So long, fare well Auf Weidersehen, goodbye!

1 year ago today- larkspur and hollyhock, with a lone hosta

I see that it has been almost a month to the day since I last posted here. My friends Robbyn and Sveta have both come looking for me this past week. I'm sorry they had to seek me out, but it is nice to be missed!

I apologize to anyone who enjoyed reading this regularly. My new job, which is writing curricula, is terrific- I am loving it, but it drains my creative writing energy. Add to that the beginnings of the fruit season, (two weekends of picking and processing cherries, and then tonight I started processig the apricots) and you have a bad mix for keeping a blog.

I will be checking in sporadically, and I am sure as the job gets less frenetic, and as the harvest season wears down (November?) I will be able to blather on again on the blog. Untill then, check out No Impact Man and Riot for Austerity. Both blogs make me feel like a slacker, but they really make me think.

Until next time

Peace Out

Weekend Dog Blogging- The Slime Machines

It's been a while since I was able to do Weekend Dog Blogging, and while I was gone, Sweet Nicks discontinued it. But I have this lovely picture, so I figured, why not post. We spent last week in Missouri, visiting family, and Juniper had her first lengthy interaction with other dogs in a non-kennel environment. Here she is hanging out with the Slime Machines, AKA Beefy and Sequoia. Everyone had a good time, Juniper was a good pack member. Unfortunately, she stayed at the dog spa and got her bath BEFORE meeting these drool masters...

I tell you, walking in Bart's house is like wading in a river of dog- there's always one right in front of you and you have to just push on through with your thighs.

A Local Dinner for Mother's Day

Allium

Sunday was the jewel of the weekend- beautiful weather, pleasant activities and a yummy, 90% local dinner. The highpoint of the day, of course, was the phone call from my sons, who were spending the weekend together in St. Louis, attending something called Beer Fest. I'm told there was a lovely Blueberry beer served.

Here in PA there was no Beerfest. Instead we took the dog for a walk on our local Rails to Trails. Juniper was excited to be out in the woods, Chuck and I were excited to see a Baltimore Oriole. We checked on the progress of the wild black raspberry and wineberry bushes along the verge, with June in mind. I noticed how much wild garlic mustard was growing alongside the path as well. It was idyllic.

Later, we drove over the mountain through the orchards to visit a friend's farm. Such a peaceful spot, just a few miles outside of Gettysburg. We walked along the edge of her orchard to get a view of the pond; her horses frisked around in the pasture, keeping en eye on Juniper from a distance, just as she kept her eyes on them. It was so quiet there. I think of our area as rural, but the traffic noise from the interstate a mile or so away creates a constant, almost subliminal, drone.

She tells me that while they have been feeding the beef cattle on grain, next year they will make the change to grass finishing. She says they will raise two grass finished steer; I'm hoping it won't be much more trouble to make it three. I don't know yet if I will go to meet him...

And then back home for a local dinner- grilled pork steak, roasted asparagus, salad and for dessert, a rhubarb custard. Everything was local except the olive oil to lubricate the asparagus and the Girl Scout cookies used for the crust of the rhubarb custard.

It was a good day.

Change is in the air

Kwan Yin and the copper beech

A great change is underway at our house. As of May 1, I am a full time employee, something I haven't been since 1992. I have a different job, albeit in the same organization. While I am thrilled to be employed, excited about my new job, I am also mourning the end of my old job, one I loved beyond words, with people who were superb to work with.

I'm also worried about how the addition of 13 more hours a week at work will change the fundaments of our life. To eat the way we eat takes time; time to gather the ingredients, since we can't just run to the grocery store and pick up what we need, and time to cook, since the food we eat is minimally processed. Without a CSA, we are growing more of our food- will I be able to keep up with that? What about when harvest comes around? Will I be able to work all day, every day and still deal with bushels of peaches or tomatoes when I come home? Ripe fruits and vegetables won't wait around because I am weary, or until the weekend when there is time.

I'm lazy and I am afraid I will slide into the path of least resistance. And I am such a whiner!

Springiness

This 1s why I love Spring...And it's all in my backyard. Happy May Day.grape leaves- who ever imagined they were so pretty?
Lilac ; not purple, but lovely all the same
Dogwood
Viburnum- and does it ever smell wonderful~
Violets- one of my favorites- I trained Chuck and the kids to mow around them when in bloom
Bacchus and the grape- Chuck's god of wine

Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge, The Final Day

Baby grape leaves on the vine

I think I am going to write a new diet book; I'll call it Eat Local, Feel Better, Help the Earth, and Lose More than Weight. Too long a title? Yeah, well, maybe.


I don't actually know if I lost weight during my local eating week, but I feel as if I ate this way all the time, I would. Whether this is due to what I was eating this week, or to the pressure of reporting what I was eating to the world, I don't know.

We have been trying to eat as locally as possible for a year or so now, so I didn't expect to have any major revelations during our experiment. And, in fact, the focus of our meals is usually local. What I realized was that the extras usually weren't. My granola, for example- even though I make it myself, from ingredients purchased from the Mennonite store, I felt it had too many non-local ingredients to include it even as an exemption. Tortilla and potato chips come from the grocery store. (There are local chips around, but we don't like them as well.) Same thing with ice cream. Mayonnaise, mustard, catsup. And this is probably why I feel like the week was a slimming one- with the exception of the mustard, all of these foods are calorie dense, and for the most part, highly processed; things I shouldn't be eating anyway.

For our last day on the challenge, I tried something I have been wanting to do for a while- make my own tofu. I'll talk about the process more at another time, but I did it because I realized I had no idea where my tofu as made, how far it travelled, anything. Soybeans do grow in the field down the road from my house, but since they are a commodity, I have no idea if the ones I bought at my local bulk store grew here or in Missouri. We also toasted the end of our week with the MOST local item since the dandelion soup- Chuck's Devil Dog 50-50 Wine. Using our own Concord grapes, Chuck has made wine for the past 4 years. He thinks the 2006 vintage is the best- I think it surpasses Koolaid in sweetness. I generally pass it up.

The Menu:
Breakfast: The last of the cherry zucchini muffins. Thank goodness!
Lunch: Chuck had the last of the chicken corn soup, I had a peanutbutter whoopie pie bought at the Mennonite greenhouse when we purchased some pansies for the garden.
Dinner: Stir fried spinach, green onion and mushroom over brown rice with tofu
Snack: Yes, yogurt. With peaches. And Chuck had Devil Dog Wine.

Local Items:
Muffins already included in weekly total
Whoopie Pie- $0.79
Spinach: $0.50
Onion $0.50
Mushroom $0.50
Yogurt- $0.24
Peaches $0.25
Wine: Priceless. The grapevines came with the house, all we do is pick them and wash them. I guess there is a yeast cost, but it would be in the fractions of a cent.

Semi-Local:
Tofu: Also Priceless. OK, OK, $0.25 for the soy beans, ($1.00/pound, we used 1/4 pound) $0.10 for the solidifier ($9.95 for a quart bag full, we used 2 teaspoons)
Brown Rice: $0.25 ($0.55/pound)

Total: $7.88. Total for the week- $81.88 with Wednesday's lunch out, $58.25 without the lunch out. I'm pleased that we came in well under the $144.00. We ate pretty much the same way we always eat, I didn't find it too dull. I did find it hard to keep from looking in the freezer or the cupboard for things to toss into the soups or the stir-fries- I'm sort of a seat-of-the-pants cook.

Caveats: I came into this with a lot of preserved food from last summer. It's a lot of work, but worth it. There were days when I came home from work and thought if I never saw another peach or tomato I would die a happy woman, but it sure tastes good now.

Purchasing meat as whole animals does take an outlay of money at the time of purchase, but is very cost effective over all. And I like having everything I need here, so that at anytime I can say let's have "X" and go get it out of the freezer.

On the other hand, I do have to have 2 freezers- one for meat and one for vegetables and fruit. I had the equipment and expertise I needed- I have always canned fruits and dried things. I've made my own yogurt for years, off and on. I like the feeling of self sufficiency I get from knowing how to do stuff like that. It's the same reason I spin yarn and weave. I'm not going to clothe myself with my output, but I could if I had to.

Some might say it was easier because I do live in the country, sort of. I would have thought that, too, except I keep an eye on the local food available where my children live- Kansas City and St. Louis, and let me tell you, KC has WAY more opportunities to eat local than I do. Not only are there a lot of small farmers, but the artisan products in the city are more plentiful, too.

Devil Dog 50-50 label

Chuck enjoying his wine

Day 6 Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge

It was a tough day today in the real-life arena, and that bled a little bit over into the local eating thing too. Tomorrow is our final day; it will be nice to be released from the obligation to calculate costs, but I have learned a lot this week.

Tonight's dinner contains one of the "local-est" ingredients. Um, maybe I am over exaggerating there, but I bet I'm the only person in the challenge eating this tonight!

Years ago, when I was still in high school, the daughter of an old family friend was getting married. For whatever reason, there was going to be a goat roast to celebrate the wedding. My parents friend felt like it would be cheaper for him to buy the goats young and raise them up for the feast. When we arrived at the wedding there was indeed roast goat, but there were also two pet goats wandering around. When it came time to slaughter, come to find out it was easier to go buy two unknown goats than to slaughter Patsy and Daisy. I have always worried that if we tried raising meat animals we would end up the same way.

The goat we had for dinner tonight was one that didn't get sold at the 4-H auction last year.My friend, who raises meat goats, called to ask if we were interested in buying it.

I have bought goats from Sandy in the past. The first one we bought was very small. We took it with us on our trip home to visit our son in St. Louis and it fit nicely in our larger cooler. My son used to work with a number of recent immigrants from Bosnia, who tantalized him with tales of the deliciousness of roast goat. When I called him to let him know we were bringing a goat, he floored me by asking if I could get the head and bring it too. I was taken aback by the request. Turns out his friend, Patrick, the one getting an MFA in sculpture, had a hankering to make something out of animal bones. With great trepidation I asked Sandy if I could have the head; to my great surprise she said that many of her Muslim customers find the head to be a great delicacy, and of course I could have it. She would even show me how to roast it if I wanted. I passed on that, and called Bart to tell him the head was coming too. "Cool, can you get a bunch of heads?" was his reply. Yeah, like I am going to drive half way across the country with a cooler full of goat heads. "Well, you see, Officer, we are just taking them to my son so his friend can make a sculpture out of them..."

We roasted the little goat in a pan made for cooking a Thanksgiving turkey; stuffed with apples, onions and garlic, it was wonderful. The head went to Patrick's house, where he put it in the freezer section of the refrigerator WITHOUT telling his mother, (who actually owns the refrigerator) first. She was thrilled, as any mother would be.

This goat was a little larger; approximately 40 pounds dressed weight. We told the butcher that we wanted it left whole, thinking of that first tiny goat. We picked it up just before my son's wedding, when I was anxiously filling the freezer with muffins. Just in case I didn't have room for it in my freezer, I had asked a friend if we could keep the goat in her freezer until after the wedding, she agreed, adding "As long as there are no heads involved". I assured her there would be no heads.

Chuck and I went out to pick up the goat, armed with our large cooler. On the way I told him that I thought I might be getting to the point where I could raise my own meat animals without becoming too attached. He snorted.

Wrapped up in plastic, the goat was a little larger than I expected. Chuck went over to pick it up to put it in the cooler, and as he turned to walk towards me, I saw a goatish grin sticking out from the layers of plastic. Not only was there still a head on the goat, but the teeth had cut through the plastic and were grinning at me. At that moment I knew I wasn't yet ready to raise my own.

The goat, roughly the same size as our Labrador Retriever, did not fit in the cooler. When we got home, it didn't fit in the freezer either, but I hated to impose on my friend. We decided to butcher it ourselves. We laid it out on the kitchen table, and managed to cut it into 2 pieces- a front half and 2 back quarters. That did fit in the freezer. However, this past winter we bought a lamb, and when we took it to the butcher, we also took the goat parts and had him cut them into chops and roasts. Tonight we had a small roast, roughly the size of your two fists together.

The Menu:

Breakfast: Why, Yes! It is indeed the zucchini cherry muffin!
Lunch: Chile Relleno Casserole
Dinner: Goat flatbread sandwiches with spinach, green onion and cup cheese. (Cup cheese is apparently a Pennsylvania Dutch treat- it comes in a tub and is supposed to taste like brie. Let me tell you, this is some funky stuff! Ours came from Lancaster.)
Snack: that same yogurt and peaches (I've gotten so it is almost as satisfying as ice cream!)

Local Items:
Eggs: costed them yesterday
Anaheim chilies: costed them yesterday
Cheddar Cheese: costed it yesterday
Green onion: $0.25
goat: $4.00 (The goat cost, all told, $80.00 and weighed 40 pounds, this was about a 2 pound roast)

Cup cheese: $0.34 ($3.38 for the tub- believe me, we didn't use a lot!)

yogurt $0.24

Peaches $0.25

Semi-Local

flat bread: costed yesterday

Not local

Spinach: $0.29

Total: $5.13; 74.00 with Wednesday's lunch, $50.37 otherwise

Top picture is The goat . Bottom picture is the cup cheese- See what I mean about it being funky stuff? A really unfortunate color and texture...And you should SMELL it!