Mendolonium

I haven’t been posting my Independence Days updates due to the need to gaze adoringly at a certain grinning baby, but while he sleeps I’ve been busy working in our ridiculous heat.  Since my last update, I’ve:

Planted something or take care something you’ve planted:

• Trellised tomatoes (Jeff gets all the credit for this)

Harvested something:

• Parsley
• Leeks
• Shallots
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Green Beans
• Bell Peppers
• Frying Peppers
• Jalapeno Peppers
• Serrano Pepper (just one!)
• Tomatoes
• Blackberries
• Strawberries

Our total harvest since March 2009:  24.4 kg (53.7 lbs )! – Not including the countless berries that we have consumed before we ever got a chance to weigh them.

Preserved something:

• 20 pints hamburger dill pickles (canned)
• 6 cups sweet cucumber relish (canned)
• 9.5 cups carrots, cut into coins (frozen)
• 6 cups carrots, shredded (frozen)
• 8 cups green beans, blanched (frozen)
• 10 pints strawberries (frozen, for smoothies and sauces) – unfortunately not from our garden, our plants aren’t nearly that prolific yet

Waste Not:

• Brought reusable plates, utensils, etc. on our beach vacation last week

Want Not/Prep:

• Stocked up on 3T – 5T clothes for the boys at Goodwill and on clearance at Gymboree

Build community food systems:

• Does giving away cucumbers and pickles to family and neighbors count?

Eat the Food:

• Found a recipe for Pad Thai and am going to give it a go tomorrow night.

Sadly, peaches aren’t on the list of fruit harvest.  At the beginning of the summer I estimate that we had around five dozen peaches on our tree.  Last week they all disappeared.  I blame squirrels and rats.  Now our tomatoes are starting to vanish – while still green.  Anyone have recommendations for kid-safe and pet-safe ways to get rid of rats?  And when I say “get rid of” I mean kill.  My pacifist, vegetarian values do not extend to vermin eating my food.

One of the typical symptoms of depression is a “loss of interest in normal daily activities”.  True to my typical form, my depression seems to be atypical in that I cope by being insanely (literally) productive.  I am sure that more sleep and relaxation would help my depression, but seeing as how that just isn’t going to happen I am rocking the Independence Days challenge:

Plant something:

• Tarragon seedling
• French thyme seedling
• Lemon thyme seedling
• Curry plant seedling
• Burgess Buttercup squash seeds x12
• Waltham Butternut squash seeds x12

Harvest something:

• Potatoes!  They were beautiful and crisp and so much fun to dig up and harvest with Thomas.  I loved seeing the look on his face when he realized that the earth was full of potatoes – it was as if he found buried treasure with every spud.
• Carrots
• Leeks
• Blueberries
• A few strawberries.
• 2 blackberries (Sounds unimpressive, I know.  But they are only the first two of hundreds on our bushes.)
• A few raspberries.  Fresh raspberries are amazing, must plant more.

Preserve something:

• Two batches of laminated dough for danish.
• 16 cups of marinara sauce.
• A lot more breastmilk.  Freedom in the freezer!

Reduce Waste:

• We threw a get together for some fellow parents and kids as well as a nice relaxing Memorial Day party and rather than succumb to the temptation of disposable or even compostable dinnerware we simply used our everyday plates and silverware.  Thank goodness for the dishwasher.

Preparation and Storage:

• Regorganized my baking ingredients to give me better storage and access for those that I use most.

Eat the Food

• Tonight I made a potato casserole using our leeks, our carrots, and our potatoes.  That simple meal made me feel that we have entered a new realm of self-sufficiency:  we can now make an entire meal using food we grew.
• With a nursing mama there is certainly a lot of eating in our house!  I don’t have as much time to make dinner as I used to so I have been trying to reduce our food waste by chopping up the veggies for a couple of nights worth of dinner when I have the time so that the vegetables don’t languish in the fridge and go bad because I don’t find the time to use them.
• Thomas and I have been having a ton of fun baking – with eggs.  We made scrambled eggs and Belgian waffles for dinner on Sunday night and also baked the “Best Fudge Brownies Ever”.

And it doesn’t fit into any category, but it is the most exciting development of all:   tonight the bee man paid us a visit.  Next week he is going to set up a device to remove  a bee colony from our chimney (that’s a story for another post) and then transfer that colony to a new hive in our backyard.  And you know what we’ll have then…HOMEGROWN HONEY.

Lest you think that I spend all of my time making up crude song lyrics, let me assure you that we’re still working away at the Independence Days Challenge and The Riot for Austerity (the subject of the next post).

Plant something:

• Dill (“Fernleaf”) seedlings x2
• Sage (not really a seedling, but a big 1 gallon potted plant I picked up at the farmer’s market)
• Italian parsley seedling
• Basil (“Large Leaf”) seedlings x2

Harvest something:

• Peas

Preserve something:

• Does 17 ounces of breastmilk in the freezer count?

Reduce Waste:

• I am on another one of my organizing sprees (all the things I meant to do in the three weeks before Henry was scheduled to arrive) and I am quite pleased that I have not purchased a single storage container or organizational “solution” but have instead used containers found in our garage to put everything (almost) in it’s place.

Preparation and Storage:

• Did a full reorganization of our linen closet which is where our first aid supplies lie (Nothing like a little threatened pandemic to keep one on one’s toes).  We’ve got everything we need to treat mild to moderate illnesses and injuries at home.
• Jeff set up our Big Berkey water filter.  We’re filling it up with tap water and using it as our everyday water filter, but in the event that we need it, it’s cool to know that we can turn bacteria laden mud into clean drinking water.

Eat the Food

• With a nursing mama there is certainly a lot of eating in our house!  I don’t have as much time to make dinner as I used to so I have been trying to reduce our food waste by chopping up the veggies for a couple of nights worth of dinner when I have the time so that the vegetables don’t languish in the fridge and go bad because I don’t find the time to use them.
• Thomas and I have been having a ton of fun baking – with eggs.  We made scrambled eggs and Belgian waffles for dinner on Sunday night and also baked the “Best Fudge Brownies Ever”.

It will probably be a slower year in our march towards independence, but I do think that we will stick with it.  There are so many things in my life that are unpleasant obligations – insurance companies, doctor’s visits, and changing toddler diapers.  But somehow this isn’t.  I am always happy when I am planting, cooking, or organizing and this challenge inspires me to take the time to do just that.

Henry

 My “little guy” weighed in at 9 pounds (!) this past Thursday (four weeks and one day old).  Clearly, my worries about an early birth resulting in nursing difficulties were totally unfounded. 

Thoughts on Being the Mother of Two

Short version:  It’s great!  I love Henry!  I love Thomas!  Children are awesome - I want lots of them!

Long version:  Both Henry and Thomas are utter perfection to me.  I love them both deeply and fiercely.  Love may be infinite, however, time is not.  Shockingly, meeting every one’s needs to my unreasonable perfectionist standards is proving to be impossible.  What I want is to spend hours every day going on adventures and baking with Thomas, while also finding the time to take hours for nursing, rocking, singing to, and gazing at Henry.  Oh and while I am at it I want the time to dig in the dirt for an hour or so, a sparkling clean house, to develop a new recipe at least once a week, and a pampering getaway for a hair color and a massage.  What I get is a preschooler exclaiming ”I want to hang on mama” while I nurse the baby, frozen macaroni and cheese from a box for lunch, and dyeing my hair myself in the bathroom at 11:30 pm. 

Viruses

I am pretty sure hell isn’t filled with fire and brimstone, but with snot.  We are all sick – again.  Last time it was bronchitis.  This time it seems to be a mild cold.  With a bit of luck, there won’t be a next time for quite awhile.  Given that Jeff and I are both home now, Thomas will be taking a leave of absence from preschool  – aka “the den of disease”.

The Incredible Edible Egg

After a year and a half of fantasizing about a fried egg sandwich, taking an hour or two to get through the grocery store as I scrutinized every label with the precision of one reading about how to diffuse a bomb, making some truly craptastic cookies, and thinking of chickens as “the enemy” it appears that Thomas is no longer allergic to eggs.  It’s a long story that I honestly have no desire to write down but the end result seems to be that he can safely eat the previously forbidden eggs, garlic, and pepper (sesame is still off limits).  Thomas had no reaction to ”food challenges” of baked egg, egg in pancakes, scrambled eggs, and finally raw egg (in the form of banana bread batter).  Not only does this mean realbreakfasts, royal icing, cheesecakes, pâte à choux, and cookies that actually stay together, but it means that Mendolo farms is going to get itself some livestock.  Oh yeah. 

Independence Days

Yes – I am actually still doing the Independence Days challenge.  My mom and dad were visiting this past week and I actually got quite a bit done with the help of their excellent preschooler entertaining and and baby holding skills:

1. Plant Something or Take Care of Something You’ve Planted:

• Watermelon (4 “Sugar Baby”)
• Cucumbers (1 “Diva, 2 Marketmore 76)
• Cauliflower (4 “Snowball Y”)
• Green Beans (12 “Nickel Haricots Verts”)
• Zucchini (1 “Round French”)
• Carrots (“Danvers”)
• Moved all strawberries to the front yard.

2. Harvest Something:

• Peas.
• Lettuce.

3. Preserve something:

• Not this week.

4. Prep something:

• Organized the boy’s clothing. 

5. Cook something new:

• Lot’s of cooking, but nothing new. 

6. Manage your reserves:

• Working on eating up items (i.e., cherries) that we preserved last year prior to them coming into season this year.