Independence Days challenge: enjoying the last of the strawberries

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. A few black-cap raspberries. A couple peas.
And this is why I need a farm share! Here's one day's "harvest" from my yard:

Now, granted, this was unusually small (and I could have added some greens, but it was farm pick-up day, so they were certainly not needed). But we don't get a whole lot more even on good days! Still working on that. In the meantime, our "harvest" comes mostly from local farms. At our CSA this week, we picked the last of the peas (not nearly as many as I'd have liked to, as we were on toddler-at-the-end-of-the-day time). And we returned to the berry farm and picked 6 more quarts (would have liked to get more, but the pickins were slim this week). While there, we also gathered some red clover growing in the blueberry-field paths.

3. Preserve something:
Dried 1 pt. red clover and 1 1/2 pts. strawberries. Froze 1/2 pint garlic scape pesto, 1 1/2 qts. veggie stock, and 4 pints snap peas.

4. Waste not:
I seem to always skip this section, because we don't do anything noteworthy, just what's become habit. But maybe it's worth mentioning some of it anyway. What comes quickly to mind: all kitchen scraps go to the chickens; everything we can is recycled (not much, as I try to limit purchases, packaging, plastic, etc.); glass containers are re-used for storage of dry foods and leftovers; kids' wading-pool water is emptied with kid-sized watering cans to water the gardens; "craft supplies" lining the studio shelves are actually beautiful stuff saved from the trash; all laundry is line dried; we use hankies, cloth napkins, rags, cloth pads, and cloth diapers rather than disposables... That's some of it, anyway. I think we do pretty well with this.

5. Preparation and storage:
Did some tag-sale and thrift-store shopping this week and found a few basics: cotton sheets, a brand-new pair of shoes for Lucy when she's bigger, a muffin tin to replace my worn-out one (the old one went outside for the kids' mudpie play).

7. Eat the food:
The kids ate strawberry "pops" for snacks this week (the biggest strawberries, stuck on a stick and frozen), and strawberry-spinach smoothies. We ate lots of coleslaw, salads, and rice with stir-fries (mostly greens). And more radish-butter sandwiches on yummy local bread. Oh, and a strawberry cuppa-cuppa-cuppa. We've pretty much been eating strawberries for every meal.

Because something is better than nothing

Since the day she blogged about it back in August, I've been meaning to make Soulemama's handkerchief bag. I loved what she said about crafting utilitarian objects and making ordinary things just a bit nicer. And it made me see a way to use all those vintage handkerchiefs I'd collected "just because." Really, they've only every dabbed a tear here and there or cleaned the rain off my glasses; I keep one in my purse because they're pretty, but I don't use them, because I'm a bit squeamish about the idea of blowing my nose on a hankie and then using it again. A soggy mass in my purse? No thanks. But hankie use at home, now that I can see. Use it, toss it in the laundry. We use a crazy number of tissues here (6 kids every day, bringing germs from all their houses, equals a lot of runny noses!). I buy the environmentally horrible kind--it's one of my hypocritical shopping habits--because they're so much kinder on the nose. But oh, boy, do they pile up! I'd guess they're most of our trash. And the dust they create! Seems every surface is covered with white powdery dust. So, the handkerchief bag seemed like it would solve many problems at once, as well as simply being pretty!

But it got added to that list of things I want to make but never get to. And the hankies sat in a closet, unused. And the tissues kept piling up. Now really, how dumb is that? Don't do it, because you can't do it oh-so-bloggy-beautifully? One day, disgusted with myself, I just grabbed an old rice bag, stuffed in the hankies, and hung it on the doorknob. Done. I still plan to make the beautiful one, one of these days. But now I'm not waiting to do it until I can do it perfectly.

I'd also planned to add to my collection at tag sales this summer. But why wait, when I have way-too-many baby washcloths in the house? The extras are in there, too, and they're just as soft on the nose as the decadent tissues. And there are also some super-soft new hankies that were a gift from a friend.

The tissues aren't gone, of course. We're using the hankie bag just for the family; the kids and other visitors get tissues. But we're using far less. And isn't that better than doing nothing?

What have you been waiting to do until you could do it "right"? Is there a good-enough way to get started now?
...
(We've been outside this weekend, of course. Forgot the camera each time! Will resume Great Outdoor Challenge photos tomorrow.)

30 days of beauty, day 15: little things

Many little beautiful things this weekend:

The first tag sale of the season:


Candlelit coffee and a long chat with a good friend, during "earth hour":


My baby's first pigtails, for a birthday party today:

(Thanks, Tim, for taking this one!)

Challenge updates: first days of spring

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge. I've decided to combine these Monday posts with updates for the Growing Challenge.


1. Plant something: Golden Chard, Green Arrow Peas, Chioggia Beets. (From seed, so these apply to the Growing Challenge, too.)

2. Harvest something: Eggs. Maple sap.

3. Preserve something: 3 quarts maple syrup.

4. Waste not: I made 2 new pairs of longies and a dress from felted wool sweaters this week. (Need to blog those soon; it's almost too warm to wear them!)

5. Preparation and storage: I spent a lot of time cleaning up the yard and gardens this week (and obsessively checking to see if anything is coming up yet). I began digging out the (still mostly frozen) compost, and used it to replenish planting boxes. I also added another bottle of water to storage (am slowly working on this, as we empty suitably-sized glass bottles).

6. Build community food systems: We attended a fundraiser for the Survival Center and donated more than we'd expected we would.

7. Eat the food: Oh, my gosh! In the midst of this week's lovely spring weather, I gave myself the most delicious welcome-spring treat--Strawberry Lemonade from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It was perfect!! We almost missed strawberry season last year, and picked very few. I'm so glad we used some of them for this! We've been eating a TON of dried fruit this week, and I made a pretty good cream-of-broccoli soup using frozen broccoli. And I've done a good bit of baking (tried a new quick bread recipe which I liked a lot: "Whole Wheat Muffins" from The Tassajara Bread Book, using crabapple jelly as the sweetner).

Who's the weirdo with the dishes in her purse?

Here's another one of the gifts I made for Christmas (well, made and bought).



This was a gift for a friend who's been inspired to make some green changes in her life: a zipper pouch filled with stainless steel straws and bamboo sporks, to help her family avoid plastic while eating out.

When I was in college, I carried my mug with me everywhere, clipped to my backpack (then, a new idea). I'm embarrassed to admit that for a while, I stopped doing that, and went back to buying disposable cups with my drinks. But at some point, I wised back up and started using a mug again for my coffee and a Kleen Kanteen for water. Then a while back, I was reading "No Impact Man" and he inspired me to start carrying a "weirdo cloth" in my purse (a bandana that replaced disposable napkins). Soon after that, I found bamboo sporks in a local store, and my purse became a definite weirdo zone, but my disposables consumption went way down (and by the way, those sporks are the perfect tool for feeding a baby off your restaurant plate).

This friend loves straws, so she inspired me to seek out non-disposable straws. I loved the glass ones I found, but went with stainless for a lighter load (my purse is getting pretty crowded, now! Oh, yeah--I bought straws for us while I was at it).

I thought I could wing making the pouch, but was thwarted by the zipper once again (I don't think I really have a zipper foot for my machine, and I didn't know where to put the zipper pull while I sewed, so it's a kind of a mess). Don't you know, the next day my Google reader fed me the perfect tutorial (thank you Noodlehead!), so now I know how to make a decent pouch, and I'll have to make her a new one asap.