Independence Days week 9

A little late this week.

1. Plant something - Nothing this week. Still trying to catch up with the weeds and grass. And yet another dead engine.

2. Harvest something - Kale, lettuce, and eggs. Oh, and gooseberries, but the chickens did all that harvesting. Someday I'll remember to put bird netting over them.

3. Preserve something - Strawberries! Finally. We made about eight pints of strawberry-vanilla jam. Tasty.

4. Reduce waste - Used bad hay to mulch the potatoes and the corn. Kept working on cloth diapering for both Amelia and Owen. (Amelia's definitely more of a challenge...)

5. Preparation and Storage - Transferred rice, salt, brown sugar and probably a couple other staples from their bags into storage buckets. Gave the grain mill a permanent home in the storage area. I tried using a stationary bike with a V-belt to make the grain mill pedal-powered, but the belt doesn't grip well enough to grind the grains. I looked online and saw that some people who have tried the same ended up with a bicycle chain setup instead of a belt. Expanded and cleaned up the storage area. Started getting materials together to actually put walls around it.

6. Build Community Food Systems - Sold eggs at work. Tried to arrange for someone to cut our hay. Tried to arrange for someone to breed our cow. Neither has been successful so far.

7. Eat the Food - Baked a couple loaves of no-knead coffee can bread. And we were testing some different bean recipes this week: Pasta with kale, beans, cheese and bacon. Some sort of bean caserole thing (which was not a keeper). And a pretty decent bean soup. Plus some eggs, bread, and strawberry jam. I'm sure there were others, but I'm drawing a blank.

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