30 days of beauty, day 10: independence

(See the photo on the wall? That's me, brushing my teeth at a year and a half.)

30 days of beauty, day 9: green

The yard looks very brown right now.
But take a closer look, and you can see it emerging:
green.


daffodils


sorrel


snowdrops, ready to open

The beauty is there. Some days, it's just very hard to find.

Independence Days challenge begins again

It's time again for Sharon's Independence Days Challenge. It's my third year participating in this challenge, which is a reminder to do a little something each day towards food "independence." Actually, it was just my own laziness that made me stop posting weekly updates last year; this is really something that can be done year round. I love this challenge, because it reminds me that storing food doesn't have to be some big huge overwhelming task; you can do a little here and there and still end up with a pretty impressive pantry.

Generally, I like to post on Mondays, because I'm most productive on the weekends. However, this Monday was lost to sickness, so I'll start now and get on a regular schedule next week. (Thank you for all your well-wishing comments. I think we're well on the way toward health now.)

Sharon's outlined 7 categories for the challenge. In the spirit of don't-beat-yourself-up, I will post only on the ones I've done. So, here's the beginning of what I hope will be our best year yet:

1. Plant something: Only in my head so far, but I did order many many things to plant! I've already posted about the seeds, and I'll post soon about the bushes and plants I've ordered.

2. Harvest something: What feels like a bounty of eggs, now that the chickens are laying regularly again. And sap! I got a late start tapping the trees this year. But instead of the two trees we've done in the past, I've got 6 trees "on tap" right now, and as soon as I can get my hands on some more buckets, I think I'll add a few more.

3. Preserve something: 1 1/4 qts. maple syrup, the best we've made yet (why is it yummier this time?)

6. Build community food systems: As always, I've got the kids in my early childhood program involved in the process. This week, their buckets of sand and dirt have been "sap" and "syrup." I love seeing through their play how they've internalized the idea of local food. And their parents are curious about the syrup process, too; perhaps I can convince a few of them to tap their trees.

7. Eat the food: We celebrated the arrival of syrup season with a 4-year-old's recipe suggestion: hot maple-syrup milk to warm up after a morning spent outdoors. Perfect. And I've been celebrating the return of my favorite daily treat: maple-sweetened coffee (started this two years ago as a way to make my morning coffee more local and found I far preferred it to white sugar.) Meanwhile, we're eating end-of-winter food-storage meals. We ate the last squash this week, are down to only a few carrots and onions, and so only potatoes remain as "fresh" produce. We've eaten a ton of dried fruit. Today's lunch was a delicious corn chowder made with dried corn and frozen corn stock, frozen green beans, and dried peaches.

What are you doing? Will you join Sharon's challenge this year?

30 days of beauty, day 8: scenes from an "urban homestead"

Ok, so I don't really think we're quite deserving of that term, yet.
But I think we're well on our way.






(The sap you see boiling was canned today: a little more than a quart, so far.)

Back to regular posting soon; we're battling a nasty bug here. This time in the spring-y weather yesterday helped us on our path to wellness.

Seeds (shhh...don't tell!)

(our backyard, after a recent snowstorm)

We love our yard. We bought our house in part because its 1/3 acre lot seemed both more expansive and more private than most town lots because it was surrounded by big old trees. Over the years, our neighbors have removed many of the trees (I mourned each loss). But we still have just about the shadiest yard around. Perfect for me, who likes to hide from the sun in the summer. Not so perfect for vegetables.

So we haven't done much vegetable gardening. Some volunteer squash in the compost heap. A few measly peas here and there. A couple cherry tomatoes. But never a whole vegetable garden.

Until this year. We've decided to do a bit of guerrilla gardening. There's an abandoned house near us. It's city property, neglected for years. Most importantly, it's got more sun than we do. This year, a raised garden bed or two might appear in its yard. Who will care? If someone does, we're just out a few seeds and some labor. But I bet they won't. And then we might actually be able to grow some veggies.

We spent this afternoon dreaming over seed catalogs. Headed our way are:
Boston Marrow Squash
Double Yield Cucumber
Blondkopfchen, Moonglow, and Martino's Roma Tomatoes
Grandpa Admire's Lettuce
Green Arrow Peas
Chioggia Beets
Light Red Kidney Beans
Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans
Golden Chard
Straight Eight Cucumber.

Aren't they great names? I swear, I could choose plants for their names alone (I didn't though--not entirely, anyway!--we chose organic, heirloom, and productive).

I also know of a green space that might suddenly sprout some elderberries this year...

Kaplink, kaplank, kaplunk!

In the summer, "kaplink, kaplank, kaplunk" means blueberries. But today, those are the words that came to my mind when we finally did this:






(Gee...don't see anything yet? Perhaps that has something to do with the misplaced lid. Oops.)


(That's better).

30 days of beauty: day 7

Please excuse my spotty posting lately. I went from being sick to taking care of my sick family. There were a few bright spots today, in the midst of it all:

There's evidence of spring on the edges of my yard (though most of it is a swamp of snow on top of slush on top of puddles on top of deep mud):


And I was able to get to my third crochet class tonight. It's just begun, but I love how this looks already:



(it's the Adirondack Babie Crocheted Soaker, found here on Ravelry.)