Independence Days week 10

Late, late, late again. Too much going on...

1. Plant something - Not this week.

2. Harvest something - A handful of blueberries. And eggs. I think that was it.

3. Preserve something - Froze some blueberries. Just about to start on raspberry jam and pickles.

4. Reduce waste - Took a ton of stuff over to the thrift store. Made a long-overdue trip to the local recycling center and gave them a pickup load of cardboard, plus a some plastic and aluminum. Lori's been working hard on the cloth diapering for Amelia, to the point that she's considering putting together a web page for cloth diapers for special needs and older kids. She's been knitting more wool diaper covers.

5. Preparation and Storage - Tried to figure out a way to make the pedal-powered grain mill work. No luck so far, but I feel like I'm getting close. Talked to my next-door neighbor about solar kits, wind, hand pumps for water, and all kinds of other self-sufficiency stuff.

6. Build Community Food Systems - Sold eggs at work. Bought red & black raspberries, blueberries, and pickling cucumbers from the farm market. Finally got somebody to bring a bull to breed our cow, so that someday we can have milk again - and maybe beef too. He also brought three of his cows and their calves to graze on our pasture. This helps him get his cows bred by the same bull, keeps me from having to mow nearly as much, adds some nice fertilizer to our soil, and supports a local small-scale beef producer. I also talked to him about getting some beef from him for our own use.

7. Eat the Food - We struggled a bit this week. We've been busy with a lot of different things. Ate a lot of salad from garden greens. Ate some eggs and some jam, and various berries. Tried a couple new recipes, but I don't know if any were keepers.

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