Kneel before the beauty that is my new harvest basket--thanks MIL!
1. Plant something: I dinna think I planted a damned thing this week.

2. Harvest something: lettuce, kale, chard, broccoli, green beans, fennel, tomatoes, oregano, parsley, cilantro, thyme.

3. Preserve something: cherries!  Cherry jam, frozen cherries

4. Prep/stored something:  I don't think so.

5. Cook something new:  kale paneer!

6. Manage your reserves: nothing to speak of

7. Work on local food systems: the usual, plus networked with a guy at a local County Fair, who has many connections in the Amish community--he's gonna see about enticing them to plant out some wheat!

8. Reduce Waste: nope.

9. Learn a new skill: nope.

Yes, I know, I can count too, and yes, I did miss a week.  Believe it or not, I'm not actually behind in real life, just in the blogosphere.  So this week's recount will include both weeks, lest it look like I got all majorly proactive or something.

1. Plant something: half a flat of cauliflower, hyssop, winter savory, sweet woodruff, silver thyme, English thyme, cilantro, pineapple mint, oregano, dill, ginger mint (did I already do that one?), lemon balm, dill, lemon verbena.

2. Harvest something: lettuce, kale, chard, broccoli.

3. Preserve something: 2 gallons of blueberries; 10ish pints of chicken stock

4. Prep/stored something:  made and used haybox cooker to make chicken stock and a pot roast.  Rocked.  Oh yes.  Also finally got my grain mill and flaker!  Yeargh!

5. Cook something new:  Enchiladas--homemade corn tortillas, now that was a trick.  Still didn't get them just right, but it was definitely good.  I had no complaints from the peanut gallery.

6. Manage your reserves: nothing to speak of

7. Work on local food systems: more Community Garden, more Terre Foods--had a sick kid on Thursday and got lots of co-op work done.  Went on a field trip to Urbana-Champaign's co-op which was like whoa useful, I mean damn.

8. Reduce Waste: made new composting thingy out of old trashcan, so that the compost in my current compost thingy can finally finish.

9. Learn a new skill: haybox cooking, using the grain mill

Gods, it's amazing how much better The Last Crusade is than Temple of Doom (yeah, guess what my kids are doing this afternoon).  Things go apace on the IDC challenge so far.  I have been reading Square Foot Garden, and I am very favorably disposed to this method.  I think I will do a kitchen garden next year in it, using four squares, and see how it goes.  I must admit, besides the other fairly commonsense aspects of this style of gardening, I really like the way it will let me efficiently divide the part of the garden which is "That from which I harvest for dinner" and "That from which I will harvest and preserve for later use."  Believe it or not, this is a big stumbling block for me.  I mean, I want to succession plant so that I've got, say, broccoli to eat for a few weeks, but then I also want a bunch of it all at once to preserve.  Organizing all this is just more than my little brain can endure.  Having just two different gardens (effectively) will help so much.

Here's an only sort of funny story:  I asked my dad for a circular saw for my birthday.  He asked "Why do you want a circular saw?  Do you have a particular project in mind?"  In fact, I've got several projects I want to work on, but I told him that the main one was building a solar oven. 
"An OVEN?!" 
"No, a solar oven." 
"A what oven?"
"A solar oven."
"Oh, like as in the sun?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm, well, I'll admit, I'm skeptical, but I guess it makes sense."
"Fair enough, but that's my first major project."
Now mom comes in, "You know, when everything goes to hell, we're all going to be relying on you to teach us how to do these things."
...
Yes, yes you are.  That's at least 60% of why we're doing this stuff.  Just don't forget it.


And, just as a fun last addendum, my favorite thing that I've said today:  "Ian, if you're going to watch the movie, sit quietly and keep your hands to yourself, and don't use the scissors on your penis!"

Hey, did you know that it's "Blog like it's the end of the world 2008" day?  Hunh.  I'm conforming to it, and I didn't even realize it.  Good grief, if I ever got on Twitter there'd be none living want near me.

1. Plant something:  Alex & Ian's Pumpkin Patch!  And a couple sugar pumpkins for myself, of course.  Now I've just gotta get that watermelon in the ground, and one or two other "somethings" to take up the space left by potatoes that didn't grow in my Community Garden plot, and then I can start seriously planning my late summer/fall garden!

2. Harvest something:  strawberries, spinach, lettuce, kale.  Need to harvest some sugar snap peas and broccoli, like, yesterday.

3. Preserve something:  8,294 pints of strawberry jam.  Or four.  It felt more like 8,294.  And 4 half-pints of preserves.  And a pint of strawberry syrup.  Six quarts of strawberries in the freezer, 8 quarts in the fridge for processing tomorrow (when?!), and 3 quarts stewing in sugar right now for future processing (again, when?!).

4. Prep/stored something:  um, strawberries?

5. Cook something new:  barbequed macaroni salad.  That just can't be a good thing.

6. Manage your reserves:  I DID IT!  I cleaned that mofo of a pantry out and fixed her all up real nice-like!

7. Work on local food systems:  more Community Garden, more Terre Foods.  Will probably be teaching another dairy class soon as a fundraiser for TF.  Had a major meeting with the Downtown refurbishment group in our town--went well.

8. Reduce Waste:  I had something to put here, but now I don't remember what it was.  Phoey.

9. Learn a new skill:  I learned to use a circular saw!  Damn, that was fun!

I'm just curious at this point how many more challenges I think I need to do this summer?  Heheh.  No A/C yet, with the only real downside being that our house is now sticky.  I hate humidity.  I even baking soda'ed my carpet yesterday, which certainly helped, but still, the sticky it remains.  Today Brian went back to college, which really is remarkably funny even in it's complete non-funniness.  Tonight he is getting his long-awaited D&D v4.0.  Little does he know, but we will also be getting ceiling fans.  He doesn't think the heat has really gotten too bad yet, but he goes to an air-conditioned office every day.  Really, it's not too bad yet.  It hit 90*F today, but it's still in the 70's in our house, and that's pretty much acceptable.  Playing outside is also good.

1. Plant something:  nothing yet, but I've got some sprouting shallots on my counter, so I'm going to go shove those into my onion bed somewhere and see what happens.

2. Harvest something:  strawberries, spinach, lettuce, kale

3. Preserve something:  nope.

4. Prep/stored something:  well, I would have, if more than two things on my 12-item-long bulk order had come in!  Grrrr.  And in this case, it's not shortages that are at issue, it's absentee, no-account new owners who are draining the money out of the company.  Damnit.  Time to find a new vendor, I guess.

5. Cook something new:  paneer potato rounds

6. Manage your reserves:  okay, I feel I need to explain something here.  We recently purchased a cat, which has successfully completely routed our mice.  Except for in the pantry.  Our cat can't get up the shelves in the pantry.  As such, before I can really manage our reserves, I need to deal with this problem.  I have a plan.

7. Work on local food systems:  more Community Garden (the potatoes are coming up!); the Farmer's Market starts this weekend, and Terre Foods will have a table there all summer.  I'm manning the first table.

8. Reduce Waste:  no new ideas yet.

9. Learn a new skill:  nope.

I don't have much time to post today--rats.  I'd planned a much longer post, but ah well.  I spent much of my day at the Community Garden, once again trying to turn my bricks into friable soil.  I turned my attention to my new 10' x 10' bed and attempted to spike in the spade; it bounced.  It bounced.  I said "Fuck this for a lark" and went over to get 6 wheelbarrow loads of compost.  I spread this over the entire plot, soaked thoroughly with water, and left.  I'm rather hoping that by Sunday night, when we return, the clay below will have looked longingly above to the compost and gone "Ooo, I can do that, too!" and transmuted itself into something usable.  Ah well, it's good for me.  Here's the challenge:

1. Plant something:  potatoes and ASPARAGUS--yup, it finally arrived.

2. Harvest something:  strawberries, spinach, a bit of lettuce

3. Preserve something:  nope.

4. Prep/stored something:  nope.

5. Cook something new:  strawberry tart!  Mmmm...

6. Manage your reserves:  nope, but soon.

7. Work on local food systems:  a bit of time on the co-op; lots of time at the Community Garden (man, I just feel good about being out there)

8. Reduce Waste:  no new ideas yet.

9. Learn a new skill:  used a stirrup hoe for the first time--I gotta get me one of those.

Here's my Independence Day update for the week:

1. Plant something:  Actually, I'm nearly done with planting.  I still need to get to my plots in the Community Garden to get the potatoes in, but the Halloween pumpkins can't go in now, anyway, and I'll do the sugar pumpkins at the same time, just for ease.  I got some Lily of the Valley from my neighbor, which I adore (I'm a total francophile), and now it's in on the North side of my house.  I've been staying on top of the weeding so far.  I'm also going to do some checking on planting schedules for various types of wheat.  I'm kicking around the idea of getting another few plots in the Community Garden for wheat.

2. Harvest something:  strawberries!  Well, okay, I've only picked one so far.  It was the first one ready this season, and it was my reward for lawn mowing.  Oh, was it worth it.  Soon I'll be able to start harvesting kale and lettuce.

3. Preserve something:  peach jam from frozen peaches last year.  I tried to do this without sure-jell, which categorically did not work.  I ended up dumping in a pouch of sure-jell at the last minute, which got me a slightly loose but still perfectly usable jam.  I need to seriously look into that Pomona stuff, cause you can do low/no sugar recipes with it.  I'm not against sugar or anything, but jams made with multiple pounds of sugar are just too much sometimes--you can't even taste the fruit anymore!

4. Prep/stored something:  Put my 50lb bag of oats in the freezer for bug-kill.  Soon I'm borrowing some buckets & gamma lids from a friend and will start up a storing rotation.  I also bought my grain mill, so that soon I can buy existential quantities of grain with no storage fears!

5. Cook something new:  peach jam. 

6. Manage your reserves:  *sigh*

7. Work on local food systems:  lots of co-op work this week.  We're getting a lot done, actually, and things are beginning to take shape.  The membership committee had it's first meeting, which went really well.  We've gotten our first offer for a site, which we discussed a bit.  It would be insane for us to sign anything right now, but the offer is a good one.  The site itself leaves much to be desired--possibly so much that we shouldn't do it--but it is definitely a serious contender.  Hopefully we'll be able to have a professional weigh in on this issue before any decisions need to be made.  And all that aside, it's nice to be wanted!

8. Reduce Waste:  still not having any brilliant ideas here.  You just wait until our co-op is up and running, and so help me the only waste our house will produce will be weekly empty boxes of Wheat Thins, Triscuits and graham crackers (which will doubtlessly be our last holdouts for stupid food packaging).

9. Learn a new skill:  I learned how to use a Warren hoe, re-learned how to use a power mower (and hope to soon forget).

Alright, first, I'd like to point out (again) that I am sick.  Really really very very sick. Ugh.  I'm sure I'm behind on all kinds of things because of this.  But let's see what's what--usually, I'm surprised by what I actually have accomplished.

1. Plant something:  planted some more basil, since I completely failed with my first batch (quick tip: do not put your basil seedlings in the same plug tray as your tomato seedlings.  While that might seem a rational combination, the tomatoes will quickly grow bigger than the basil and shade them from all light, making them, well, hopeless.)  Planted out my chervil, parsley, cilantro, and greek oregano. 

2. Harvest something:  nope.

3. Preserve something:  nope.

4. Prep/stored something:  nope.

5. Cook something new:  I invented an asparagus-cheese-phyllo dough thingy that was pretty good, even if it stayed way too hot for too long.

6. Manage your reserves:  nope.

7. Work on local food systems:  co-op work as usual; got 2 plots at the community garden that I'll use for potatoes and halloween pumpkins.

8. Reduce Waste (used to be "Compost"):  our household non-recyclable waste isn't too bad.  We average about 1/2 to 3/4 bag of trash per week.  Our recyclable waste is BAD though--way too much stuff.  I am increasing the amount we buy in bulk, which helps.  I'll have to see what else can be done here.

9. Learn a new skill:  Hrm...  I learned how to negotiate charity webhosting for the co-op, does that count?

Okay, so I haven't done much this week.  Fine.  Did I mention that I am sick?

1. Plant something:  Planted spinach as a quick crop between my peas and beans.  Have not planted potatoes yet (bad Jedimomma, no cookie!).  Have not yet received my asparagus crowns.  Jedimomma grows frustrated...

2. Harvest something:  Nothing yet; my already-planted asparagus is done for the year.

3. Preserve something:  bazutloads of asparagus--blanched & frozen.

4. Prep something:  nope.

5. Cook something:  yes.

6. Manage your reserves:  still no.  Need to clean out pantry in a big way, then construct something such that our mouse killer--er, I mean, our cat--can get up there to defend our food!

7. Work on local food systems:  more co-op work in general; added more folks to the cowshare.

8. Compost:  always.

9. Learn a new skill:  got B's computer logged onto our wireless network at home.  I swear soon I'll learn something relevant (like how to use a circular saw).

Okay, I took the challenge, how am I doing?  Let's check in....  (Incidentally, if you took the challenge you only need to do at least one of these each week, but I'm just trying to keep track overall.)

1. Plant something: I've gotten most things in to the garden; this week I put in the tomatoes, planted zukes & cukes, & onions.  I've got two rows of spinach to go, but I'll save those for next week.  Haven't done my potatoes yet, either!  Gah!

2. Harvest something:  asparagus.  Mmmmm....

3. Preserve something:  nope.

4. Prep something:  made Monster Order through Natural Farms--lots of beans, lentils (green Lentils de Puys!  Mmm), flour (fingers crossed), peanut butter.

5. Cook something:  only always.

6. Manage your reserves:  *sigh* nope.  Maybe I should get on that one.

7. Work on local food systems:  got the bags for the co-op in, prepping for concert fund raiser!  Networked a bit w/ local farmers.

8. Compost:  Yup, there it is.  Used some to side-dress brassicas & onions.

9. Learn a new skill:  finally figured out how to get graphics into my sidebar (okay, maybe a bit off topic, but hey, it's a new skill)