garden, using fresh produce and no additives is a huge improvement over store brands.

Post on your blog (or email me) the recipes you used, photos of the process, and what kind of lessons you learned. I'll do a monthly recap with links to the blogs so we can all benefit....my evil plan here is to get recipes from people way smarter than me :)

Let me know if you care to join....anytime!

...and for those of you who already have a pantry full of homemade soups, sauces and snacks...feel free to join and share your success stories with us.

AMMENDED (with special thanks to Chorus for advice and encouragement)....I've decided to add house-cleaning and body care products to the challenge...hey, I keep my shampoo in the pantry!

Free Seeds...

...for someone anyway! I just discovered a new blog thru one of my old blogs and she is giving away a coupon towards free heirloom seeds.....Yippee Yahoo! Check it out at life in the lost world. And in accordance with resolution #5, I may have found a new heirloom seed source thru her blog.

Happy New Year!

I'm not even sure how to do this whole resolution thing, but it seemed appropriate to write down a few goals for the coming year.  We spent a good portion of last year expanding our garden, simplifying our lives and becoming more self-sufficient.  We have plotted out our 1/2 acre farm project and while we are excited about what we can do with that much land, we still plan on getting most of our food from our home garden for at least the next few years.
We have some general goals....less plastic, getting rid of a car (or 2), walking more, using less, yada yada....but I have a few specific goals that I wanted to list (10 of 'em....nice and neat).

For 2009 I plan to....

1. Implement the aforementioned (yesterdays post) pantry product replacement plan (quite the tongue twister don't you think?)  Take cooking from scratch to another level, making my own cream soups and tomato sauces as well as weaning our kids off the processed foods we still buy (frozen pizza tops this list).  Included in this process is learning how to use (and be less afraid of) the pressure canner....my Christmas gift :)

2. Cook at least 75% of our Thanksgiving dinner 2009 from things produced by us.  We figure the turkey and cranberries will have to be store bought, as well as some of the staples.  But things like peas, beans, onions, pumpkin for pie, potatoes, and yams can all be grown in our garden and preserved for the meal.  It's the beginning of our becoming self-sustaining year round. 

3. Expand my cooking skills to include more oddities (for me anyway) things like couscous, spelt flour, seaweed, and miso.

4.  Include our children in the process of getting food to the table.   Annie likes to cook and I need to nurture that more in the coming year as well as helping them all understand the choices we are making.   I want them to see this as something of value and not just another of our 'hippie' ideas.  They seem to be getting it more as they get older, both Sam and Brad are undertaking their own food resolutions this month....Sam is fasting to cleanse his body and Brad is giving up alcohol and sugar to see if it helps him feel better. 

 

5. Purchase and read Seed to Seed so I can learn how to start saving seeds from our garden.  This will save us money in the long run and also allows us to help preserve heirloom variety veggies.  We will be buying most of our seeds this spring from Seed Savers, an organization dedicated to saving seeds and preserving garden biodiversity.

6. (Re-) learn how to knit.  I taught myself to knit in college...made mittens, hats and scarves.  Started up again a few years ago...more hats and scarves.  I still have piles of yarn and quite a few inherited sets of knitting needles. So, I am going to get back on the horse, as it were, and make Steven a scarf and Annie a hat.  She loves the ones with ear flaps and that pattern seems a fairly easy place to start.  Who knows....someday a sweater?

7. Get off the bottled water craze.  We bought our first stainless steel water bottle at Whole Foods this week and plan on buying one a month (hey, they're $23 each...yikes) and filling with filtered tap water. The amount of plastic in our lives is excessive and this is a start towards reducing that commodity. 

8. Help build our chicken coop by Spring '09 so we can move the chicks in as the weather starts to warm up.  We have found an old children's play-house that we can adapt to house the birds....it'll look good, save us some time and effort in building a structure...plus it's free!

...and probably the 2 most important resolutions for the year....

9. Read thru the New Testament of the Bible.  Tho I've probably read all the books at one point or another in my life, I've never read them in order and in a prescribed time frame....thanks to Jim Newman (our pastor) for inspiring me to make this a priority.

10. Find Joy.  Somewhere along the way I've lost it and I am determined to get it back.  Joy that is not dependent on circumstances or the variances of daily living....joy that is from the Lord comes from seeking His will and His face (see item #9)   He is unchanging so I'm the one who's gone off track here.  My goal is to get up each day and seek Him.   Joy will follow.

Hope you are all well and making your own lists of attainable goals for this new year...care to share?