ecoyear

Sumset view from our deck

Sharon Astyk has been running a weekly series where she keeps track of all the things she does that help make her family independent from the commercial/mainstream food supply. This has inspired Susan Buhr to do the same, and several of Sharon's readers as well. After reading scary The Oil Drum articles last night such as "You.Will.Not.Be.Able.To.Get.Food.", I am inspired to keep a list of what I am doing too, as anything feels inadequate on its own, but when you add it all up, I want to think I am learning a few things about "food independence". Here are Sharon's categories - she hopes to accomplish something in each every week - and my accomplishments in the last month:

Planted: Tomatoes, winter squash, basil, beans, endive, parsley, scented geraniums

Harvested: Strawberries, peas, mint, parsley, sage

Preserved: Froze rhubarb and strawberries

Prepped: Bought a book on making a solar oven and using it (could save me some hours of slaving in a hot non-air conditioned kitchen - but it is another project, sigh...)

Stored/Managed reserves: moved the milk powder into the freezer; I just have been resisting storing food because I dislike preparing dry stored food. I am trying to keep a few jars of peanut butter around, and maybe wheat berries, corn for cornmeal, dried pasta imported from Italy, and extra quinoa. However, a focus on a local diet is difficult to reconcile with buying storable food, because that's just the sort of food that tends to spoil easily. Beans would be good, but we really don't like those much, and you do have to rotate through your stores regularly, or throw them out, which would be a shame. The solar cooker would at least allow me to cook the stored food in the sort of emergency that involves loss of electricity (and/or natural gas).

Cooked something new: garlic scapes, strawberry-rhubarb jam, nettle soup, carrot soup with carrot top broth (a little thin), ice cream, cream biscuits (far better than buttermilk, I am afraid...), turkey burgers... most of what I cook these days is a new experiment - yeah for cookbooks!

Worked on local food systems: I am planning in cooperation with Boulder Going Local some activites supporting Boulderites who would like to focus on a 100-mile or otherwise local diet in August. This includes daydreaming about a "local food" co-op, because one of the barriers is the shopping and driving around to farms to get food - also not very fossil fuel conscious. Talking about local food, I am still looking for a source of chicken meat more convenient than Eastern Plains Natural Food Co-op. There may not be one. Wisdom's Poultry are located 160 miles away. I wonder what it is about chickens that makes folks not want to raise them ("they are too much work, pretty dumb" is how one person I discussed this with put it...)

Reduced Waste: Finally have an outdoor composter; it rotates to make compost faster, it is cute (and small) enough not to become an issue for the HOA, I love it!

Learned a new skill: I made mozzarella cheese using citric acid and rennet from the New England Cheesemaking Company; outrageously easy and since a gallon of milk yields about 3/4 lb mozzarella you get a sense why cheese costs so much; I discovered it was not a good way to use "almost" spoiled milk, as the mozzarella then gets an "almost spoiled" aftertaste, but you could save money making your own bocconcini; Also, you can use the copious whey as you use buttermilk in baking recipes.