By popular demand, the Independence Days Challenge is back! Every Friday from February - September we are challenged to work on our skill set. Anyone can join in!
****Still no rain and reports coming in are bad. The local feed store has closed - local farmers are selling off their livestock or putting them down because supposedly the animals are dying off from too much nitrogen in their feed from the lack of rain? Both beef and pork.****
The categories and my responses:
Plant something: A lot of us were trained to think of planting as done once a year, but if you start seeds, do season extension and succession plant, you’ll get much, much more out of your garden, so I try and plant something every day from February into September.
Plant something:
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Harvest something: Everything counts – from the milk and eggs you get from your animals to the first dandelions from your yard to 50 bushels of tomatoes – it all counts.
Harvest something:
Eggs
Milk
Potatoes
Weeds to feed to the goats and sheep
Basil
Calendula flowers
Preserve something: Again, I find preserving is most productive if I try and do a little every day that there is anything, from the first dried raspberry leaves and jarred rhubarb to the last squashes at the end of the season.
Preserve something:
-Drying Calendula flowers, Basil
Waste not: Reducing food waste, composting everything or feeding it to animals, reducing your use of disposables and creation of garbage, reusing things that would otherwise go to waste, making sure your preserved and stored foods are kept in good shape – all of these count.
Waste Not:
-Fed chickens, dog and cats scraps; composted unfeedable scraps
-free range grazing the sheep and tethering the goats
-using weeds to mulch plants as I weed & to feed to goats, sheep and chickens
Want Not: Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term.
Want Not:
-48 bags scratch grains = 6 month supply
-3 large round bales of hay (plus another 60 square bales around in storage) = 1 winter's supply
-bought shorts, shirts, pants at thrift shop for kids
-bought a shirt for me that i'll be bleaching and dyeing with walnut hulls soon
-bought shorts, shirts, pants at thrift shop for kids
-bought a shirt for me that i'll be bleaching and dyeing with walnut hulls soon
Eat the Food: Making full and good use of what you have, making sure that you are getting everything you can from your food, trying new recipes and new cooking ideas, eating out of your storage!
Eat the Food:
-eating eggs and milk
-potatoes
-food from farmer's market: free range chicken and beef, okra, green beans, onions, tomatoes, zucchini, watermelon, eggplant, kale, peppers
Build community food systems: What have you done to help other people have better food access or to make your local food system more resilient?
Build Community Food Systems:
-offering milk and eggs to my community
-bartering with friends at market: eggs and soap for produce
-teaching kids about herbs
-taught class about medicinal and edible weeds to kids at The Nature Institute
And a new one: Skill up: What did you learn this week that will help you in the future – could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a shed, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as making shoes. Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it – this is important stuff.
Skill Up:
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