Autumn Haze

I love Autumn. The dusty, musty smell of the soil winding down in the garden for the year. The low slung golden light filtering through leafy trees just beginning to give in to the inevitable lack of light that will turn their trusses into a fiery crown. Falling to the ground, their beauty spent, their leaves will nourish the next flush of  green with the warming of days next spring.

The early morning garden had started shrouded in fog. I now look across this little farm where the holly hocks stand guard at the garden gate the setting sun  turning their blossoms into little panes of stained glass more beautiful than any church window. Beneath them between the lavender and the rosemary I can see divots in the soil where the chickens spent the afternoon happily tossing dust a foot or more into the air as they took a languorous dust bath. I make a mental note to repair them. For what purpose I don't know. They will only be at their happy destruction again tomorrow. I don't mind. I love having animals that are so obviously happy and healthy. I call the masses home with a "chook chook chook" and lock them safely into their run. They seem to  visibly relax once tucked inside, searching for bits of food or just resting in a corner, waiting for the sun to tell them it is time to go to bed.

Picking up my basket I head for the garden to see what the days offerings will be. Tomatoes perhaps.  Green tomatoes for sure but I'm not quite ready to give up on the possibility of a late flush of ripe tomatoes and another Caprese Salad (recipe follows) before cold weather takes these little beauties. If there are enough I can dehydrate them for using on pizza in the dead of winter. Yum! Summer in January!

Zucchini would be great too. I discovered that my family will eat all the
zucchini I can grow when I make baked Zucchini Fries. (Recipe to follow) I see spots of orange peeking out from under giant prickly leaves and make another mental note to write in my garden book to plant more pumpkins next year. They are so much fun and a versatile calorie dense vegi that stores amazingly well if not allowed to get too cold.

Green beans dangle from tangled vines and I pick the garden's offering. Pencil thin and straight french fillets and big fat Blue Lake beans. There is also tender wax beans and a collection of long purple beans. They will turn a deep green when steamed but it is always fun to bring a basket of multicolored beans into the kitchen. Boring vegis are not in our repertoire of daily fare at this time of year. The beets I planted in August look gorgeous with their ruby colored stems glowing in the setting sun and the ferny foliage of new carrots as a backdrop. They will be a tasty dish this winter. The beets need thinning in order to have room to become beets so the "culled" leafy greens will  be dinner tomorrow. I leave them until then.

Walking back toward the gate I spot some small pear shaped tomatoes hiding under the skirts of a protective branch. I pick one and pop it into my mouth enjoying the sweet acidic explosion on my tongue. I haven't any lettuce or greens big enough to make a salad but decide a small bowl of plain naked tomatoes would be just the ticket. Better than a candy dish without the guilt.  

Picking up my basket I trudge toward the house with my booty wondering if we will get tired of green beans before they are done for the season and if they will taste nearly as good when I use the frozen beans that I have put by.
In the kitchen I pour the beans into a large bowl to sort into beans for dinner and beans for pickling. Shining jars of peaches have cooled and sealed on the counter and are waiting to be labeled and added to the growing larder in the pantry. Partly ripened tomatoes are covering every available surface including an extra table that I have set up specifically for that purpose. Not trusting the weather I brought in all the tomatoes except the Pear and the Pacino's to ripen in the house. This year I am going to beat the blight to the harvest. I place these tomatoes into a zip bag as they ripen and place them in the freezer to be turned into sauce later. The smell of blackberry jam is still heavy in the air and reminds me of my mothers late summer kitchen. All this is a lot of work now but so easy this winter when I need a jar of something to round out a meal and I don't even have to go to the grocery store. I take the peaches out to the pantry and admire the colored jewels preserved in gleaming jars.

 I'm tired after the days work but it is a happy contented tired. The kind that means you will fall asleep tonight and sleep clear through until morning and wake up ready to do it all over again. Perhaps tomorrow I will try making green tomato relish right after putting out eggs and a few bags of green beans for my customers that make the long trek down our dusty driveway. It's fun to share the harvest and see the appreciation on other peoples faces. My only regret about the waning summer is that I didn't find the time to use the hammock set up in the front yard. So tomorrow morning I will make it a point to enjoy a steaming cup of coffee on the front porch and admire the turning of the season before starting my day.

Baked Zucchini Fries

Italian seasoned bread crumbs
Grated Parmesan cheese
Seasoned salt
Zucchini
Olive oil or egg whites (depending on your diet egg whites can be used in place of oil)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil
Combine bread crumbs, cheese, and seasoned salt in a pie plate. 

Cut the zucchini in half length wise and remove seeds. Slice into 1/2 x 1/2 x 4 inch pieces and place in a large bowl. Drizzle oil over the zucchini and quickly toss with your hands. (Zucchini absorbs the oil)

(Or beat egg whites just until frothy and toss with zucchini).

Press zucchini into crumbs gently shaking off excess and place onto the prepared baking sheet.

Bake in preheated oven until the fries are golden and tender about 15 minutes. (I find that a convection oven makes them even crisper.)

Serve with catsup, sweet chili sauce, or just plain.



For those that don't know what a  Caprese Salad is here are some directions. (my youngest calls this leaves and cheese)

Caprese Salad

Fresh garden tomatoes sliced about 1/4 inch
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh Mozzarella cheese slice about 1/8th to 1/4 inch
Your favorite olive oil and vinegar type salad dressing. (ceasar works)

Alternate tomatoes, leaves, and cheese in a circle around the edge of a plate piling left overs in the middle to make an attractive display. Drizzle with dressing. Let marinade for at least 15 minutes before serving. You can also drizzle a thin line of balsamic vinegar along the salad.

Self Sufficiency is......

....Not blowing your hard earned cash on a $6 bottled salad dressing.

We love salads. Ceasar, coleslaw, poppy seed fruit salad, garden salad, potato, pasta, Caprese, Spinach salad with bacon, you name it. What I don't like is spending upwards of $6 for a bottle of salad dressing. Oh ya sometimes I find dressing on sale for $2.50 or so and I would stock up. That was the case a few months back when I found the mans garden french on sale. I bought 3 or 4 bottles of it. Then one day when I was idly hanging out in the kitchen waiting for something I read the ingredients. High fructose corn syrup was bad enough and almost all dressings contain xanthan gum which is used as a thickener. I can almost live with that since you only use a little on a salad. Right? However when I got to propylene glycol red flags went up. I'm feeding this stuff to my family???? NOT! How many of you have seen this ingredient in different foods and casually wondered what it was only to go on your merry way? I  looked it up. It has many uses. It is said the "acute oral toxicity of propylene glycol is very low" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol It is also used as an anti -freeze component in newer vehicles and a de-icer at airports. Propylene glycol is made from propylene oxide, a colorless volatile liquid use in the manufacturing of  plastics.  So yes! I want to feed this to my family! Bring it on!

Why is it used? It keeps the ingredients in salad dressing in suspension or mixed up so the oil and vinegar doesn't separate. Well excuse me but I think I am quite capable of shaking a bottle. I might work off a calorie or two doing that. Because I prefer to feed my family simply healthy food, as opposed to chemicals, and because spending $6 on a bottle of salad dressing really irks me I am on a mission to learn to make all the salad dressings that we use. Mostly that is french, thousand Island, Ceasar, and poppy seed dressing to name a few. In addition I am going to share them with you. So tonight we had a wedge salad with blue cheese vinaigrette. I really like blue cheese but I think I prefer a blue cheese dressing that is creamier than the vinaigrette. Too much vinegar in this recipe. The recipe said I could use white or champagne vinegar and I used white because that is what I had. Next time I will try the champagne. For those of you who like vinaigrette here is the recipe.

Blue Cheese Vinaigrette
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup white or champagne vinegar
1/4 tsp. Balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp. sour cream
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil (or tsp. dried)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese.

Put in a blender or food processor and blend.
The salad itself was a wedge of iceberg lettuce (I almost never buy this) with cucumber slices, red onion tomatoes, blue cheese crumbles, and toasted pecans sprinkled on top. I will do this with romaine next time.

My personal favorite and one that my family really likes is this Ceasar dressing. Toss with a basic romaine lettuce, croutons, and grated Parmesan cheese.

Caesar Salad Dressing

 2 small garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp. anchovy paste or mashed up canned anchovy

2 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice (or bottled)

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 hard boiled egg, mashed yolk only

1 cup mayonnaise

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan

¼ tsp. sea salt or kosher salt

¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

In a medium bowl whisk together the garlic, anchovy, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, egg and Worcestershire sauce. Add the mayonnaise, Parmesan, salt and pepper and whisk until well combined. Taste and adjust to your liking.  

Now before you go eeew anchovy. Take a look at your bottle of Worcestershire sauce. It's made with anchovy. Believe me you wont really know it's there and it is only a teaspoon. You can use the canned anchovy in oil (last forever in the fridge) just mash it up or a tube of anchovy paste from the store. (Sounds inviting doesn't it?)

Traditionally Ceasar Salad dressing is made with a raw egg and used immediately so because I wasn't sure how long raw egg would last in a dressing stored in the fridge I decided to use a hard boiled egg yolk. Worked great. This dressing was such a hit that we eat it as a dip with romaine lettuce pieces.

Once you have a collection of salad dressing recipes it is a snap to make them. Most of the ingredients are already in your pantry. Vinegars, oils, herbs etc. If you add a few other condiments you will find making these are easy and you can do it way in advance and put them in pretty bottles like these. Or you can do what I did the first time I made honey mustard dressing and just use the plastic mustard bottle that was empty after I got done with it. No red neck in me. LOL!

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

1/3 cup honey

1/8 cup Dijon mustard (or more to taste)

¼ cup white wine vinegar or cider vinegar (I used cider)

2 Tbsp.  lemon juice

1 minced garlic clove

½ cup vegetable oil

Combine first 5 ingredients in a blender. While blending, gradually add oil in a steady stream until smooth and creamy.  Store in refrigerator. Use this one on any garden salad or let your kids dip chicken pieces in it. We don't need no McDonalds. 

I am going to estimate that these salad dressings cost me $1 on average to make and they taste better than store bought. You could say they are more convenient because you don't have to make a special trip to the store when you find out at the last minute that you are out of dressing and your mother in law just arrived for dinner. Impress the old bat instead.

I will do a follow up blog with recipes for Thousand Island, (super easy) Garden French, and  Poppy seed dressing for a green salad with fruit. That's the one the kids can't get enough of. I have to use my biggest bowl when I make that salad.

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Potato Experiment Update

Trench on left, tower on the right

I just harvested the last two potato plots in the garden. Both were experiments of course because I just can't leave well enough alone. I had russet potatoes that never got into the ground until the first week of July. Even though I was waaaaay late and my other potatoes were well on their way I decided that I could let the russets rot then throw them away or just plant them and see what happened. I opted for the latter. TA DA! Another experiment is born. I built one more potato tower and planted 5 potatoes in it. Two more than my normal 3 but what the heck. I had plenty. Then because I saw this on another blog I decided to build a potato trench.

trench-click to enlarge

Here are the results. I slipped the chicken wire basket off the potato tower and quickly and easily ran my gloved hands through the soil. The potatoes were perfect! A little small but what do you want when you plant in July. This took me less than 5 minutes.
Then I went into the garden to harvest the trench. The idea of the trench was to be able to pull the chicken wire lining the trench up and have the potatoes roll out of the soil. It wasn't that easy. The wire was hard to pull, cutting into my hands and the soil so heavy that I finally just dug out the excess soil in the trench until I found the potatoes. This took over half an hour and a lot of work and sweat. A couple potatoes had grown into the wire in spite of the straw lining. But the potatoes in general were just as beautiful and small as the potatoes in the tower.
Potato tower 7 lbs. Potato trench 12 lbs.

Since the trench was about 6 feet long with approximately 15 to 18 potatoes planted in it I will say it was equal to three (2 ft diameter) potato towers in size. The total for both plots was 19 lbs of russets. Not a bad haul for planting them in July. However if you compare the two techniques the trench should have produced 21 lbs. (not 12) to be equal to the tower. Given the fact that the trench was so much more work and produced less I will continue using the towers. BTW. The russets are really good.

My other conclusion is even if you have missed the normal planting date for your potatoes plant them anyway. These are an easy, delicious, and calorie dense crop that anyone should be able to grow and the biggest bonus of all? No pesticides! Potatoes (along with celery and strawberries) are one of the dirtiest chemical laden food you can buy at the store. Do yourself a favor and limit your families exposure to them and grow your own lovely potatoes.  http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/

A Winter Garden? Everyone Should Have One

Last years Cheddar Cauliflower 

Ok. I know your tired. Fall and winter you are looking forward to a little down time and book time, holidays, etc. But if you happen to think about it you can get a fall garden started. It is just a little bit closer to being more prepared and self sufficient. I have chosen to put in some basics for the winter. Cauliflower, three different varieties of broccoli, beets, carrots, lettuce, and maybe some spinach. Although I think I am a little late for the spinach I will try it in my cold frame.

Here in the Northwest cool weather crops are the only thing that will grow with a little protection. I don't want anyone to think I am some expert because just about everything I do is an experiment but I have had some pretty good results. Last year I grew broccoli, brussel sprouts, and a variety of cauliflower called Cheddar that was to die for. I also grew a variety called snow crown with terrible results. I didn't know you had to "blanch" cauliflower or that there are self blanching varieties. I didn't even know what blanching was but I do know it doesn't mean using hot water.  Apparently when cauliflower gets to be about baseball size you are suppose to wrap the leaves around it and hold it in place with something like string. This protects it from the sun and helps it turn white. Turning white was not a problem for me. Knowing when to harvest was. Harvest when the heads are about 6 inches in diameter otherwise they get a ricey look and are past their prime. Since I lost my cauliflower to hard frost I think perhaps this is a better reason to blanch.

This year I put in some simple raised beds to make the job a little easier and to battle the constant crappy soil. I bought three pieces of 2 x8 x8 foot Douglas fir and cut one in half for the ends so the bed would be 4 ft. by 8ft. I didn't want to use treated lumber and cedar was just too darned expensive. So following the lead of my friend Cindy, I applied boiled Linseed oil to all surfaces and let it dry then had the man screw it

Beets in the foreground carrots in the back

together for me with 2x2's in the corners. I filled, fertilized, and planted beets and carrots in it and did it in August. A little late for beets so I chose a fast maturing variety called Merlin (55 days) and another that I had in my seed file called Chioggia (65 days). Beets and carrots were direct sown into the first raised bed about mid August. Although I had doubts about the beets due to the late planting they are doing great. I planted thick enough that we have had two meals of beet greens. Not bad for a four foot square planting. During August in spite of my attention to watering, my beets would wilt slightly during mid day. Too much sun. So I placed a piece of 4 x 8 lattice on the west side of the raised bed held in place with three metal fence posts and plastic ties to hold the lattice to the post. Worked perfectly. No more wilting. My carrots need thinning but look great. The beets have formed little one inch beets already. The only thing I would do differently is not use so much compost. I can see the beet roots are going to be somewhat hairy.

 Around here you need to plant your fall and winter gardens in late July and August to allow for adequate growth prior to the onset of fall. The difficulty comes with the fact that you are planting cool weather crops and it is still hot at that time of year. So it is very important to water, water, water. If you let broccoli and cauliflower dry out even once it will bolt instead of growing. Because I was building the rest of the raised beds at the time I needed to be planting them I opted to start the Cole plants in pots on my patio. My patio gets morning sun until about 1pm then it is in shade the rest of the day. A perfect place to start cooler weather plants. I also put the pots in flat pans so that the pots could sit in a 1/2 inch of water lessening the possibility of drying out when I forgot to water. When transplanting be very careful to not disturb the roots as this will cause a set back in growth.

I went ahead and put in two more raised beds that were 4x12. These I am using for the Cole crop and because I grew the plants in pots I had a ready made garden as soon as I was able to fill the bed with soil. This time I used a three way mix from the local soil company.

One of the things I don't like about Cole crops is the green caterpillars and aphids. The caterpillars are the larvae of the white cabbage moth or butterfly.

You will see them flitting around your garden looking for a spot to lay their eggs on your lovely broccoli. Brussel sprouts seem plagued with a grey aphid. Both are a real pain. The caterpillars can be controlled with a couple doses of BT but not only do I not relish the thought of eating that stuff no matter how harmless I also don't like paying for it. So I came up with this idea. As soon as I plant the broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts I cover them with nylon netting that I purchased at the fabric store last year. Not to be confused with tulle. It's cheaper than row covers or tulle and does the job. (Tulle also blocks more light than the nylon netting.)  Not one greenie meanie. Last year when it got cold enough that the butterflies where no more I took the cover off. Unfortunately the grey aphid attacked the brussel sprouts when I did so this year I am leaving the cover on all winter. According to my companion planting book Cole crops do well with onions so I planted some bunching onion from seed between the broccoli and cauliflower in the hopes of getting green scallions for the winter.  They are just starting to come up and are about 1-2 inches tall. Nice thing about planting in the fall is everything seems to germinate faster and better. The bad thing about my set up is the onions skinny little spikes want to grow up through the netting because it is just gently laying on top of the Cole crop. So I placed some hoops to hold the netting up off the soil. I sure don't want those onions to grow through that and have to either cut them out or rip them off. In general I am pretty happy with the job I have done so far. I will plant the cold frame with lettuce and spinach and then relax a little and just do some clean up and weeding and putting the rest of the garden to bed for the winter. The chickens and ducks will be invited in to the garden to clean out any lingering pests. Then I can get started cleaning and winterizing the coop. Guess I wont be relaxing after all. Hmmmmm.

Sunday the oldest came home with her boyfriend to partake in a small family tradition. We celebrate the first day of fall with a family dinner. We had a pork roast on the rotisserie and a Caprese salad, acorn squash baked with butter, brown sugar and a slice of bacon, Zucchini and potato fries then topped it all off with home made pumpkin pie. We even had a little goat milk ice cream. All out of our garden and home made. (The goat milk was from a local farmer) Of course I forgot to take a picture so here is a picture of the table instead. Both of our girls start school the next day. First day at junior college for the youngest and first day as a junior at the University for the oldest. There are many things to celebrate.

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Potato Harvest

Sorry it has taken me so long to post. I think I have several subjects simmering and waiting to be written about. I will get to it. Most of you remember how I made potato towers last year out of chicken wire lined with straw and filled with soil.  (see here) This year I used the many paper grocery bags that I got from the grocery store as liners. They were a lot easier and quicker to put together. (cheaper than straw too) I planted 9 towers with three seed potatoes in the bottom of each one adding a liberal amount of bone meal (my dog Lucy was convinced I had buried bones and was very confused). I covered each with about 3 or 4 inches of soil and waited. When the plants started showing up I started adding more soil to each tower. I kept doing that until the towers were filled and I ran out of soil.  I also placed a layer of straw mulch on the top of each tower when I was finished filling them. This allowed me to water less. Over watering potatoes can lead to rotting and I think less is more. I watered well when I first planted and then left them mostly alone watering only if and when they got dry. I think if the towers had been five feet tall those plants would have just kept growing. As it was each tower was about 18 inches to 2 feet high, the width of a grocery bag. Those potatoes grew so well that the spuds were poking out of the top of the soil. Needless to say we had several meals with those potatoes. It was fun to trek down to the garden just before starting dinner, put on a glove and shove my hand into that nice soft soil and yank out a big fat potato. Several dinner guest got a kick out of doing that too.

They were growing so well that I finally just had to bend the plants over and stick them inside the tower to get them to quit growing! This also shaded the potatoes that were trying to jump out of the soil. After leaving them for two weeks to age (this allows the skins to set and increases storage ability) my daughter and I harvested two banana boxes of them by simply lifting the wire up and letting everything fall to the ground where we could sift through it. Now this is a kid that doesn't like gardening but she kept saying "Oh! Potato!" every time she picked one up. Well almost every time.  I had planted both red Chieftain and Yukon Gold. I don't have a scale so if I had to guess I would say we had about 30 lbs that we harvested and at least 15 more that we had already used. Not bad for an investment of less than 30 seed potatoes. Some had been saved from the previous year.

I have tried several methods to grow potatoes and so far this is my favorite. I think the fact that the towers are lined with paper or straw allows the plants to "breath". I have tried growing in buckets and garbage cans but this works the best so far. I save the chicken wire baskets from one year to the next so once they're made your good and they can be flattened for storage. The towers keep the chickens from scratching in the soil and this allows me to grow potatoes outside the garden fence extending the total growing area of the garden and killing the grass so that the next year I can extend the growing area without killing myself removing the turf.  The deer so far have left the potatoes alone.

Potato trench. Click to enlarge

I was very late planting the russets and they went in in July. I ended up making one russet tower outside the fence and the rest of the russets were planted in a trench inside the garden fence. That trench was line with chicken wire, a thin layer of straw,  then potatoes were lined up in the trench on top of the straw and covered with soil and bone meal. I used the soil that had been dug out and placed on the sides to hill up as the plants grew. The idea is to be able to harvest the potatoes by pulling the wire up. We will see how that works. I was about 2 months late getting those in so they are still in the garden and the geese ate all the leaves off of the russet tower last week so who knows how that will be.

I use to think growing potatoes was a waste of time. After all they are usually relatively cheap at the store.  I was wrong. There is no comparison. A fresh potato actually cracks like a fresh apple when you cut into it and the taste is amazing. Plus what else can you plant in the garden that can give you such a calorie dense return? Maybe carrots? Potatoes are fun to grow and add a lot to your self sufficiency. Next year I think I will try taller towers.

What I learned this year?
1. Potatoes will not grow in wood chips even if they are full of chicken poo. I had been dumping the wood chips from the coop in the area that I was going to put towers to help kill the grass. I noticed that not one potato had rooted in the chips.

2. Towers allow the potato plants to breath. I think that garbage can trick is a myth.

3. Use bone meal. Apparently potatoes are a potassium rich vegi.

4. Don't over water!

5. Plant early.

6. There is no potato like a fresh potato.

Strawberries, Canning, Gardening, Ducks, the Milk Man and a Berkey!

When I was a kid we had a milk man. It was normal to have milk delivered to your doorstep and put in a little insulated box every week. As a kid I never gave it a second thought. The Smith Brothers Dairy was just a few miles from our house. When I became a teen some of Smith Brothers Farm was bought and a really big shopping mall was built on some of the best and richest farmland in the valley. We stopped getting milk on the porch and the dairy moved several miles further south in the valley. As an adult I moved in the same direction only up on the hill above the valley and I still didn't have milk delivery. The store was so close. Now I live several miles north and west on an island and guess what I just discovered I can do? Ya! Milk delivery! Half and half and buttermilk and anything else I might want. And who have I chosen to get milk from? You guessed it. The same dairy I grew up with. And why?  Because I am tired of wasting my money on dead ultra pasteurized milk.

 I'm also tired of lugging home that yummy milk in the cute heavy glass bottles that cost twice as much and that requires a deposit. Then you have to remember to return the bottles. Not to mention the occasional broken 1/2 gallon of milk in the bottom of the grocery bag and the fact that the nutritional value of milk is depleted when it is exposed to light.  Smith Brothers delivers for nearly the same as the grocery store charges, delivers in cartons that are made of recycled material and the milk is fresh and NOT ultra pasteurized. This means I can actually make cheese out of it too! Haven't tried it yet but I am about to. I will let you know how it works.

Strawberry season is finally here. In a good year the season would have started the last week in May. A normal season starts sometime in the first 2 weeks in June and only last a couple of weeks maybe three.  I know this because it was always so easy for me to miss it. The last few years strawberry season has been extremely late due to wetter and cooler than normal weather and has actually been overlapping raspberry season. Around here we have a saying that summer doesn't start until the 5th of July. I never minded that it was wet for the 4th. I figured it just cut down on fire hazards. But this berry thing is getting a little hard to manage. I need the time between strawberries and raspberries to get another pay check. Not to mention Bing cherry season is in full swing. I can a lot of cherries. It is very handy to open a quart of cherries and put them on the table with dinner in the dark of winter when you need to round out a meal. At any rate

strawberries are finally here. I bought two 12 lb. flats two day ago. I made jam, canned ice cream topping, and froze the rest. They weren't the greatest tasting berries I have ever had. We have had way too much rain and way too little sun so they were big, plump, and watery tasting. Now that the 5th of July is here (and so is the sun right on que) I will give it a week and go see if they taste any better.
Notice the picture of my jam to the right?  In the background is a gift from my man. Recognize it? Ya! A Berkey water filter! I have been complaining about the taste of our water since we moved here. For the first time in years we are on city water and it is very chlorinated. It taste awful and sometimes it taste like dirt. Nothing like the clean fresh tasting water we use to get from our well. Even our finicky cat hates the taste. I have also not been too keen on having to rely on the water company in the event of some catastrophe to provide clean potable water. With the Berkey we can filter the pond water if we have to. This could come in handy since the Cascade earthquake fault runs right in front of our four acres. In the mean time I'm going to drink water that resembles the good stuff we are use to.

The garden is finally almost under control. (if that is possible) I will be harvesting sugar snap peas this week and from the look of it we should have a bumper crop. The tomatoes have some size to them and I was smart enough this year to space them far enough apart to have room to grow. I did get the out of control section of garden weeded and the squash, pumpkin and zucchini plants all put in. I bought those as starts so

they should be taking off here in the next week. The potatoes are huge and I have pulled a few out here and there for a couple of meals. They were nearly the size of my hand. The plants are still green and growing so I will keep hilling them up in my potato towers and see what I get. I planted green, wax, and purple string beans about three weeks ago and the plants are about 4 inches tall. The day time temperatures were still in the forties to low fifties so I was a little concerned the beans wouldn't germinate. So far so good. Cucumbers are not very happy. I didn't have much luck with those last year either. The lettuce in the cold frame finally bolted but we had several salads from that. I pulled the rest out and fed it to the geese and replanted bell peppers and cherry tomatoes.
I'm on to planning a winter garden. I am hoping to convince the man to help me with a small hoop house/row cover to plant broccoli, cauliflower, beets and other fall crops.
The geese and ducks are all doing well and seem to have got past what ever was making them sick. I still don't know what it was for sure that was doing it and I still can't help but look out the windows and count heads every hour or so. That is my update. Now I am  going to try to switch to the updated blogger interface so if I disappear you will know what happened. Blogger ate me.

Another Example of

Remember Ferry Morse Seed Company? Well remember well because that is all it is going to be is a distant reminder. Ferry Morse Sold It has been gobbled up by the same company that gobbled Plantation Products. They are both now owned by an investment corporation called RFE Investments.  Although I can't say they were a great company that only uses organic non-GMO seed they have been around for decades and the people that worked for them got booted in a very inhumane way. (Plus their seed packets were beautiful enough for framing.)

So I am asking my readers to pass this information on. I am passing it on from the Never Done Farm blog with added information. Check out the links in this post.

I am also passing on this interesting link to you. http://www.garden-of-eatin.com/how-to-avoid-monsanto/

Canning and the Stupidest Person on the Planet

Canning and preserving season is going to be upon us before you know it. Those of you in the south are probably already putting by. Preserving healthy chemical free food for your family and feeling pretty darn good about it. Right? Canning for healthy food is exactly why I do it. It isn't because it is cheaper because other than the garden most of the stuff I can I purchase. I do wait until I find a killer deal and the food taste better than the canned stuff you get at the grocery store and usually canning a quart of something even if purchased is cheaper than buying a 14 oz. can of something if you don't count your labor.  (have you noticed the cans are smaller than they use to be?)

Lately I have been hearing a lot more about BPA contained in the white lining of commercial cans and plastic containers. It is suppose to protect the steel can from corroding especially in high acid foods like tomatoes and pineapple. It is very difficult to limit your exposure to BPA since most everything is made with plastic or has BPA in it. Even most of the cash register receipts that are handed to you at the store are made with BPA if they are the thermally printed type. (Not the ink type)
abcnews story BPA (please excuse the ad)
BPA is linked to cancer, obesity, hormone disruption in both men and women, early maturation in kids, and heart disease. (Especially in men) Now I don't know about you but that is not something I want for my kids and I would like to have the man hang around a little longer. BPA has been banned in Canada, and Europe but not here. I suspect big money has something to do with that. Long ago I took a look at the plastics in my house. Especially the cheap plastics with the number 3 or 7 on the recycle symbol. I have known for years that you shouldn't micro wave food in plastic. I had a co-worker that was poisoned by doing that and when is the last time you read directions that said "cover with plastic wrap and microwave..."? So I got rid of plastic milk containers when my kids were much younger. If I don't buy milk in glass I get it in paper cartons. I have got rid of all or most plastic containers that hold left over food and switched to Pyrex. It is more expensive initially, cheaper in the long run, re-usable and doesn't eventually fill up the land fills. I am canning more and more of the foods we eat including oranges. Ya oranges. When they are on sale. Pineapple not so much but I limit how much canned pineapple we use and prefer fresh. (ya I know it is shipped in using that stuff called petroleum but in truth we don't eat a lot of that either).

So now why am I feeling like one of the stupidest people on the planet?


Take a look at my canning lids. I love a good sale on lids and buy them when I find them. It never occurred to me that they would contain BPA but there it is in all its glory. Take a look.

The ubiquitous white lining on the inside of my canning lids and golly gee guess what I do with these things? Exactly what you aren't suppose to do.  Expose them to heat. Especially pressure cooking! I don't have a whole lot of lids left thankfully because it is the beginning of the season right now and the stuff in my pantry is low so I am looking for and finding an alternative. They are out there and here is one.
Lehman's reusable BPA free canning lids
This is just one company and you may find some that are less expensive. Just Google BPA free canning lids and a lot of resources come up including some for prepping. The best part of these lids is that they are reusable and can be used with the screw band that you already have. You also wont be throwing them away, filling up your local land fill or polluting the environment when it eventually breaks down.

I'm sure some of you already know about this but for those who don't give me a shout out. I really need to know that I am not the last person on the planet that didn't know about this.

P.S.- I have been looking around about lids since I published this post. Do your homework. Some re-usable canning lids have problems with sealing failure and contain formaldehyde. They seem to be the one piece lids so far.

The Ultimate Prepping Tool

The man surprised me with this. He has surprised me with little gifts before. Flowers, candy, the usual stuff. I was never that excited about flowers that were going to die and candy that would make me fat but I always appreciated them. I think he has finally figured out that I get excited about weird stuff like this. YA! buy me a new bird or a pressure cooker, or a great book or take me for a ride on the Harley. THAT I can relate to. Now I know his idea of the ultimate prepping tool is a motor home but that is a lot more money than a cooker and now that the kids are older we don't use that as often. So we sold ours. We will probably buy another smaller one for our selves since we like to go and we will be able to use it on what ever property we end up with after selling this one. But that will be after the girls leave for college.

I was going to can chicken soup this weekend but the directions are so confusing that I think I will look for a cook book that is a little more helpful than the manual that came with it. Braeburn apples are on deep discount at the store this week and my kids will only eat home made chunky apple sauce so I will probably start with that. Maybe even make some pie filling. What I really wanted it for was to can salmon. I have salmon in the freezer that we haven't eaten and I would like to get it out of there. It is an All American pressure cooker/canner (made and manufactured in the US) so anyone with any tips, please leave me a comment.

Speaking of new birds here is an update on the geese. The second batch of eggs were also not fertile. As I suspected both the duck boy and the goose boys are done for the year. Although the duck will occasionally perform. So both my girl geese are still trying to sit on the nest. I have done everything I can think of to discourage them but as soon as I open their gate at night they go right back and they spend the day walking around the fence line trying to figure out how to get back in to the non-existent eggs. Being the chump I am I felt sorry for them so the other day after the man had gone to work I crept down to the feed store knowing they were getting a new shipment of ducks that morning. I thought I would get some Black Cayugas because I really loved the one I had years ago. The hatchery had only sent one in their order and she was tiny. My intent was to put them under the geese but she was so small I was afraid she would get hurt or worse. So I got two Rouen because they were bigger and two more Khaki Campbell (because they are exceptional egg layers) and took them home. I tried putting them under the girls. The ladies were willing but those little ducks kept popping out from under and would have none of it. I tried until the little bugs got cold and finally decided I was going to have to raise them.

Rouen are stripped 

click to enlarge

So meet Lola and the crew. She is absolutely ADORABLE! The rest are just cute. For those who don't know what a Rouen is it is a mallard derivative and looks a lot like a mallard. I don't know what I am going to do with them yet but will probably sell them or just find them good homes since they will be pets.

I will be teaching a class at the end of the month for an organization that is putting together classes on old fashion life skills for people that want to be more self sufficient so I am teaching "Basic bread and cheese making." Because I have been asked for another recipe from a reader I will include the recipe in my next blog.  Here is the picture.

The Zombie Apocalypse

I love those days when the kids are all home at the same time, quite often with a friend or boyfriend in tow, and we have all settled into the living room after a good meal for a movie. I had ordered this one from Netflix and then had to listen to the man complaining about watching some old movie (1997) that we had already seen and why did I order that one. The kids took a look at the run time (3 hours) and complained about the time. I didn't say anything except I thought it was a good movie when I saw it the first time. Guess what happened? Everyone was glued to the tv! It was actually better the second time than the first for me. I think because when I saw it in '97 it was very much a science fiction flick. This time fiction was much closer to reality.

The story opens in 2013 in what was once the United States. It starts at the end of a three year period of winter where "dirty snow" has been the norm after a nuclear apocalypse and our  protagonist (Kevin Costner) plays a traveling con man performing badly done Shakespeare in exchange for food, lodging, and supplies in various settlements or villages along the way. After escaping the bad guys he ends up taking refuge in an old mail truck and strips the long dead mail carriers uniform to replace his own soaked clothing. Taking a bag of mail he eventually continues his travels using the mail to con people into believing in a revived republic of the United States.

The reason I think I like this film is because it shows several scenarios for social breakdown and what people are likely to do in such a situation. It also demonstrates the power of hope and what people are willing to believe in when the situation looks impossible. Most of all,  I realize that all the prepping in the world could not prepare for the worse. It can only make it a little easier. Being part of a sustainable community however small is the one thing that would make a big difference.

The movie does not follow the novel very close at all but is still a good movie. In this case I saw the movie first and it was probably a good thing I did or I would have had set expectations and not liked it at all. If you are looking for some entertainment, suspense, and perhaps something to think about I highly recommend this movie. Available through Netflix or maybe even at your local library. If you have already seen it many years ago watch it again. You will see more this time than you did before.

Duck and Remodel Update

The sun peaked in and out all day yesterday and I took the opportunity to put the babies and mom outside just long enough to change the bed and water in their brooder box. One of the ducklings was shivering right away and I have to admit it was chilly but I thought they would get under mom. She was more interested in getting some scratch time in so babies just followed her around picking at the grass too. They were only out for about 5 minutes though because the sun disappeared as fast as it had come out. It was working up to a wind storm with another cold front coming in. So we got blustery weather during the night with some little power outages here and there. The three older babies will be a week old late tomorrow. Sure goes fast.
                                                                                                                 

I am thinking about temporarily reducing the size of my chicken flock and re-homing some of them. I found a home for one yesterday through craigslist. Someone was looking for a companion for her hen. The reason is I have come to the conclusion that I could do a better job of getting a productive flock that would fit in better with my preparedness goals. I love the different breeds but some of them are just resource suckers. Meaning eat more produce less. More on this subject in another blog.

The bathroom is coming along and I am happy with the progress. The man isn't. He wants it done now. He only gets two days off a week (and they aren't consecutive). He also has a real problem not having his bathroom. We have a powder room that would temporarily suffice for doing things like brushing teeth and drying hair but the only other showers are upstairs in the girls bath (and he doesn't want to go there) and up in the apartment over the garage which means going outside in his bathrobe. He doesn't want to do that either. So I think I need to get the shower ordered and ready to install and the pocket door too. The idea is for him to take a couple days off sandwiched around his normal days off. With four days off he should be able to get the door installed and the sheet rock installed over it and the shower with the doors installed over that and hopefully have the tile guy in to tile the two walls in the shower. He may have to use the girls shower a couple days but it wont kill him. Especially since they are usually gone by the time he needs it.

                     

 We do have another girl moving in this Thursday though. One of the kids has a friend that wants to stay with us until she and the oldest move out this fall. We will call her Em for this purpose. We love Em. She has been a friend for a long time and she is a great kid. Always helping out and jumping in to do things voluntarily. She went to a private college this year. It was her first year and she found out it was just too expensive.  She attended two quarters and is already 10 grand in debt because she had to take out a student loan to pay for her dorm, a requirement for first year students. Our oldest attended running start during her senior year of high school, attended the same junior college and lived at home her sophomore year and has a significant amount saved for this fall when she moves out. If she is accepted she will be attending the University of Washington her junior year and so far no debt. Em realizes that this is a better idea or she is going to have a killer student loan debt when she gets out of school. However she is already in debt and kind of behind the eight ball already. But living here over the next few months she can get some prerequisites out of the way and work somewhere so she can save up a little for next fall. Working and going to school full time is really hard.

So not only will the man need to use that shower but he has to do it with another girl living here. The problem is all in his head but we will just work around that. In the mean time I will be stripping the paint from the claw foot tub and looking for the shower.

Why be prepared? econ 101

Barton M. Biggs is a money manager running Traxis Partners, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund based in New York City. He formerly held the title of "chief global strategist" for Morgan Stanley and was with that firm for 30 years.His influence could be seen when, in 1996, some traders were surprised that India funds suddenly became popular. "Barton Biggs is there, having a look around," one trader said. "Do you need to know more?"


Biggs is also author of the 2008 book Wealth, War and Wisdom (358 pages; Wiley; January 2008; ISBN 978-0-470-22307-9). In this book, Biggs has a gloomy outlook for the economic future, and suggests that investors take survivalist measures, such as looking into "polar cities" as safe refuges for future survivors of global warming. In the book, Biggs recommends that his readers should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.” He goes so far as to recommend planning adaptation strategies now and setting up survival retreats: “Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”^[7]

I didn't write that. I copied it from Wikipedia. It can be found on numerous web sites including news sites and I included it because I thought it interesting (maybe a little scary) that a Wall Street-er would say it.  Although I don't think this will happen all at once I do think we are in for a "lifestyle correction" that will take place over time. How much time I don't know but given there is a learning curve to anything you need to learn the sooner you get to it the better.


 One of the biggest hurdles to being prepared is to know what it is you are preparing for. Whether it's peak oil, economic collapse, mother nature pitching a fit, or a pandemic.  I have to say it is pretty much impossible to convince anyone of something they don't want to believe. Until it happens.And I'm not saying the world is coming to an end in (pick a month)______ because that's kind of silly. What I am saying is change is inevitable. And being just a little bit prepared for that will make your life much easier and cost you nothing but a little time and fore thought. We have a tendency to believe that Kroger store will always be stocked and you will always be able to buy fuel (for car or home) but it hasn't always been that way and it hasn't been that long ago that it wasn't that way. We have been living in a sweet spot for enough years that our kids can't imagine things being different than it is right now. Being prepared also means knowing why something isn't working. What the circumstances are that lead up to it and the best way of coping with it......before it happens. The last post on this subject was about peak oil. Let's move on.

Economic collapse-For years we have been working up to what we call our current "economic recession". We have had them in the past starting with the first major US  panic of 1819 Followed by the  panic of 1837  and the panic of  1873 that triggered a severe international depression in the US and Europe. It was referred to as the great depression until the "Great Depression" of 1930's that we are more familiar with thanks to our exposure to relatives that actually lived through it. I suppose most of them are all old enough to be dead now so perhaps we will forget that hard won history and repeat it. The panic of 1873 is now referred to as the Long Depression.  That's not to say we hadn't experienced economic downturns before (in the late 1700's and early 1800's) but these were caused more from the Atlantic economy and foreign trade. (deep breath)

So what is different about it this time? Events leading up to it. Some that I wont even mention for fear of  this  becoming a book. But let's start with the end of the Gold Standard.  This was  a fairly workable system until Nixon decided to get rid of the gold standard and just print money. This is called fiat currency  and is the system used in the US today. It works as long as other countries have confidence in the country producing it and the government is a responsible one.  In 1971 Nixon(R) had a choice to declare bankruptcy and tell the world we didn't have the gold to back up the debt we had run up after Vietnam or get rid of the gold standard in the United States. Bankruptcy would have been the responsible thing to do but not politically expedient. That was the year I graduated from school and I remember how impossible it was to get any kind of job. (It was also pretty hard to get gas for a car too.) He chose the later telling the world the US was going off the gold standard and our currency would be the standard of exchange worldwide and anyone wanting to trade oil had to do it in US dollars. Our GDP was huge and our oil reserves well stocked making the US look like a good alternative to the gold standard. So the rest of the world went along with it. They had confidence that we could pay our debts even though we were living beyond our means.  At that time the government started printing money and the whole mess just started rolling downhill. When Nixon left office our debt was about 35% of the GDP. Ford(R) took office and nine months into his presidency US involvement in Vietnam ended and he resided over the weakest economy since the Great Depression. Jimmy Carter(D) took office in 1977 during a time of international  Stagflation which persisted through out his term.  Regan(R) took office in 1980. He advocated reducing tax rates (for the wealthy of course) and depending on a concept called trickle-down_economics leaving the people worse off than before. He is also known for deregulation. Something we are still paying for in that corporations and banks have little or no government over site leaving them to pretty much do as they wish. The CEO's like this. Perhaps the best way to understand how regulation and deregulation  works is to read this link. Then in March of 2006 congress voted to raise the limit on our debt instead of raising taxes (on the wealthy?) and spending less. Not only does this sound familiar, it sounds a lot like someone with a credit card that just maxed it out. So what do we do?  Well we simply got the credit limit raised. As a result in 2009 our debt was closer to 90% of the GDP. George Bush Sr. (R) took office in 1989 after a successful career in the Navy, graduating from Yale, becoming a successful business man, and making his fortune in the oil business. He inherited huge deficits left over from the Reagan era and managed to piss off most of the Republican party by doing the right thing and trying to reduce the deficit. Republicans wanted to reduce government spending and the Democrats wanted to raise taxes.  He lasted one term. Sound familiar? Bill Clinton(D) took office in 1993 and ran for two terms. He presided over the longest period of peace time economic expansion in American history. He worked with George Bush Sr. to pass NAFTA (which had been crafted during Bushes presidency) signing it into law during his term and was involved in Barack Obama's campaign.The congressional budget office reported budget surpluses for 1998, 1999, and 2000 during the last 3 years of Clinton's presidency. Despite his scandal he left office with the highest end of office approval rating of any president since world war II. Since leaving office he has been highly rated in public opinion polls of U.S. presidents.

Then we have George W. Bush (R). What can I say. A lot I guess but I would need to write pages and pages so it would be best if you just follow the link and read for yourself. All I can say is the same thing I said to my sister during his campaign. If this man walked into my business with his resume I would definitely file it in the round file before he got out the door. I don't need a cheerleader or a baseball player. And I certainly don't need someone skilled at bankrupting businesses. I could say "how he ever got elected is beyond me" but I have my suspicions about that too. Now this should get some of you fired up I'm sure.
Under GW we got a tax cut for the wealthy, GDP grew at average rate of 2.5% (considerably below average), poverty rate peaked at 12.7%, and the national debt increased 100% from 5.6 trillion in 2000 to 11.3 in 2008. By the end of his presidency unemployment climbed to 7.2% and kept going. In December 2007 the U.S. entered the longest post WWII recession which included a housing market "correction", sub prime mortgage crisis, soaring oil prices, and a declining dollar. To aid the situation Bush signed a $170 billion economic package intended to improve the economy. (Maybe that was suppose to be trickle down economics) Many economist and world governments determined that the situation became the worst financial crises since the Great Depression. In November 2008 over 500,000 jobs had been lost, the largest loss of jobs in 34 years. By the end of 2008 2.6 million US jobs had been lost. I could go on but what's the point. You get the idea.

January 20th 2009. Barack Obama(D) took office. If it had been me I would have run screaming in the other direction rather than inherit that mess. But he didn't. Unfortunately the American people were looking for Superman. He isn't. It will take a lot of work and time to climb out of this mess and it will take even longer since he is now bucking the republican head winds. The question here is will he last long enough to actually make a difference? Will he win this next election and be able to say full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. Let's get'er done? Well it took a while to get here and while 4 years isn't enough 8 years may at least put us back on track to get there. But what if it isn't. Are you prepared to ride it out? Are you independent enough to live on your own without the help of society basically? Do you own your home out right, have an independent source of income and a way to feed yourself?

What I am saying is learn to take care of yourself and work towards getting your community to come together to take care of each other. It hurts no one and makes you and those around you happier in their self sufficiency. The next couple post will be about peak water and food. Hopefully they wont be as long and maybe there will be some pictures? Stick with me here. We will eventually get to what we can or should do about it.