Food Battle

The Farm Bill will be coming up in the Senate soon and it is time to take action. Here is a cute video about the farm bill with a link to send a letter to your senators on the side. I've spent this afternoon printing up letters to send to my senators.

http://foodbattle.org/

Bees

On Monday Logan and I went to visit my aunt and uncle who keep bees. They've been keeping bees for many years and also happen to be some of our favorite people. I plan to keep bees when we move so a first hand look at it all was incredible.

Here are Logan and I in our beekeeping outfits. Aren't we cute?


Here are the hives with my uncle Jeff, my grandfather and Logan all suited up and opening the newest hive.
There were a lot of bees in this hive. He had just installed it about a week ago and this was his first time opening it and checking on it. The queen is alive and very active. There were tons of egg cells in the hive.
Here is some honey that is being made in an older, larger hive.

This was really an amazing experience! Having the bees flying all around you but not being agitated was really cool. At one point my camera turned itself off and made a whirring noise. I jumped pretty high so I guess I was a little nervous during it all. Logan wasn't nervous at all and was right up against the hives looking in. I can see that beekeeping would take some getting used to, but it was also fascinating and really fun. I look forward to one day having hives of my own.

OLS-Week 10

Our last week (sob!). I've really enjoyed this challenge, it has been educational, fun, and at times really frustrating. I've had to learn to be happy with where I am and not expect perfection. I've really increased the amount of local food that is now being bought on a regular basis. I've put up a fair amount of local food so we can keep eating at least some local food during the winter. And I've learned how to make a lot of things with local ingredients instead of buying the pre-made, non-local version.

This week for our local meal we had Potato-corn chowder and homemade crescent rolls.

The breakdown:

Potato-corn chowder:

Potatoes - my garden - 0 miles
Corn - Hazeye Farm -Newark, DE - 6 miles
Milk- Natural by Nature - 24 miles
Onion - Hazeye Farm - 6 miles
Basil - my garden - 0 miles
Bacon - Rumbleway Farm - 25 miles
Green onion - my garden - 0 miles
Black Pepper - not local

The corn, potatoes, basil and green onion were all picked that day!

Crescent rolls:
Flour - Daisy Flour - 60 miles
Milk - Natural by Nature - 24 miles
Egg - Whimsical Farm - 4 miles
Sugar- not local
Yeast - not local
Butter - not local, but I've found a source of local butter

I've loved reading about everyone else's meals and have picked up a bunch of recipes to try. I can't wait for next summer!

A cool local food story

I had a cool thing happen today. I feed my cat a local cat food called Beaverdam I've been feeding it to her for awhile and am happy with how and where it is made. The only problem I have with it is it is hard to find. The closest place that sells it is a 35 minute drive each way. Luckily, one of Logan's best friends live very near the store and we are up there visiting them about every other week so I can usually keep us stocked in food. Unfortunately, they have been traveling pretty much the whole month of August and we ran out of food last night! I didn't want to make the drive up there so I decided to see what the local natural foods store had for pet food since we were going there anyway. I didn't like any of the choices they had there and was thinking about how I was going to have to stop at the grocery store and get some food there (not a choice I was relishing).

As we walked out the door of the natural food store, a van pulled up with the Beaverdam logo on the side. I accosted the poor man as he got out of the van and asked him if he had any cat food in there and if I could buy a bag. As he got a bag out of the van I explained my situation to him. He gave me the bag of food for free and told me he was trying to get this store to start stocking it. So I went in with him to talk to the manager and let them know I already buy the food and would definitely buy it there if they carried it. They said they would give it a try!

It was really cool because I had looked up their webpage before leaving home to see if it was carried anywhere closer to me than the place by Logan's friend and it wasn't. I was leaving the store agonizing over what I was going to do for cat food since we were totally out and this free bag of the food I wanted pretty much dropped in my lap! I will be going to the natural food store near me soon and buying a few bags so they know that someone does want it.

Not only have I found a local cat food but I've met the owner of the company! Eating local can be so cool.

Jam

Logan and I went blackberry picking last week. We picked 3 quarts of blackberries. Upon returning home I decided to attempt making jam. I've never done it before but used the recipe that came with the pectin. This particular pectin came with a packet of calcium that is supposed to help the pectin gel so you can use a lot less sugar.


Here is my jam boiling. Making the jam itself was pretty easy. I left the seeds in because we all like the seeds in our jam. I used 2 of the quarts for jam and froze the other quart for crisp sometime this winter. I found the actual canning part to be intimidating. I've never seen canning done and I had all these visions of exploding jars in my head. I used a boiling water bath and the jars seemed to have sealed. I still have visions of opening moldy jars of jam this winter. I really was wishing I had an Amish neighbor as I was doing this! The pictures on the internet were helpful but not quite the same as having someone there to hold you hand.

Here are my sealed jars. I sealed 6 and had 1 that I didn't seal to use right away. I managed to get blackberry juice everywhere! But it was fun and everyone agrees the jam is delicious. I only used 1.5 cups of sugar for the whole recipe so you really get the blackberry flavor.

OLS- Week 9

I feel like I cheated this week since I already made this dinner for One Local Summer back in week 5, but my mom was visiting and she had never made pasta before. So, I decided to make pasta and asked her what she wanted on it. She wasn't sure she knew what pesto tasted like and I have a lot of basil in the garden, so presto, pesto. I did make different size noodles this time. But the breakdown remains the same. This time I added a couple of hot peppers from my garden.

We also had a somewhat local meal which I thought I'd write about since it sums up a typical meal around here. I didn't get a picture however. The meal was Thai basil chicken.

Breakdown:

Local:

Chicken - Rumbleway Farm - 25 miles

Thai Basil - My garden

Thai hot peppers - my garden

Garlic - West Chester PA - 20 miles

Onion - PA, but not sure where in PA, I got it at Newark Natural Foods

Brocolli - same as onion, I should have gotten these at the farm market but it is only once a week and I missed it last week so I had to buy these at the store. The sign did say local from PA.

Not local:

Fish sauce

Soy sauce

Rice

And so it goes most days here. All of our animal products and veggies are local. Spices, rice and pasta usually not local.

Introducing the kids

It appears our hummingbirds had 2 babies, they have started coming to the feeder everyday. They are quite a bit smaller than the adults and don't have adult coloring yet. It looks like we have a male and a female but I wouldn't bet my house on it or anything.

Male juvenile

Female juvenile

I was able to get some pictures yesterday of both hummingbirds at the feeder at the same time, but it was raining and the lens was clouded up so they turned out awful. I'll keep trying. I'm having so much fun with these guys! We now have 5 coming to our feeder everyday.