Saturday, June 28, 2008

Going out of town

We are leaving tomorrow morning to go out of town for a week. We'll be going to WV, so Mark can go rock climbing, then down to GA to look at houses again and then to NC for my family reunion. I may find time to check blogs while I'm gone, but I may not, so don't worry if you don't hear from me for a week.

I'm feeling better. I started taking a multi-vitamin and St. John's Wort. I think just realizing I was depressed and doing something about it helped a lot. I'm feeling much more hopeful and I'm really looking forward to being gone for a week! I really need the break.

We got a really bad offer on the house and when we countered, they changed their minds. Apparently, they only wanted it for the really bad price. We currently have 3 people who have us in their top 3, at least 1 of them will be coming back while we are gone for a second showing. So keep you fingers crossed for us, send positive energy, etc. I feel like we are getting close!

I'm going to put all this house stuff out of my mind while we are out of town and focus on finding a great house in GA and then enjoying my family, many of whom I haven't seen in 2 years. We have some very good looking house possibilities this time around.

I hope everyone has a great 4th!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

OLS - Week 3



I did manage a totally local meal this week. I just wasn't up for it last week.

Breakdown:

BBQ chicken breast- Locust Point Farm - 7 miles
Corn on the cob - Dietweillers Farm - 6 miles
Asparagus - Dietweillers Farm - 6 miles
BBQ sauce - not local

It was the first corn of the season. This isn't how we usually eat, we almost always have something over pasta or over rice with very little meat. But with no local pasta or rice, our totally local meals look a little different than our norm. I've made pasta a few times but haven't had the energy for that lately. I've really been struggling with depression the last few weeks.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Garden

Blogger is insisting on loading some of my pictures sideways again. It does not matter how I turn them before I load them, they end up sideways. Any ideas on why this is happening and/or how to fix it? So, sorry for the sideways pictures.



It seems like it is about time for a garden update.


Here is my banana tree. It is doing well and putting out new leaves on a regular basis.


Here are my sideways brussel sprouts, they are growing like crazy.
My hungarian paste tomato finally has tomatoes forming. The amish paste still don't, but are covered in flowers.
The sweet olives are covered in tomatoes. I can't wait for these to ripen.
The tomato jungle is getting more and more out of control. Everyone got moved to bigger pots this week. The amish paste are much happier now.

OK, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm not sure what this plant is. I have 3 of them that are doing great. They had little white flowers a few weeks ago. I started them from seed, but I started a lot of stuff, much of which didn't end up getting transplanted for lack of space. I could search my seed packets and figure out what this is, but I'm lazy and was hoping someone could tell me.



Edit: It is purslane. Now I need to remember why I started that and what to do with it LOL.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Independence days - Week 7

1. Plant something - I didn't plant anything new, but I did transplant a few things to bigger pots. I had hoped they would be in the ground by now, but since that is nowhere in sight, bigger pots were necessary. More transplanting needs to happen.

2. Harvest something - I harvested the last of my peas this week. I didn't get a ton but I only had 1 plant of each type and the temps were in the high 90s this week. The snow peas were still good, but the shelling peas were very bitter. I think the high temps got to them. I pulled out the peas and will try again in the fall.

6. Manage your reserves - Managed to eat quite a lot from the freezer this week. This included making lasagna from scratch which is delicious!

7. Work on local food system - Visited the farm market again this week and continue to get our milk locally

8. Compost something - I shredded up a bunch more newspaper for the worms this week. They are very happy now.

9. Learn something - It isn't related to food but is related to self reliance. I learned to knit with needles this week! It is awkward at first but very fun once you get the hang of it.

10. Store something - I had a coupon for Petsmart so I stocked up on cat food and litter this week.

I have to admit to letting depression get to me a little this week so not much happened. I didn't even make a local meal for OLS. The extremely high temps along with this house not selling and the house in GA falling through got to me. I'm hoping to do better this week.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

A book club right up my alley

Sharon is hosting a gloom and doom book club. I've read quite a few post disaster/survival books lately. I think it will be fun to read a few more and discuss them with other people.

Surprisingly, I don't find these books depressing. I figure it is a look at the worst case scenario so that I'm prepared for whatever may come. Seems to me things can't be as bad as they are in most of these books.

If anyone is interested in depressing reading (LOL) join us in our wallowing.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Independence days - Week 6

Man, I can't believe we are on week 6 already. I really thought we'd be moved by now and I'd actually be making progress on this challenge. Oh well....

1. Plant something - not this week

2. Harvest something - strawberries and snow peas still

3. Preserve something - nope

4. Prep something - I ordered some row covers on sale for when we are able to have a big garden

5. Cook something new - not this week

6. Manage your reserves - I inventoried the freezer this week so that I know exactly what we have and what we need to use. We made good progress this week at using stuff from the freezer.

7. Work on local food system - my favorite farm market opened last week and we went and got some stuff there

8. Compost something - ongoing every week

9. Learn something - I've learned a lot in the last week about roofs and septic systems and wells and water quality

10. Store something - I ordered some pasta microwave meals for Mark to eat for lunch so he doesn't have to go out, they will also make good emergency meals. I didn't really store anything else this week.

It wasn't a very good week, but I was distracted by a bad inspection report on the house we wanted to buy. Nothing is totally decided yet but we are leaning toward walking away and finding something else. We got back a bad well report today, the water is contaminated and most likely the well would need to be moved. It was the final straw, this house wasn't meant to be.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

OLS - Week 1

My dad was visiting so we had a special meal for our first meal of this years One Local Summer.


The breakdown:

Grass-fed steak - Locust Point Farm - 7 miles
Asparagus - Dietwiller Farm Market - 6 miles
Corn - Dietwiller Farm Market - 6 miles (frozen last August)
Snow peas - my garden - 0 miles

Corn bread
Bacon - Locust Point Farm - 7 miles
Eggs - Whimsical Farm - 4 miles
Honey - Newark, DE - 15 miles
Milk -Trickling Spring Dairy - 100 miles
Corn meal and flour - not local

Apple Crisp
Apples - Linvilla Orchard - 35 miles (Frozen in October)
Sugar, Oats, flour - not local
Vanilla ice cream - Trickling Springs Dairy - 100 miles

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Baby tomatoes

I have 4 baby tomatoes! (Forgive the sideways picture, for some reason Blogger won't put this picture in the right way, even though all the others are fine). My sweet olive is making tomatoes.
Here is my tomato jungle. They are all growing out of control. I now have flowers on all 3 types of plants. My amish paste are doing better since I moved them to a partly shady spot and am watering them more often. I expect to have more baby tomatoes on some of the other types soon.

My peas are doing great, we harvested a bunch yesterday to eat with our first all local meal of the summer which I will post soon.

Here is my huge brussel sprout plant. It is shading out the basil which I will have to move.











Friday, June 6, 2008

Crap!

We got the inspection report for the house in GA. It isn't good! There are over 50 defective items on the list. When we bought this house, only 1 thing showed up in the inspection and it was minor. About half the things in the GA house are minor, but the other half are pretty big. There isn't any single thing that isn't fixable or would be a deal breaker, but taken all together it doesn't paint a good picture. It all adds up to a house that has been neglected, none of the problems have been fixed over the years (the house is 14 years old) and routine maintenance hasn't been done.

We aren't sure what we are going to do right now. We could get them to fix the major things but we are worried about what else may turn up later.

I'm wondering, not for the first time, if this moving thing is all a big mistake. We've had 28 showings and no offers here. We had a hard time finding a house in GA we could both agree on and now it looks like it has some major problems.

I've always been one to trust my gut feelings but lately they have been failing me. So many things that I've thought were the right thing or that I thought were going to happen turned out to be wrong. I just don't know right now.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Independence days - week 5

I feel like I'm wading through quicksand with this challenge sometimes. Just not much I can do with things the way they are.

1. Plant something - I transplanted some tomato plants to bigger pots, as well as transplanting some brocolli

2. Harvest something - still harvesting strawberries everyday and harvested my first snow peas and used them in a stir fry today.

6. Manage your reserves - We ate some more from the freezer this week. I reorganized how some things are being stored.

7. Work on local food system - We went to the local farm market for the first time this year. We continue to get all of our animals products from local farms.

8. Compost something - this is ongoing with the worms and the outside bin

10. Store something - I got 4 jars of PB to store and some rolled oats.

Man, what a slow week! What did I do all week? I'm really not sure. Time to get refocused!