Aaaand we’re back. November 13, 2009

I am amazed that after such a long lapse, my blog stats are still decent. Who are you people, and why do you keep coming back?

Things have been pretty busy work-wise since we got back from the Feast. This is peak farm trip season for us, so I spent 5 days driving out to Lexington to Fahrmeier Farms. If you’re in KC and looking for a cool place to hang out (or buy some fantastic local veg), this is it. Winery, MU games, the whole deal.

We’re looking into applying for another grant to fund a similar pre-K program called Early Sprouts. It has more of a gardening component and allows the pre-Ks to experience six target vegetables with all of their senses before tasting it. There’s cooking in the classroom, plus sending ingredients home so the parents get involved, too. It’s a very cool program. I hope we get the funding.

I’ve applied to present at a conference in Alabama in April. Plus there’s the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in May in Detroit, and I definitely want to go to that. Hopefully I can have a poster. And I’m also presenting at school health conference at the Lake in December. I’m working on trying to develop a presentation that doesn’t suck.

Our grant funding ends at the end of this academic school year, so we’re exploring how we can integrate my program into our existing statewide programs. There are still a lot of questions up in the air, and I don’t know how it’s all going to turn out. Hopefully for the best.

I’m very interested in developing some actually functional Spanish-speaking skills. I took three semesters of Spanish at Queen’s in undergrad, but it’s been a long time. In a couple weeks I’m going to be starting a Community Spanish course at our local career center. I’m looking forward to that. It’s a bonus that I get to do it on work time. I think having Spanish skills would be a huge career asset.

The garden has been put to rest for the season, but I did plant garlic. We had our first frost on our predicted first freeze date of October 17, which I thought was fairly coincidental. After that, though, the temperatures warmed up to be quite lovely and now I have some top growth poking out of the soil. That’s not supposed to happen until spring, so I hope it doesn’t affect next season’s garlic crop.

I did also build a small outdoor compost pile, using Eliot Coleman’s method of using straw bales for the walls of the pile. That meant that I got to buy overpriced straw at our local hardware store, which made me feel very farmy.

Speaking of composting, I also recently ordered another pound of red wigglers for our vermicomposting system. The half pound I purchased originally just wasn’t enough to keep up with all of the scraps we have. We do have some great-looking castings, though, so I’m looking forward to using those on the garden in the spring. Since I have a 5-tray vertical migration bin, I’m hoping to just use two trays at a time and alternate feeding the two trays.

I think, though, that either the delivery man didn’t knock on our door, or we didn’t see the worm box on our porch when we got home last night. That means that the worms sat out on our front porch all night. I didn’t find them until this morning. I don’t think it got too cold last night; it was 46 when I checked at 7 this morning. The worms don’t like temperatures below 40, so I hope they’re not a gooey mess when I get home.

A couple nights ago Charlie and I were talking and I mentioned something about having bees. I lovingly harass my husband about having backyard ducks or chickens, but he always says no. I’m only allowed to have animals that take care of themselves. Like worms. When I mentioned that people in France keep bees on their apartment roofs, though, he said, “We could have bees.” Are you kidding me?! We can have bees?? I never thought that he would let me keep bees. So now my new thing is learning about how to keep backyard bees. Did you know you can get 100 lb of honey from one colony of bees in one season?! That’s amazing!

As it turns out, there is a local beekeeping association that offers a beekeeping basics course here in town. It looks like the course is in January, and as much as I would like to take it and have bees in the spring, I think I need to reign myself in a bit. There are so many things that I want to do and so many things that I’m interested in, but I keep having to remind myself (my husband does a good job of that, too) that I can’t do them all at once. So I think for the next growing season I will focus on a) adding another garden bed, b) planting a couple fruit trees and c) building cold frames for next winter. Then the next growing season (2011) I’ll put in the last raised bed and get myself some bees. Yay bees!

House-wise, we have been focusing on trim and doors. Charlie installed four new interior doors a few weeks ago, and since then we’ve been painting the doors, painting the frames, painting the trim that goes around the doors and installing it. It’s starting to come together. I’ll post some pictures later.

Charlie’s been very busy with freelance work, which is a blessing financially but also means that it takes us longer to get things done on the house. But, on the other hand, it does help fund some of the house projects. So maybe we do need both.

Oh, and he’s taking me away on a mystery anniversary vacation in December. I don’t know where we’re going, but I know it’s within the US, we’re flying and we’re going to be away for about five days. How exciting!

Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food October 13, 2009

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago USDA launched the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative. www.usda.gov/knowyourfarmer

This is a pretty big deal for the local foods movement, and has potential to have some real impact in developing local food systems and supporting small family farms. It’s also impressive that USDA a) acknowledged that people are interested in local foods and b) are actually considering cashing in on the opportunity. From what I know of the food system, this is a rather large departure from past agricultural policies. The initiative also plans to promote farm-to-school projects, which just so happens to be what I do for a living. Keep an eye on this. Hopefully it will be a worthwhile project.

Eating seasonally. August 18, 2009

I’ve been enjoying the creativity and new experiences that come with eating seasonally. “Well, we have a whole bunch of tomatoes right now. What should I do with them?” I don’t have enough to can for salsa or spaghetti sauce (which is my hope, eventually). Because I’ve been focused on eating what comes out of our garden and what’s available at the farmer’s market, we’ve had basil pesto, pico de gallo, and now bruschetta. I’ve never made any of these things before, and they’ve all been amazing.

The bruschetta is up there with the pesto on one of the best things I have ever made. I wish I’d taken a picture of the pesto, but I think it didn’t even make it out of the food processor. I ate half of it before Charlie even got home, and we polished the rest off with dinner.

I’ve recently introduced butter into my cooking. I know, how unusual. I never liked the taste of butter while I was growing up. Maybe we just always had low quality butter at home (sorry, Mom), but it just never tasted that good. That, combined with the saturated fat issue, and I became more of a margarine person. (Only the NO TRANS FAT type, of course, for those who think margarine is the devil. We can have this debate at another time.) Anyway, Charlie refused to give up his butter, so we always had some in the house. And now that I’ve tried cooking with it a few times, the margarine is gone.

Last night when I was cooking up the bruschetta (with lots of butter, oh my), Charlie was like, “Who are you? Where is my wife??” And the buttery bruschetta was totally amazing. BUT, not something that we should eat every day. All in moderation.

Food Inc. July 28, 2009

We went to see Food Inc. last night at the Ragtag, our local indie film theatre. I was a little apprehensive going into it about what I was going to see, particularly regarding animal production. I had heard from the Urban Homsteaders that the animal production portion of it was particularly disturbing. And it was, but not as bad as I had imagined it could be.

It’s certainly not a kid’s movie and has a PG-13 rating for good reason. But I think what was probably the most graphic shot was actually of chicken slaughter being done humanely. It was blood and guts, but not the purposeless type of blood and guts you see in violent movies. This at least was real, and brought home the fact that if we’re going to eat meat, the animal does have to be killed somehow. We’re so far removed from our food source that seeing an animal get slaughtered seems graphic and horrendous instead of just a fact of life and a step in how that chicken gets on your plate. Maybe we should be more aware of how that happens so we don’t purposely put a veil over our eyes and allow the food production practices to occur that we are having to deal with now.

I had never seen a CAFO before, and it was interesting to see the parallel of corn fields as far as the eye can see and cattle lots as far as the eye can see. And the cattle are fed corn.

It wasn’t as revolutionary as I thought it might be, but that may also be because I’m fairly familiar with the topic and read about these things on a daily basis. It made me really happy that a) we don’t eat a lot of meat, b) almost all of the meat that I purchase now comes from local sources and c) I’m beginning to grow our own fruits and vegetables and d) I’ve been able to buy good local produce at the Wednesday farmer’s market. By the way, after the movie a panel discussion was held and a man who is involved with our local Columbia Farmer’s Market mentioned that our market has higher attendance in 4 hours on Saturday than the average Walmart does in an entire day. That’s pretty awesome.

People in Columbia are pumped about this type of thing. Last night’s show was almost completely sold out. It makes me feel like this is where I was meant to live.

Another aside: it was also brought up that Hy-Vee is going to be phasing out their Health Market section and integrating those products into the regular aisles. This could be good, I guess, because then they’re with all the other similar products, but it could also make them harder to find. When this was mentioned in the panel discussion, the ENTIRE audience let out a loud GASP OF HORROR. Like, every person there. (This was Charlie’s favourite part of the evening.) BUT, then the storyteller went on to say that the manager of our Columbia store, though, has said that because the Health Market in the Columbia store is so successful, Columbia Hy-Vee will be the ONLY store in the entire country to retain the Health Market. Yup, hippie town.

So, yes. Go see the movie. It’s a must-see. The point was also brought up, though, that this type of film is often preaching to the choir. Get someone to go to the movie who’s not interested in this type of thing or doesn’t know much about food production or why buying local is important. If you’re not aware of what’s going on, the movie probably will be revolutionary. I had already determined to grow as much of my own food as I can and buy local as much as I can. But the film just helps solidify why it’s worth it to make these changes.

We Gotta Eat ‘em to Save ‘em July 22, 2009

Farm biodiversity is disappearing. If we would just eat endangered crops and livestock now, restoring their role in the food supply, we could save them from extinction.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/science_environment/eat-em-to-save-em-1338

No Impact Man. July 14, 2009

Charlie says: “It’s like us… except the other way around.”

Grocery Store Wars. July 9, 2009

It’s been a long time since I saw this. Good stuff.

I like the Urban Homesteaders’ philosophy on homegrown vs. local vs. organic:

If not FROM BACKYARD then locally produced.
If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.

As much as I want to be a farmer’s market groupie, it’s been challenging because the big market is on Saturday. Yesterday, though, I managed to make it to the short local Wednesday market (4-6pm) and was able to pick up lettuce, zucchini, yellow squash and cherry tomatoes. I’m excited about my first farmer’s market purchase.

Our first homegrown meal! June 26, 2009

From last Friday.

Partially homegrown, partially locally raised, and partially not local. I’m working on that last bit.

Arugula

Endive

And sugar snap peas.

Homegrown salad

Locally raised buffalo burgers.

I was pretty stinkin’ pumped to be able to actually eat something that I planted with my own two hands. Pretty amazing stuff.

Concern over food quality, prices leads to home food preservation June 16, 2009

Here’s an article about one of the food preservation classes that I’m signed up for. I missed this one last week because I was sick, but hopefully I’ll still be able to get all the information.

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/06/16/concern-over-food-quality-and-high-prices-leads-home-food-preservation/

Freezer jam! June 6, 2009

This week I took the first workshop in a series of three on food preservation. The first one was on freezing and drying, then we’ll have water bath canning and pressure canning.

In class this week the Extension Specialist demonstrated making freezer jam and gave us some recipes from Ball to make it. Apparently a new type of pectin has just come out such that you don’t have to use as much sugar in the jam.

So tonight I made my first attempt at making freezer jam! So excited. I made strawbery banana blueberry jam. It smells extremely scrumptious. I’m pretty pumped that I’ve started at least a simple form of food preservation. I’m really looking forward to learning about canning. So much fun!

I think if it weren’t for the recession, the local movement and the increased interest in growing your own, canning would be a dying art. I certainly didn’t know anything about it before a few months ago. I’m glad I have the opportunity to learn about it. Good job, Extension.