Put'n it up!

A big part, and to be honest it's a really big part, of the idea of a sub-urban farm or urban homestead or whatever you'd like to call it, is deciding what to do with all the stuff you've grown after you've grown it.

With the economy as it is, we'e been happy to be able to help out friends and neighbors with some extra produce from time to time and we've eaten a ton of really good fresh meals, but at some point, you just have to either put up or shut up. By put up I of course mean putting up food for later. We've done a good bit of that this year. We've dried, frozen, pickled, jellied, juiced and canned much more this year that in any year past. It is by no means enough to feed us all winter, but it helps me to justify to myself the effort, time and let's be honest here, money, that we put into our garden. I wish I'd had a chance to get good pictures of everthing we did, but alas the technical difficulties raised they're stupid heads more than once for me.
Here's some pickles, potatoes, plum jam and salsa that we put up one weekend. It was a busy one for sure.

I also tried my hand at making sour brined pickles this year. I can't take credit, as much as I'd like to, for the beautiful pickle cukes. I can't grow them to save my life! But I did find a local grower that had a great deal on these and they worked great.
After seasoning and brineing them and letting them ferment for three weeks they developed a great kosher dill sour pickle taste. I really really like them. This will be a definite do again project.
This year we also tried our hand at dried tomatoes. Believe me, we have much more than this. After they're dried we can re-hydrate them in a little basamic vinager and then store in the fridge in some olive oil. Very very good!
And of course we canned tomatoes. These are some of our chopped tom's. We also have done whole romas, tomato sauce and even tried ketchup.

Slowly but surely we're building a good food storage in the basement. It would be easier to freeze a lot of stuff, but that won't help me if the power goes out.

There's still more to go, but soon these jars will be regular guests on our dinner table.

Few things taste better than something you planted from seed, picked at the peak of ripeness with your own hands and put up for later.

It's a good life, eh?
Till next time.
P~

It's a wonderful life...now live it!

I've seen this entry on a couple of the blogs I read, and thought it was pretty interesting. There are a few things that i think I'd add to it, but it's a pretty good list if you ask me.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (Not really at sea, but out in the Pacific sitting on a surfboard...pretty close I'd say!)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language I taught myself a little arabic before my second deployment there.)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book - One Day!!!
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible - Working on it...
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake - ugh...I put my foot in...That's close enough for me...it stinks!!
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Now, if I'm counting right, I've done 60 of these 99 things. Not too darn shabby I'd say. A lot of them I have to give credit to my parents for. They made it a point to make sure that my sister and I were able to get out and see the world.

I think that bigger point of looking at a list like this is that we really have a lot of opportunities in this life. Take every chance you can to embrace them fully.
Have a great weekend.
P~

Quote of the day...& maybe a little hope.

Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
Charles F. Kettering (1876 - 1958)

It's been so long since I last posted a quote of the day, when I found this I had to put it up. It's a pretty simple thing isn't it? If you can imagine it, you can make it so. The only limit is what we can imagine. So what's the big deal about it?

I've found myself thinking a lot lately about the state of things around me and in our world. I mean of course I have right, the economy is tanking, politics has become little more than a dog and pony show and we face things like peak oil, GMO foods etc. etc. Of course I've been thinking about it; I know you have too. So think about what you imagine for the future. Think about the first thoughts that come to your mind. What is it? Do you picture a world of peace and prosperity? Healthy cities with a renewed connection to community and the land? New economies spurred to growth through the joining of necessity, creativity and common sense oversight? Maybe you do, I try to. However, more often than not lately, I find myself imagining a world with more wars over energy or to prop up a staggering economy, unhealthy cities where everyone looks out for themselves and worries about the neighbor cheating them, and a slowly fizzling economy struggling to hold onto it's once top place on the world stage like a too-old prom queen who refuses to grow up.

My point is if we can only imagine the worst, then that is in effect the limit of our hope for the future. How do you get somewhere you can't even imagine exists? But what if we imagine the former? Peace, community, prosperity; couldn't we make them real things? I'm tired of imagining the worst. I want more for my family, I want more for my city and I want more for myself. I want to see these things come to fruition. I will imagine the best for the world and I'll do my part when I can to nudge it on it's way. I hope you'll look at your imaginations of the future and see how you've allowed yourself to dream of the days to come. Picture the change you want to see. Believe that the change will come and expect it any day.

We owe it to ourselves.
Namaste
P~

Content.

I have to, from time to time, put down for the record the way that I am feeling at a particular point. If for no other reason than because not only is the purpose of this blog to share information and ideas about a different way of living, it's also a place for me to put down how I feel about life and where I stand in it.

This evening, after another long weekend getting things done around the house, experimenting with new things, playing games with my kids and working shoulder to shoulder with my wife to preserve food for our future, I felt content. As I lay down tonight, tired and a little sore, I lay next to the love of my life. Our kids sleep soundly in the next room after a good weekend of playing and working to help around the house. Our freezer is filling, as is the pantry, and our garden is yielding its end of-the-summer harvests while its fall growth begins. I have a good job that, while it may not be my life's dream, is stable and with people I truly like to be around. I am, in a word, content.

As I've said before, the choices that A~ and I have made to change the way we go through life, have been made to be simple, not necessarily easy. But that said, it consistently amazes me how happy I can be, even working harder than most in our neighborhood, by doing these simple things. I guess it's the less is more thing? Do you get this feeling too? Do you feel content, if not fulfilled? Do your aches bug you a little less because you know they are for a greater purpose? I hope so. If I can give one piece of advice it would be to do the things that make you feel comfortable, content, in tune with your world. I think there's a lot to be found in that.
Namaste All
P~

simple...not easy

This weekend we did a lot of work around the house. Cleaning out the garage, pulling weeds, double digging beds, harvesting and canning spaghetti sauce, pickles and beets and making more progress toward our garden expansion goals for next year. It wears you out some days you know.

As I was working the garden beds this evening I was thinking to myself that this decision that A~ and I made last year to simplify our life together; to take more ownership of our food supply and to live a little lighter is a complex one. To say it plainly, it's called "simple living"...not "easy living". Oh we could just go about our way like everyone , maybe just have a little kitchen garden for some fresh tomatoes and peppers, you know, a hobby garden. But we chose to go big. Last year we headed off down a path that I don't think we really know where it ends and is a hard one to follow. We do, however, believe that it is what will be best for us and our family in the long run. Are we 100% in all of our goals? No. Are we improving every month? Yes.

I see around us, both in the neighborhood, and in the online communities, a surge in interest in this way of living. I want to make sure that, amidst pretty pictures of garden harvests and homemade goods, I give a realistic perspective on this stuff. It's a lot of hard work. There are times when we're tired or have an ache, or really just aren't motivated to get out and do what needs to be done. Plenty too are the times when we, or more specifically I, have to talk myself into completing the project I'm in the middle of because I'm just tired. This isn't our living, that takes the first half of the day. This is extra.

The rewards are plentiful though and are what really makes it all worth it. The surprise of gathering in fresh eggs everyday, taking our "garden walk" together every night after dinner or watching our boys learn responsibility and work ethic through caring for our animals and working in the yard. A~ and I enjoy exploring this journey together and learning what we can do and produce on our own and I think we're constantly surprised at just how independent we really can be. So be realistic if your thinking about taking these challenges on, but be optimistic too. It can be done, it can be enjoyed, but it will take effort and a measure of dedication.

Good luck and Grow On!

Independence Day Garden Love

It's Independence day here in the U.S. and we have, by in large, evolved to a point where we call it the 4th of July, but it is much more. The 4th of July is a date, a marker, not an event. Today is Independence day. On this day in 1776 the Second continental congress of the colonies of America adopted the document that is known as our Declaration of Independence. It was a revolutionary action. It declared to the world that the people of the colonies were prepared to "dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another". They also declared that "when a long train of abuses and usurpation's, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism" "...it is their right, it is their duty..." to throw it off.

Aren't we slowly being reduced to reliance on the "despotic" (read: single authority of either an individual or tightly knit group,) system of industrial food? Where is our declaration of Independence? Is it in the books we read? Perhaps to a degree. Is it in the things we talk about, discuss or espouse? Again, to a certain degree, but not completely. I think the greatest declaration of our Independence is one that can only come from out labors and our actions. Let us be judged by our fruits so to speak.

Beets, Kohlrabi, Carrots, Collard Greens and Potatoes from the garden.

Here is my declaration of Independence. It may not be as loud as others cry, but it grows every year. I declare that I will challenge the norm, take back my freedom and learn from my ancestors. Farmer ~D of the "Path to Freedom" has said many times to the effect that the greatest revolution we can conduct is to grow our own food. I agree.

It's work, sure, but a labor of love I would say. Every year it grows, and every year my declaration is louder. My wife is my partner, and more and more she begins to get into the dirt more with me. I think this year the garden had a little of our love rub off on it. Don't believe? check this out. If this isn't a sure sign of a little garden love, I don't know what is.

For those of you in the U.S. I encourage you to read the Declaration of Independence's if you haven't recently. For that matter, I guess I would encourage any lover of Freedom to take a minute to read it. Happy Independence day folks, I hope it was a great one for you. If your not from the U.S., well, happy Independence day to you anyway.
Till tomorrow.
P~

Plan your NY times no Knead Bread

So maybe it's just me, but every time I decide I want to make some of the NY times no-knead bread, I have to try to count ahead and figure out exactly what time I will need to turn it out to rest, and then put it in the oven to bake. So what's a hopeless geek to do?
You make yourself a one look chart to tell you what time to turn it out, and when (approx.) that it will be done baking. Click to enlarge and you'll see on the left column a listing of start times. This would of course be the time that you mix the flour water and yeast together, cover and set aside for a long period.

The next three colums are broken into two times each. The left side is the time, after either 15, 16, 17, or 18 hours (depends on temperature and preference) that you will turn it out and prepare to bake it. This means letting it rest for approx 2 hrs. Then you bake it for nearly an hour so I added the right side to show you what time it could be done cooking.

I know it's a bit anal, but I like to be able to think about when I want to have the bread and know when I need to get started, or vice versa, so Ifigured there must be others. If your inclined, feel free to copy, print or link to this post for others to use. Consider it my gift to you. Aren't I generous? LOL.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

P~

Bags-O-Flour and food storage

I posted a while back about Food Storage. It's something that is very important to us. We are not yet to a point where we could go without commercial stores, but we are moving that direction. I'm not talking about being free of them for everyday needs, although we are certainly reducing our dependence on them, I'm talking instead about getting to a point where if there were a catastrophe, or food shortage, or monumental rise in food costs for a prolonged period we would be less impacted than we would if we were like every "normal" family out there. I don't want to scare anyone, and honestly I'm not scared myself, but I am cautiously pessimistic. That is to say I don't have enough faith in the current economy and global stability to not hedge my bets.

One of the primary things that goes hand in hand with having food storage is eating it. If you store a basement full of whole wheat, beans, rice, oats, etc. but you live daily on wonder bread, take-out and Big Gulps, your setting yourself up for failure in my opinion. We eat a lot of the foods that we store on or in our regular diet. Beans and rice are regular dishes around our house and many of the other foods like oats, flour, sugar and the like are of course regular additions to almost everything. We spent a little time with a borrowed wheat grinder this weekend grinding about 40 lbs of whole wheat flour that A~ will be starting to incorporate more into our diet as well. We placed it into 10 one-gallon zip lock bags and are going to store it in the chest freezer for later use. This is not the optimal way to use your flour just for the record. It will have some minor nutritive loss from sitting ground rather that grinding fresh, but it will be minor, and since we don't yet have our own grinder, we are at the mercy of the kindness of our neighbor.

Another component to this food storage formula will be a our 100ft diet. That's right, the garden! What better activity can we all incorporate in our homes than some sort of freedom garden. Grow things that you know your family will eat through the year, and preserve what you can for later. Try a couple of new plants too, but in limited quantities. Biodiversity is a necessity in a healthy garden, but you don't want to take up a lot of your growing space with something that you may not like. Particularly if your on a small suburban lot such as ours. Next year you can expand if you like it enough.

I began this post with a little bit of doom and gloom; a necessity, I thought, to make my point. I hope you get the point that yeah there may be some instability in the world, and yeah there's a good chance it'll get worse before it gets better. But this blog isn't about the bad things that might happen, it's about the possibilities that we CAN make happen. It's about making the possibilities...Realities. They won't happen overnight, but they will come if we decide that they will, and truly believe in them. One thing is certain though. Do nothing, and you will get exactly that in return.

Be well all. Tomorrow should be a very good post for you chicken lovers out there. Ooooo... the suspense...Till then.

P~

Food Storage guide. - A fairly comprehensive guide to starting a family food storage program.

Canning and Compost

Came home today and my beautiful wife had been prepping cuc's, beans and the fixings for what she called "chow chow"; I later learned that chow chow is a kind of relish with green peppers, red peppers, cabbage, and onions. We cut, prepped and canned until the kids had gone to sleep.
Total for tonight:

• 3 quarts of pickles
• 4 pints of pickled beans
• 1 Quart and 1/2 pint of chow chow
• 1 Quart and 1 pint of salsa.

Everything that we canned tonight came from our local farmers or from our garden. It's not going to keep us over the winter, but more will come for sure.

P.S. I tried some of the chow chow, and it's delicious. I can only describe it as tasting similar to bread and butter pickles, but slightly different with a little spice.

We lost our TV

No , not really; but we did take it out of the bedroom. We decided to try "living" without one in the bedroom. I know a lot of you may think that this is just obsurd. Not the idea that we are taking it out, but rather the fact that we had one in there in the first place. Of course a lot of you probably have one and think we are nuts for taking it out, who knows? I have been slowly trying to wean myself off the tube for a while now; I always feel like there is something I didn't get done at the end of the day, I have a lot of reading that I am trying to get through for instance. Thats not even counting the blogs that I haven't had a minute to catch up on. At any rate, I got the wife to concede for a short period to give it a go. She loves to have the noise in the room when she goes to sleep, and I guess my clattering away on the keyboard isn't enough. It's been nice the last couple of nights to get into bed and get to focus on something other than the news, or some re-run, Although I will admit that I miss the documentaries. We love documentaries and all the best ones seem to come on late at night, almost tempting you into insomnia. This is just one little way to try to simplify life a little. we'll see how it goes.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you have tv's in your rooms? Lurkers, you chime in too OK. You don't have to leave your name, I'm just curious as to where I stand.
Thanks.
P~

Living Deliberately

I was led the other day by the hands of inspiration. A little deep huh? Don't you sometimes feel like the stars align and you know that you are supposed to do something? I do. For whatever reason, the other day I was struck with the idea of digging up and reading by copy of Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I suppose that it was a culmination of a lot of things. As I began making incremental changes in the way that I live and what I want to focus my energies on, I have become more and more in tune with the choices that I make, and perhaps more to the point the choices that I don't make. The thing that brings me to Thoreau is a specific idea I took from it nearly 20 years ago when I first read it; an idea that I seem to just now be implementing, the idea that we could live deliberately.

What so I mean by this? Don't I get up deliberately? don't I choose what to wear? I make the choice to buy what I buy. Do we? To a certain degree of course we do. But there is, I believe a certain portion of our day that we just run on autopilot. How often do we just pick up something quick for lunch because we didn't think to make lunch the night before? Or perhaps we make two or three trips to the same store over a weekend because we just jump in the car and run out real quick when we need something? I know I do these things all the time. When I say we can live deliberately I think the biggest point that I want to make is that we are the only ones that can plan and live our lives on purpose. As I have begun to focus more and more on my choices and my actions in life, I notice more and more the times that I am not making conscious decisions. It takes time, and in a lot of ways slows me down. But you know what? it's nice to know when I do make a decision that I am making it not my reflex. Whenever I walk into the kitchen I flick on the light, even in the middle of the day, that's a relex. When I realize it and turn it back off, I am living deliberately. When I lay down at night and flick on the television, that's a reflex. When I turn it back off in favor of reading or writing, I am living deliberately.

I guess what I am really getting at is that although I am a long way from say, "No Impact Man", I can make a difference everyday by living deliberately and making choices. I can choose to eat a healthier diet, I can choose to ride my bike to work, I can choose to play a game of chess with my son rather than veg out to another cartoon with him. In short, I can choose to be the power that directs my life rather than simply floating along the river of life and enjoying the view. It will be a long course I think, but so far, it's been interesting.
I'd love to hear your opinions on this, and maybe some examples that you've seen in your life of the relex-vs-deliberate paradox.

A couple of quotes from Walden to round out the entry, if you've never read it, don't delay, go to the library and get one today. Or read some of it here.

•When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left.
~The Economy (ch.1), Walden

•I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
~Where I lived and what I lived for (ch.2), Walden