It's Monday- time for IDC

It's time for my first Independence Days update of year 3. Where does the time go?

Tiny broccoli

1. Plant something- YES!!! Let's see, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and 6 varieties of hot peppers (peter- red, cayenne, alma paprika, anaheim, jalapeno and volcano- a hot hungarian wax) I've got broccoli, cauliflower and red cabbage up already. V and I didn't get the grow cabinet set up- he was trying to make it much more complicated than I needed and I needed it NOW! So I stopped in at Target where they were having a sale on wire shelving units and picked up a 5 shelf unit. It is now setting in the kitchen with lights hung and little plants under it already. I also potted up some rhubarb starts that I picked up this weekend that had already broken dormancy. They are currently in a big bucket in K10's room by the big pepper plant. I'll set it outside in a permanent location when it warms up.

2. Harvest something- not yet, although the chives on the windowsill are looking awfully tasty!

3. Preserve something- not a thing.

4. Waste not- Hmm, nothing too unusual here. We were really bad last week on wasting food, though. There were left overs that got shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten that became compost. I need to do better at this. I've got a whole drawer of fresh produce- the after effect of having to provide a relish tray for a church function- that we need to eat before it goes bad. Salads anyone???

5. Want not- This is supposed to be the category for non-food prep stuff. The only thing I can think of right now is the financial boost we had with paying off two huge debts that we had. I'm also planning to order a grain mill soon. I had been using an old coffee grinder to grind my corn but it has passed on to a greener coffee house so now I have no way to grind my corn. Anybody have any recommendations? I've been doing my research and have my opinion but I'm wondering what anyone else thinks.

6. Build community food systems- purchased some local milk and eggs. Talked to the orchard guy again about my apple trees.

7. Eat the food- Yum! Tonight it was a fabulous lasagna with home canned tomato sauce. Friday night for our celebration meal it was local grass fed steaks and our home grown potatoes. I've still got some roasted eggplant in the freezer that I need to use... I'll have to think on it. Oh, and for K10's birthday, he got to take treats into school. They are emphasizing healthy treats so I made some quite tasty oatmeal/blueberry mini-muffins (oatmeal from storage, blueberries from the freezer, local eggs). He said the children were all clamoring for more. That makes me feel good.

All in all, not a bad week. It's been crazy-busy around here and with V still on the mend it's been tough to keep up. The house is a disaster area and the laundry is still a work in progress- sounds normal!

A slow Sunday

Nice for a change. J15 and I12 both sang at church this morning. I12's voice is still that lovely, angelic little boy voice- at least for a little longer- we've noticed that his voice is starting to change a little bit. sigh... he's growing up an will soon be a teenager.

The temperature has remained above freezing all night and we had a bit of a shower. I'm glad it didn't rain a lot because that, combined with the melting snow would have made things very floody! But now the sun is trying to peek out. V was feeling a bit better this afternoon so we went for a walk to check out the snow melt.

The snow is melting off the South facing slopes.

There is LOTS of run-0ff and the creeks are running full.

But I LOVE the sound of running water.

Signs of spring- a wild rose is starting to bud! (sorry for the bad focus)

The moss is bright green under the trees.

But we were still walking through snow up to 7 inches deep in some places. It is supposed to remain fairly warm this week (30's and 40's) so Spring is definitely on the way!

Oh, and my broccoli seedlings are starting to sprout!!

Name change

Today was a busy day here. Errands, cooking, grocery shopping, a little laundry and then the fun stuff!

V was off and on today but at least was able to have fun with us this evening.

Spaz, the cat, was quite relaxed, stretched out on the birthday boy as they snuggled on the couch. Our big news around here: K9 is now officially K10! My little Y2K boy is growing up. He chose to have kniep for dinner. That is an old family recipe from my dad's side of the family. It's a kind of egg noodle in broth except you don't roll our the dough, you just drop it by small lumps into simmering broth- kind of like big spaetzle. Then after dinner we all went swimming. Saturdays are family swim night at the rec center in town so we all get in for one admission price. It was lots of fun. Every time we go there we remark on how much fun we are having and that we should go more often- but we still only go a few times a year.

After swimming it was time to go home for cake and presents. V and I try to have fun with the cakes we make for the children and it's a big surprise what the cake will be. This year, K got another joke cake.

Tighty Whiteys!!

That comes from a longstanding family joke about magical hats. He used to prance about with his underwear on his head singing about magical hats.

Let him eat cake!!!

I'm contemplating making a little garden bed on the south side of the house for some early greens. The ground there is thawed and not wet and J15 and I picked up a bag of topsoil today when we were out and about to mix into a little raised bed since there are lots of rocks in the soil there. I'm thinking some lettuce, spinach and maybe a little chard. I can hardly wait to get playing in the dirt. I did get some cabbage, broccoli, hot peppers and onion seeds started inside. We still need to finish the cabinet for the lights before they start popping up. I'll start the sweet peppers and tomatoes in another two weeks. Oh, also while we were out this afternoon, I picked up a rhubarb root at the local home improvement store (even though that was NOT what we were there for!). It's starting to break dormancy already so I need to get it in the ground. I'm thinking about putting it into a pot and then hardening it off and planting it out when the weather warms a little more. Any suggestions?

Champagne all around!

We are now the proud owners of only one house!!!! Woo Hoo!!! We paid off two loans this afternoon and still have a sizable chunk of change left over. We've got lots and lots of plans but for tonight- we're having some of the last T-bone steaks from our grass fed cow and spiced fried potatoes (fried potatoes with cayenne pepper and onions) and later, we're breaking out a bottle of champagne (not even the cheap stuff!). If you're in the area, stop in! I've been walking around all afternoon with a silly grin on my face which I'm sure will be made much worse by some alcohol.

V did have his appointment with the sinus docs this morning and that was a bit frustrating. We did get to see the CT scan and the inside of his head. They did the fiber optic camera up the nose which was pretty cool to see. Unfortunately, while he does have some cysts in both maxillary sinuses, they are small and don't account for the symptoms he is having. So... he now has an appointment with a neurologist in two weeks and is scheduled for another head CT in May to follow up on the cysts they found to make sure they haven't enlarged. Bottom line- still no answers and he continues to have episodes of blinding pain in the left side of his face and intermittent vision changes in his left eye. We're really hoping that it is just nerve compression caused by the swollen tissue in his sinuses.

In other news, I did start some seeds last night. We don't have the cabinet completed yet but I figured I had a day or two to get the lights set up before they sprout. V and I plan to work on it this weekend.

Now to go fry some potatoes and throw some steaks on the grill! Oh, and I've got to bake a birthday cake.

So much

There is so much going on right now. Work has been busy and I've been busier than usual at home and taking children places since V has been sick. He is still not doing very well. Oh, he has stretches of an hour or two where he is fairly pain free but those are few and far between. He finally has an appointment with the sinus specialist on Friday morning. He is to the point where he is also having intermittent changes in his vision in his left eye due to the pressure on his optic nerve. I hope we get some answers/results on Friday morning. He's no fun to live with! And I KNOW he is more than tired of all of this.

Friday afternoon we have the closing for our house in town. Woo Hoo!!! Paying off two loans and getting things moving on a few other projects around here will be a great feeling.

And, K9 will have a name change to K10 on Saturday. Gotta get moving on gifts and cake baking!

I desperately need to get my seed starting set up going. I'm LATE! And now I find out that I'm going to need to start a few extra seedlings. The committee I serve on at our church (social justice/social ministry) is planning a plant sale for spring as a fund raiser for the community Common Fund. This is the fund that is administered by the crisis center to provide assistance for rent/heat/emergencies/etc for county residents. I figured that, since I'm going to be starting seeds anyway, I may as well start a few extras for a good cause. (that and it will give me an outlet for my extras- I have such a hard time 'thinning') Maybe tomorrow night I can work on it. We actually don't have ANYTHING on the schedule for tomorrow evening.

Sorry to be such a whiner but I'm tired and feeling a bit stressed.

Challenges abound

I'm participating again this year in Sharon Astyk's Independence Day Challenge. This is her third year of hosting this challenge. I joined in quite late the first year but participated fully the second, although I have been pretty lax about posting updates this winter.

The challenge is fairly simple. You report on your progress toward Independence using 7 categories:

1. Plant something- this is pretty self explanatory.

2. Harvest something- again- pretty obvious.

3. Preserve something

4. Waste not- reducing food waste and waste of other resources

5. Want not- non-food preparations. I was pleased to find that you can even count those really good craigslist deals that you score or repurposing items.

6. Build community food systems- getting involved!

7. Eat the food- YUMMY.

I've also been meaning to post about my participation in another challenge hosted by Melinda at One Green Generation.

I'm kicking it up to the extreme edition. The rules here?

1. Grow at least 3 crops from seed- No problem here!

2. Plant the seeds in 3 other people- here for me is the real challenge. The goal is to inspire three other people to grow food from seeds. Unfortunately, most of the other people I know already garden- at least a little. I'm going to have to work at this one.

3. Share your progress in challenge check-ins.

and for the extreme edition:

4. Make it 'seed to seed'.

I was thinking about the Real Food Challenge. But that is something I already work on and I've got a lot on my plate right now so I may give it a pass this year.

Now, to just remember to report in on both of these challenges on a regular basis.

What the chipotle!

I'm going to have to make sure I plant plenty of jalapeno peppers this year. I'm nearly out of chipotles! A few years ago Roger and I had a HUGE bumper crop of peppers- that all seemed to turn red at the same time. What to do, what to do? We smoked them, of course, and made our own chipotle peppers. I've currently got a few left that I keep stored in the freezer. They are smoked and dried but I still keep them in the freezer to keep them fresher longer. They are a grand addition to chili or just about anything else that you want to have that smoky heat. YUM! Sometimes I crush it and sometimes I don't.

This time I tossed it in whole

As you can see, it's chili on the menu for dinner tonight. I was going to have this be a local meal tonight using beans that we grew but, of course, guess who forgot to soak the beans!? So I turned to the old stand-by of canned beans from the pantry. But what's this? An omen?

Hard to read but it says Best by Dec 2012

Every can of beans I had in the pantry said best by Dec 2012. Hmmm, if I were a believer in the Mayan Long Calendar hubbub about the end of the world on Dec 21, 2012 I may be worried. Otherwise, I guess it means that I've still got time to eat my beans. And if the world does end, I'll leave it with a full pantry (minus a few cans of beans)