Mendolonium

I am afraid to put the words down in print yet, but there are signs; very positive signs that we may be staying put.  I shall say no more as things are not certain yet, but I really do hope so…

Since my last update we’ve:

Plant something (or take care of something you’ve planted):

• Started basil, parsley, and cilantro indoors in pots.  My attempts to direct sow them in the garden this spring have not been successful.  Perhaps the cool, wet weather we have had is responsible?
• Started some additional “Furry Yellow Hog” tomato seeds.  I let Thomas pick out a tomato seed variety this year and he choose an yellow, slightly fuzzy tomato, “Furry Yellow Hog”.  We had several promising seedlings that we transplanted into the garden, but they all keeled over and died, much to Thomas’ distress.  So we are trying again…for a late season transplant.
• Planted some additional beans (Cannelloni) in some bare spots in the garden.

Harvest something:

• Carrots!  First of the season.
• Strawberries
• Raspberries

Preserve something:

• Nothing.

Waste Not:

• Gave away unwanted items for free on craigslist rather than throwing them away to be sent to the landfill.

Want Not:

• Just enjoying the start of a bountiful season of fruit…from our garden, the farmer’s markets, local farms…I love summer.

Eat the food:

• Finished off the last of our preserved bell peppers (frozen) from last year’s crop.  We’ve got lots of flowers on our peppers out back now so in a couple months we will back in peppers.
• After lots of traveling and nights spent agonizing over where to move, I am truly back in the habit of baking all of our bread and buns again.  Even though it is routine, almost nothing is so satisfying as pulling a warm, homemade loaf out of the oven.

Build community food systems:

• Found a neighbor just down the street that keeps chickens.  She told me that she would be happy to give me some Araucana chicks (green eggs!) when I am ready to start with chickens.  I kept Jeff up until 2:00 am the other night reading out loud to him about taking care of backyard chickens.   I might be obsessed.  Thomas is my partner in chicken advocacy and when asked whether he wants a play structure or a chicken coop in a bare area of the backyard will enthusiastically shout out, “chickens”!

I have no idea where we will be living this fall.  The Bay Area is a distinct possibility.  Washington D.C. area has emerged as a contender.  New York City is in the running.  South Carolina is the dark horse.  Then again, we might just stay right were we are.  Why all the possibilities and what are we thinking…moving with two young children?  Primarily, it is the lack of full-time job possibilities for Jeff in Southern California.  Jeff wants to teach at a two year or small four year school and in California, secondary education budgets have been slashed.  He cannot get a job in Southern California when most schools are laying off rather than hiring.   A secondary consideration is that despite our love of Pasadena, our home, and the life we have built here we have concerns about the sustainability of Southern California:  the expense of living somewhere where a “starter” home runs $500K* is huge and we are entirely dependent on imported water for our livelihood.  I have literally spent dozens of hours over the past month constructing elaborate spreadsheets; budgets, scenarios of raises and furloughs,  and commuting vs. rental costs.  I agonize over the spreadsheets hoping that technology will “save” me; will make our decision clear.  But, just like problems facing the larger world, technology will not give us the answer.  We have some hard decisions to make.

Living sustainability means living with a focus on the long term.  Lately, it has been hard to think about our life in the long term, when we don’t even know where we will be living in a few months.   I look out at my strong tomato plants and wonder, “Will I be standing over a pot of boiling water come August, sweltering in my little kitchen, preserving the bounty of the harvest?” or “Will I be  finding my way in a new city, without a job or childcare, but with the excitement of possibility?”  I can think about moving until I think about how that means leaving our home here and all we have built.  It is my hope that if we do leave, another family take what we have made here and use it to build a more sustainable life for themselves.  While I can’t take the dirt with us, I have learned a great deal and that knowledge will come with us to our new home.  Life is uncertain, but it is certain that people need to eat.  So I  weed my beans, plant another crop of melons, carefully guide the blackberry bushes through a trellis.  I am not sure who will be eating all this good food but all the effort shall not be for naught.

So, since my last update we’ve:

Plant something (or take care of something you’ve planted):

• Peppers (“Ace Bell”, “Purple Beauty Bell”, “New Mexico Joe E. Parker”, from seedlings)
• Thyme (from seedlings)
• Mint (from seedlings)
• Marigold (from seedlings)
• Watermelon (“Sugar Baby”, from seed)
• Cantaloupe (“Hale’s Best Muskmelon, from seed)
• Pruned and trellised grapes and blackberries.

Harvest something:

• Leeks
• Strawberries (just a few)

Preserve something:

• 4 half-pints of strawberry sauce (canned)
• 7.5 pints of blueberries (canned)

Waste Not:

• Gave away unwanted items for free on craigslist rather than throwing them away to be sent to the landfill.

Want Not:

• Raiding my treasure cabinet for things to keep the boys occupied during Jeff’s absences and our trips to check out possible new locations.  The treasure cabinet is filled with stickers, books from the library sale, toys from Goodwill, and new crayons and activity books bought on sale.  It has saved my sanity on many occasions.

Eat the food:

• Tried a new recipe for poppy seed cake with lemon frosting.  Two thumbs up!
• Eating heavily from our food storage so that we will have less food to move if we decide to do so.

Build community food systems:

• I am now a certified California “food protection manager”.  This means I took a class on food safety and passed an exam (with a score of 95%, I might add).  This certification was the first step in my teaching food preservation and sustainable cooking classes to the public.  I will be teaching the classes at a local “kitchen incubator”, a commercial kitchen for rent to those starting food based small businesses.

*So it is of course with great irony that the two official job offers Jeff has received have been in the Bay Area and in Manhattan – the two places in the country more expensive than Southern California.  At least it rains there.

Long ago I made Thomas macaroni and cheese to which I added shredded carrots and peas (both from our backyard).  The first time I served it to him, he complained when he realized that the carrots were, in fact, a vegetable, not simply additional grated cheddar cheese as he had assumed.  I insisted that macaroni and cheese contained vegetables (Not only is it healthier, that’s the way I like it and since I do the cooking that’s the way it is).  We recently pulled our pea plants and used up the last of the frozen peas so that when I made macaroni and cheese last week there were no peas to be had to put in it.  In typical three year old fashion, is rather insistent about routine and complained loudly when he was served macaroni and cheese with only carrots.  I went to add peas to my grocery list for next time, but then I stopped remembering the bright flavor, the firm texture, and the fresh green smell of the peas straight off of the vines in our backyard.  In compassion the frozen grocery store peas are mushy and flavorless.  I decided then and there that we shall  buy no more sad grocery store peas.  They may have been grown in season, but eating them is not an enjoyable nor sustainable choice.  Long ago I committed to buying to only local fresh produce, but upping the ante to only in season, local produce – period:  no out of season fruits or vegetables unless I preserved them myself.  After I explained that the peas were no longer growing, reminding Thomas how we had yanked out all the pea plants together, he accepted the loss of the “green balls” and happily ate his carrots, macaroni, and cheese.  I realized contentedly that in his world it is normal for a kid living in the city to grow all their own tomatoes, to play in the compost, and accept that we only eat peas in the wintertime.   I started doing the Independence days challenge for our food security and sustainability but as the kids get older I am really seeing how important my actions are in influencing the next generation.  After lunch Thomas and I lamented the loss of the peas once again, but then excitedly began to discuss what food treasures awaited us this summer:  peaches, melons, blackberries, and tomatoes – just as it should be.

This past week we’ve:

Pant something:

• Tomatoes (tiny little seedlings started from seed)
• Cannelloni Beans (from seed)
• Cucumber (Marketmore 76, from seed)

Harvest something:

• Leeks
• Strawberries (just a few)

Preserve something:

• 14 half-pints of blackberry jam

Waste Not:

• Organized our garage so that we can find what we need, rather than buying new.
• Gave away unwanted items for free on craigslist rather than throwing them away to be sent to the landfill.

Want Not:

• Received a surprise gift of 8 lbs of strawberries, 7 lbs of blueberries, and 5 lbs of blackberries.  Probably $150 worth of berries, for free!  Better than Christmas!
• Ordered two 55 gallon water storage barrels and an emergency siphon, to store water in case of an earthquake or other disaster.

Eat the food:

• Eating leeks in everything.
• Tried a new empanada recipe, which I didn’t like.  It makes me very cranky to make bad food, but I suppose you have to weed through the bad to get to the good.

Build community food systems:

• Signed up to take a class to become a certified California “food safety manager”.  This is the first step in my opening a food-related small business, teaching sustainable cooking classes and food preservation to the community.

What have y’all been planting/preserving/organizing/eating in this glorious spring weather?

It’s the end of the month (ok, yes it is now the beginning of the next month, but it was the end when I began this entry) and time for another Independence Days update.  One of the reasons I keep up with these posts is to motivate myself.  I have been feeling distinctly unmotivated in my gardening/farming/cooking efforts of late;  I blame the heat, rats, and fire.  The heat is fairly self explanatory, who would move dirt in the blazing sun when it is 100+ outside or cook when it is 90+ inside the kitchen?  The rats are just horrid little creatures.  I know they are cute little mammals, pets even to some but they have eaten all but four of my tomatoes, all of my peaches, and a significant amount of my immature cantaloupe, watermelon, and zucchini.  We have declared war on the little beasts and we are not taking prisoners.  In the past week we’ve had smoky, downright hazardous air to contend with.  Jeff likend the hot, humid, smoky Pasadena weather today to “living in a sauna with a campfire burning in the middle”.  Lovely.  I am also simply discouraged by the lack of resources to draw upon for growing food in Southern California.  I can find lots of books on growing food and many on gardening in hot, dry climates but the food growing books tend to assume that one lives in a place with four defined seasons (one of them cold) and the gardening books tend to concentrate on growing things like azaleas – pretty, yes, but edible, no.  So I am making mistakes – lots of them.  I tried to chit (sprout) seed potatoes for fall planting this past week and they turned into tiny moldy, shrivled lumps.  I harvested our first watermelon before it was fully done because the tendril had dried, however that must have been a result of our extreme heat, not a true indication of ripeness.  My attempts at growing parsnips were a resounding failure.  So I write these updates, not to brag, but to remind myself of how far I have come from that college girl who used to consider Pasta Roni a delicous dinner and once stated that, “I like nature, I just don’t want it to touch me.”

During August we:

Planted something or take care something you’ve planted:

• Trellised cucumbers
• Trellised watermelon

Harvested something:

• Raspberries
• Strawberries
• Watermelon
• Bell Peppers
• Anaheim Peppers
• Frying Peppers
• Jalapeno Peppers
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Basil

Our total harvest since March 2009:  62 kg (137 lbs )! – Not including lettuce, a bunch of herbs, some peppers, and the countless berries that we have consumed before we ever got a chance to weigh them.

Preserved something:

• 4 pints peaches (canned)
• pints bread and butter pickles (canned)
• 4 cups dill cucumber relish (canned)
• 28 cups carrots, shredded (frozen)
• 16 cups bell pepper, julienne (frozen)
• a whole lot of potatoes (in the fridge, not ideal, but if I leave them out then will turn to mush in our warm house, anyone have any suggestions for how to store potatoes outside of the fridge in a hot climate?)
• 21 jalapeno peppers (dried)
• 1 cup basil  (dried)

Waste Not:

• Really working on reducing our food waste by eating up leftovers for lunch, etc.

Want Not/Prep:

• Took out all the boys winter clothes (almost as a plea to the weather gods for some cooler temperatures).
• Began moving soil and compost to prepare the beds for fall planting.

Build community food systems:

• Taught my friend Hannah how to make baguettes from scratch.  Anyone else want a tutorial?

Eat the Food:

• A lot of cucumber/garbanzo bean/feta salads
• A lot of veggie fajitas with bell peppers and carrots