Monday, May 17, 2010

Independence Days 5-17-2010

Oops, been almost a month since my last Independence Days update.

Planted: Carrots and Parsnips into the garden plot. Parsley, arugula, swiss chard and amaranth into pots.

Harvested: random bits of purslane and dandelions, mostly just tossed them into soups. Salads this week I'm thinking. :-) Nibbles of chives. Rhubarb!!! Mmmm..

Preserved: froze some rhubarb

Waste Not: Made some chicken broth with the carcass of a chicken that was cooked for lunch meat and soup meat. The chicken broth made a tasty soup a few days later. Tried to feed Rowen some of the nice chicken meat, but he wasn't interested, so it got further recycled into a white bean chili.
Dave's been baking bread like a champ!! He was trying to make some bread crumbs out of a leftover heel, but I threw it in the compost. :-P

Want not: Stocked up on some meat that went on sale for Memorial Day weekend. Not local, and not organic, but it's cheap and that will help us save up to bulk purchase some meat that is local and organic.
Purchased a table for our dining room from Goodwill for cheap. Got chairs for free from a neighbor. Yay for used!
Put up some curtains we got from the landlady.
Made a shirt for Rowen and a gift for a co-worker's new baby out of material on hand in my stash.
Went to dozens of garage sales during my town's annual day for such things, but came away with only a couple of toys for Rowen and a pair of jeans that are a little too tight for me. Still need a couch darn it!
Politely declined an offer from my neighbor to give me a gas powered mower. :-) It was a nice thought, I'm glad to be liked by the neighbors.

Build Community Food Systems: Been super busy on this front. New town, new county, new gardeners. I've met some gardeners from the town where I work, and I'm going to help maintain a garden for the 3rd graders at the elementary school over the summer. I'm donating some seeds for that effort as well.
I've talked with the local food shelter for the town where I live, about setting up a community garden and passing on veggies to them. Apparently there are liability issues to work out.
I've been trying to find farmers markets, but I'm having no luck. There is supposed to be one in my town, but for 2 weeks now it has failed to materialize. I think I'm to the point where I'm just going to have to plan to drive the 20-30 minutes to Sioux City to go to their market on Saturdays.

Eat the food: We've polished off 95% of the canned goods from last year. All that's left is some tomato soup that didn't turn out real good, and some salsa that turned out really bad and a little bit of corn and green beans. This last week saw the end of the tomatoes. Mmmm so good.

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