1. plant something: Nope. But we have seed catalogs . . .
2. harvest something: Chicken eggs—even with the horribly cold weather and cloudiness, I'm still getting 12-15 eggs a day (from approximately 3 dozen hens). While it's been so cold, they get hot water twice a day (from inside, since the hoses are frozen; oh, I can't wait to see the water bill next month!), and some days I cook them up a batch of rice or split peas or oatmeal, and heat their usual kitchen scraps if they're things I can heat. It seems to be helping.
3. preserve something: Not so much—I did freeze a couple of extra meals' worth of meatballs last time we made some, but that's about it. We have a deer (thanks to John's nephew, who went hunting and brought us one, too) to cut up and freeze, but it's [frozen] in a cooler on the front porch and we havn't done it yet. Also intended to make fruit spread for Christmas gifts and some for us, but then power went off, we ate the pears, and it still hasn't happened . . .
4. reduce waste: The usual: recycling (plastic, cat food cans, milk jugs);
using
clothesline instead
of
dryer; using mail waste and cutdown cardboard boxes as firestarters;
feeding scraps to chickens. Working on eating down the freezer so I can defrost it this spring and possibly become better organized in there.
5. preparation and storage: Gathered up all my empty plastic containers (all the ones with lids, anyway) and filled them with water, just in case. Bought extra corn for the goats and chickens, just before this arctic cold snap. (And I see that there's freezing wintry mix in the weekend's forecast, so I think we need to make a trip to the feed store and the grocery store later this week when it warms up.) Bought a 25-pound bag of raw peanuts, which should do the birds and squirrels for a long time—watching them out the back window is a major part of our entertainment—and we can roast some of 'em for ourselves, too. Restocked vitamins when Rite-Aid had a buy one/get one sale; also bought a new thermometer—I'm positive we have one, but I can't lay my hands on it, and this one was on sale for not much at all. Added more dried apricots, raisins, English walnuts to storage. Bought a big can of shortening (yeah, I know it isn't wonderful for you, but John likes his biscuits) and more canola oil. Restocked cat food. dry and canned. Refilled flour buckets—I'm not using so much this month, since the produce stand where I sell my bread in closed for January, and the holiday cookie baking is over, so this should last into February. Hauled out the generator and made sure it will start, and we have gas for it. (We need to build it a little house beside John's toolshed; at the moment it is living under a tarp at the end of the driveway.) We were given a bushel and a half of sweet potatoes by John's sister (someone they know had four or five bushels stored in their apple shed and they were in danger of freezing, so they decided to just give them away rather than let them spoil.), and we took a big bag full over to Mom and Daddy, and are going to give another bag to one of our neighbors, as soon as we see them again. I'm not crazy about sweet potatoes, but I can learn to like them better than I do now.
6. build community food systems: Nothing lately, unless you count giving Christmas cookies to the guys at the Post Office.
7. eat the food: Homemade
bread,
as
always. Ham, ham and more ham—we bought a big one just before christmas, and there's still some left, despite days and days of sandwiches (fine with me, but the other half of us is getting somewhat tired of my continual hopeful: "Want a ham sandwich?), plus the bone. Chowder, with storage potatoes and fish from the freezer. Applesauce raisin cake, made with homemade applesauce. (In fact, I gave two away for Christmas, and they were well received.) Persimmon pudding—one for us and one for Mom's Christmas gift. (Daddy got two loaves of cheese bread, and my brother and sister got gingersnaps.) Cookies—gingersnaps, fruit squares (using up some candied fruit I found in the pantry), and chocolate rocks (not at all good for you—chocolate, peanuts, raisins, and chunky peanut butter). Cranberry-orange bread, banana-black walnut bread, and apricot bread; al baked in little loaf pans and given as Christmas gifts. Venison round steak from the freezer, simmered with onions and garlic.
Notes: We have been using our bookstore credit and reading, and sleeping, and not a lot else—only things that can be done in close proximity to the stove. It's still arctic (or was until Monday; the high yesterday was actually above freezing!), but it's supposed to get up to 55 or so the rest of the week, so John will going to Berry's to replenish our stocks of corn, laying mash and hay, and another bag or two of scratch grain. (I have begun mixing my own bird feed, since commercial birdseed is not only expensive but full of millet—I have a metal trash can by the side porch, and I mix a bag of commercial birdseed, a bag of scratch grain and a bag of black oil sunflower seeds. Plus raw peanuts and whole corn from the stock feed, both of which are thrown out separately for the bluejays and squirrels.) We also need another mineral block, and several bales of straw—I periodically strew one or two under the chicken house for the chickens to root around in, and to give them some place to keep warm and out of the weather when it's bad. It's nice to put a bale in the goats' little shed—where they used to live, until there were too many of them to fit—they like to eat some and just mess around in it. The Hovel, as it is fondly referred to, gets afternoon sun and they like to nap in there.
We don't need anything much in the way of groceries— a couple of gallons of milk, some buttermilk, maybe some greens or brussels sprouts, and a big bag of cat chow, I think. Maybe a few lemons. And a package of organic chicken breasts, if I can afford them; there's a recipe I want to try, and I seem to have used all the ones from the freezer.
I've been rearranging my sewing space (not throwing anywthing away, unfortunately, but mostly packing up stuff I'm finished with until next Christmas and making space to do a couple of new things); I've cleaned out the two horribly disarranged corner cabinets (one had mostly paperworking stuff in it, which I think I shall pass most of on to grandchildren, and the other had a large collection of costume jewelry, seashells, etc.) and gotten all my newly-sorted beads out, preparatory to working on my first Bead Journal Project piece. I spent part of my Christmas money on a book of fleece animal patterns, and have hauled the two bags of fleece bits and pieces down from the attic. I feel the urge to make fleece penguins . . . but do I have any black and white fleece? Of course not! But Hancock (which is, providentially, right next door to the used bookstore, so now I also have a book on soft toy design, which has patterns for a pair of dragon foot shoes) had fleece on sale for half price, so I do now. Currently, however, I'm making a stuffed horse out of pieces left from a pair of pants and vest that I made for Eliza last Christmas—turquoise with tiny silver sparkles in it. The pattern is one my grandmother used to make a stuffed horse for me when I was young—I'm not positive just how old the pattern is, but what remains of the envelope is priced at 45 cents—I remember it was wine red cotton with a black sprigged pattern, and had a black yarn mane and tail, and was stuffed with those foam rubber pieces that crumbled into dust as they aged.
We also purchased a copy of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and we shall experiment as soon as the kitchen warms up a bit (north exposure; the windows don't have ice on them today for the first time a couple of weeks).
One final snow picture:
(It doesn't still look like that; the feeder tree is on the south side and things are pretty clear there, other than the giant pile of ice where the snow slid off the roof. But the north side is still pretty icy. I have hopes that I may be able to get to the clothesline this week!)
PS—I am just now climbing out of my annual winter SAD, which was made worse this year by a disorganized and not-very-satisfactory holiday season and by being stuck in the house for the past two or three weeks. Hopefully regular correspondence will ensue . . .
