Planning the planting

I dug out the seed storage tonight for a little inventory. A few of the seeds that we have are getting a little old so will need to be replaced, but the bulk of the seed we have should be good to go. This year I'm doing something that I should have been doing all along... making a checklist of the seeds that I have and the plants I want to grow and will bring that with me when I go to buy my seed. I buy most of my seed through Mountain Valley Seeds. I get no support from them, so that's not why I mention them, (although I'm not opposed to it if they want to contact me...) I like to go through them because they are based out of SLC, so they are local, plus I am able to get much of my seed from local vendors or nursarys and save myself and the planet the shipping costs. Also, they do a really good job of marking what is hybrid and what is open pollenated or heirloom.

The plant list for this year looks like this:
broccoli,
broccoli romanesco,
brussels sprouts,
cabbage (red & green),
spinach,
carrots,
peas (shelling &sugar snap),
kohlrabi
green beans,
peppers:
green, red, yellow, jalapenos
tomatoes: roma, heartland,
hamson, hillbilly, amish, cherry
fennel
onions : green, yellow and red
shallots,
eggplant,
zucchini,
Charentais melons, butternut squash,
okra,
artichokes,
dry beans,
sweet potato,
celeriac,
kale (italian &curly),
cucumber,
tomatillos

herbs:
basil,
thyme,
parsley,
rosemary,
oregano,
cilantro,
hops,
tobacco,
chamomile,
echinacea,
mint,
peppermint
dill

It's ambitious for certain, but not really hugely more than we've grown before. There are a couple of new additions though worth mentioning, for instance tobacco which can be used as an organic pesticide, and hops for home beer making. (That will be covered in a forthcoming post.) Either way, after last years miserable failure, we are really going after it this year.

Anyone else getting started with their plant lists or garden planning yet? Planning any new trial plants this year?
Love to hear about it
P~

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The Most Local Meat

In a follow up to the last post that I put up, regarding my search for more sustainable and local meat sources I thought I'd share with you one of the most local sources of meat that I have access to. FISH!

Since just after the new year, our local reservoirs and lakes have been frozen over and ice fishing has been good. I grew up in Southern California, and access to fresh seafood was never an issue, but I really hate to buy seafood here in the Intermountain west, because anything that I get has to be trucked in and is never as fresh as it could be and also has a pretty significant carbon foot print. That isn't even taking into consideration the issues of overfishing of our oceans that really needs to be a concern of everyone.

With the lakes frozen and the ice fishing on, none of those things are a concern.

This reservoir is only a half hour drive from our house, and is close enough that within 1 hour I can be on the lake fishing. What more could I ask for? Well, except for maybe actually catching something that is... And I had a little of that luck too lately.

These little guys averaged 12-15 inches and were plentiful the last few times I've been up.

The funny thing, is that I know Trout are a members of the salmonid family, but in the winter it seems they really live up to their family name, look at how orange and salmon color they were.

AND, they were delicious too. No complaints here at all.
Anyone else been out on the ice or bringing in their own "wild" meat sources? I'd love to hear about it.
Take Care.
P~

I almost gave up...

Really, I was this close to it. I'd done my homework, diligently looked for alternative options and had come up short. All but for one option that I thought I'd already covered... bingo! Oh geez, sorry, I guess I didn't mention what the heck I was talking about, let me take you back a little ways in my thinking and this might make a little more sense.

Every year I take a look at my life and try to find the things that I think I really have a chanced at making a difference in with it. One year I decided too really focus on learning about and becoming more sustainable, another I focused on really getting a good yield from our garden and so on. Some years have been more successful than others, but all have enabled me to at least take a good look at how and why I am doing things the way I am. This year was no different, I just haven't had the chance to get online and put it down in writing for posterity.

The thing that I've decided on, or had decided on but wasn't sure was going to happen, was to finally put my money where my mouth is and actually make a concerted effort to consume primarily sustainable meat products. I'll get into the details more another time, but let me first finish what I was saying about almost not even being able to do it at all.

So, as I was saying, I had been looking for options to buying what is essentially factory meats, beef in particular, and had not had a lot of luck. Oh there were products available, but really they were pretty price prohibitive because you generally have to buy them by the quarter or the half of beef, which at $3.00 - $5.00/lb and two to four hundred pounds respectively, is quite an investment. I looked into a couple of local producers that I knew of, combed the web for others and talked to friends that I knew had ordered "good" grass-fed beef before. Still I came up short, and that's where we came in to this whole story - with me about ready to give up on the whole experiment before the first month was over.

If you've been reading this blog for very long at all then you've probably heard my proselytizing about how we can and will receive those things that we believe in and fully expect will come... well, here we go again. Just as I was about to give up on the whole thing, and I mean the day I had really gotten down about it, I had a friend of mine mention that he was in a conversation with a guy the day before who had mentioned that he bought locally raised grass-fed beef from a local butcher that was literally just around the corner from my house. I had talked with that same butcher last year when they opened the shop about this exact thing and had found them, quite honestly, to be what I thought of as very pro grain fed and not very open to the idea of organic local products. I decided that I at least had to check in with them and see if what I had heard was right and lucky day it was! As it turns out, there are a couple of other families that are also coming to the butcher for local grass-fed beef and he's able to get it in regularly on request. While we were in there he did have some very nice pieces of tenderloin available from the local provider so we went ahead and bought a few steaks.

This weekend we grilled them up and ate them with some homemade butternut squash ravioli and roasted fingerling potatoes and they were delicious! Our boys, who are sort of on the fence meat eaters, like to have steak occasionally but really can't stand fat; that wasn't a problem with this meat. The steaks were very tender with just enough marbling to give them good flavor, but not enough to make them fatty. I think we have a winner.

Oh, and by the way, the butternut squash raviolis... delicious! I'll have to get around to getting that recipe up online for ya'll.
Be well.
more to come soon.
P~

Still bottling

Late last spring I started with a little bit of SCOBY that I had started from a small piece of culture that had grown in a commercial bottle that a friend had given me.
That was the beginning of the kombucha start that I've had growing since. its grown into quite a "member" off the family, right up there with our sourdough start.
I've even had to separate it a couple of times.
It's not a drink that I find to be to many peoples taste, but my boys and I love it, especially when we make it with a little bit of grape juice like this batch was. Some batches have more fizz than others but it's always tasty.
Anyone else experimenting with kombucha? If so, what's your favorite way to make it?
P~

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Winter veggies.

These are some carrots and beets that I just harvested from the garden for christmas dinner. It really is possible to keep your carrots, beets and many of the other root vegetables in the ground well into the winter.
I hope your Christmas dinner is as wonderful as I'm looking forward to ours being.
P~

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Whoopee! Fianlly passed!!

Good news... That big Security plus test that I had mentioned needing to pass a number of times, well I passed it on Tuesday!

This was one of those things that just loomed over my head in such a way that I really couldn't justify doing anything else but study for it until it was completed. Well as I said, I finally passed it and I feel like I've been given my life back! I still have a couple of things that I need to wrap up work wise, but things look like they should be back to normal here at the beginning of the year.

On the health front, A~ and I have both been feeling a lot better as of late so our hopes are really a lot higher for next year and for being able to accomplish more of our goals. After last year anything would be better right?

Another thing new is that I decided to allow myself to finally join the ranks of the technology bound masses and got a phone. I finally feel like there's handheld devices that have gotten to the point where they are not just toys but are devices that can really allow a person to maximize their time and get some things done when they otherwise would not have been able to. To that end, and as a personal present to myself after a very very long year, I went out and got a new Android smart phone the other night and so far I love it! As a matter of fact, I'm writing this post on the phone as I lounge downstairs watching a movie. (One I've already seen of course, I refuse to turn into one of those guys that sits on their phones all the time while the world passes by.) In fact one of the reasons that I wanted to get this phone in particular was because it has a new google speech feature on it. I want to be able to talk into my phone when I have a thought or an idea so that it will save me time in writing or at least I can get the idea down on paper.

Anyway, that's what has been going on with me. Not too much, but things are starting to look up and I look forward to a new year soon where we can talk more often. Until then, I want to wish all who celebrate it a very merry Christmas, to all others I send you all many best wishes as the year winds down.

Be well all.
P~

No, I didn't get lost...

Every day, I see my own last post as I check in on my google Reader account and read all the blogs that I subscribe to and I realize that with the last post I put up haveing been over a month ago, and then I think "My last post was a month ago and I said I was going up hunting... Hope nobody thinks I fell off a cliff or was eaten by a bear or anything..."

Of course, by now, you've realized that I did not in fact fall off said cliff and am not inside a bear, but am in fact just a slacking slacker that has not made myself get online and write... well seemingly anyway.

I've mentioned deadlines and certification tests that I've been working on, and now I have the holidays to contend with as well so... I'm just kind of tied up for now and likely will be until after the new year.

I did want to drop in here, for those that check in from time to time and wish you all a very happy and blessed holiday season. I hope all is well with you and yours and, but for the occasional pop in post, will see you again in 2011.

Peace...
Paul~