Really? Another gadget? Yep.

Today found me once again distracted from my day job... Good thing I work at a computer with the entirety of the interwebs at my fingertips. Well, all the non-blocked production-sapping interwebs - supposedly...

I just ordered another necessary accoutrement to our new lifestyle: cheese making equipment. I went to cheesemaking.com and bought the beginner set with the dvd and recipe book as well as the hard cheese kit and the gourmet kit. Now, if I can just find the cobbler kit... My rationale - my excuse for this purpose is that it's a birthday present to myself. Fshew, Trisa is off the hook. I am literally quivering with anticipation at the thought that my food mill kit and cheese kits are on their way to my house as we speak! Besides Trisa, Pi (yep, Pi), Roy, cobbler and wine, cheese is my very favorite. I'm passionate about cheese. I love everything cheese. Cheese.

We're finally getting the home-based infrastructure in place to make food that'll last us through the winter. It's odd that to our grandparents this would seem perfectly natural. So many of that generation were so self-sufficient. They tread lightly, so to speak, when it came to consumerism, self producing food, not wasting things, etc.

I've begun to analyze (please note: I use this term liberally here) the unintended consequences of our experiment. Here are some:

• Last month we threw out about 10% of the food we bought - In the past our average monthly food waste was near 45%. This is a 78% reduction in our food waste.
• We threw away about 4 bags of non-food waste. In the past we usually averaged 2-3 bags per week. There was one week that we had less than a bag to go out to the curb and so we didn't put any garbage out. This is a 60% reduction.
• Our recycle bin has been filled up once since starting (three months ago). I should say that we've filled it once over a two-week period and every other two week period it's been less than 2/3 full. Except this week - I've stuffed it full of some cardboard boxes ready for recycling. Before, we filled it nearly every two-week period. This is about a 30% reduction in our recyclable waste.

I am amazed at just how much we threw away that things came packaged in, or that went bad before we could eat it. The reduction of food waste has reduced due to us buying less food, buying non-packaged food, producing our own food and harvesting it the day we eat it, etc. So even though the food we buy costs more, we buy less, and spend less to produce our own small quantity. Check out how much we spend on a weekly basis to the right. It's the same (maybe a little more some weeks), but just about the same on average as we spent before. The resources we spend, like time and gas has gone up slightly to get the same end net results, but the waste reduction and the lower cost of the lower amount goods we purchase brings down the total net resources consumed -significantly. We never intended to save money, or reduce our waste. We never intended to spend more either, but thought that it was likely that we would. That hasn't been the case. In the end, more of our spent dollars are going to LOCAL producers who produce food and stuffs with a higher rate of resource use, but lower overall environmental and cost impact due to less transportation, less chemicals (virtually none), less packaging and so on.
I love that the dollars stay here, that I'm getting to know the producers and farmers in my community, and that they pay for people to practice a more healthy production cycle than big business uni-crop farms. I LOVE IT. Plus we're getting to know some great people in the process. Sam, the pasta guru is AWESOME. Deborah, she may or may not be real, but was really cool that one time. The blog followers - and the casual readers - have made contact and sent us links, told us of their experiences, and made suggestions or recommendations. The cheese kit is the very version used by a coworker and his girlfriend. This weekend we're planning on going berry picking with another blog follower.
So far it's been a great adventure. We're three months in as of Sunday this week so we've got three more quarters to go. I can't wait to try making cheese and pasta sauce and jam and jelly and more bread. I can't wait to review those products on the blog either. I hope they live up to my expectations.
That's all for now. Next blog I might have more to say about upping our production by renting out some farm land...
Mike

Well, I've gone and done it

I've officially become obsessed with urban farming and (self) sustainability.

I've been on the cusp for quite some time, but I find my mind wanders more and more to the ideas and ideals of that sort of simple life. So while I'm working - writing procedures for power plants, pouring over financial information to glean if they're covering up any maintenance issues, drawing plant instrument and flow diagrams, I find that in VERY short order I'm distracted and reading Grist, or looking at Amazon for a new kitchen gadget to help make better use of our harvest, or thinking of where else to put in a new garden bed, or how I could use the small green patch between a sidewalk and a street...

Today, I bought some educational materials to once again step up our farm's production. I'll read it and review it on the blog as soon as I'm done, but it's giving me all sorts of ideas. Since start of work this morning, during my lunch and breaks, I've read 3 of 7 "chapters" and also bought those new kitchen gadgets from Amazon.

Which brings me to another conclusion - we're going to have to go to a cash/envelope method of handling our personal finances. We definitely spend way more than we need to. I just looked at our monthly bank statement and in about 4 weeks we spend like crazy on lunches, beer/drinks/movies - etc, small store purchases, gas, consumables, and all sorts of various and sundry items. Seriously there's probably about 75 transactions that average $7.50 that we can and SHOULD do without. By we, I mean me. I'm horrible when it comes to using my debit card and I'm finally convinced that the cash/envelope method could be the answer.

Today, at Amazon I bought some things that we really could use, things we've been thinking of purchasing for a while and just haven't yet. I ordered a sauce maker - basically it's a food mill to process our fruits and tomatoes. In the long run it'll save us tons of time when we're making red sauce, jams, jellies, fruit mush, etc. No coring of apples is necessary with this bad boy. Simply quarter and drop them into the hopper and twist the crank and whammo: apple sauce. So, we do "need" it and it was time to order it as harvest is quickly approaching.

I can't wait until it comes in the mail and I get to go to a market for 100 lbs of tomatoes to make 100 quarts of spaghetti sauce.

I also can't wait to start utilizing the tips and techniques I'm finding in this urban farmers guide.

If anyone knows of someone who wants to install a small scale intensive farm, or wants to learn how to do it at their own property, or wants someone like me to farm their property (or a piece of it), please please please let me know. I'd love to get started soon teaching/coaching and working on more space(s) soon so we're ready for next year.

That's all for now.

Mike

I LOVE this article!!

Wow, the NY times has stirred up the locavores and their ilk recently with an op ed piece calling for the locavore movement to use numbers, math, to back up their claims that eating local saves money, saves pollution, has less environmental impact, and what have you. Can you imagine? MATH?

The folks at Grist.org have done an amazing job at rounding up the locavores - the prominent ones - to rebut the NY Times op ed piece. Their work is is nothing short of profound. Thank you grist.

I, however, like to think of myself as a non-conformist in as many ways possible. But not a hipster. For that nonconformity, I leave it to a friend/coworker. My nonconforming leads me to discount much of what Budiansky says as well as much of what those prominent locavores have stated in their reactions to his article.

You can find the NYTimes piece at

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html?_r=1

and the Grist.org piece at

http://www.grist.org/article/food-fight-do-locavores-really-need-math-lessons/.

For me, and I presume Trisa, our choice to eat locally and to produce our own is a personal decision. We didn't choose to go through this experiment to save the world, save the climate, change people, or for any activist reasons. We did it to educate ourselves and to hopefully give back a portion of what God has blessed us with.

We have a tiny piece of dirt, a small house, small bank accounts, great jobs and great families and friends. We are blessed with good neighbors and trials and times that make us carve out a life for ourselves that we enjoy, that we can learn from and grow. Nearly a decade ago, I took a two day course on living a focused life. I learned that most people don't "peak" in life until shortly before they retire. Their highest earnings, their most enjoyment from family, work, education, etc all comes just before they stop "working." If there's one reason Trisa and I do what we do it's because "we want to." No one has to hold our hands to go and learn how to garden, to go to jobs we LOVE, to spend our money on the things we both need to spend it on and WANT to spend it on. Where our desires and passions meet up with our actions (we call those VALUES) is where we focus our time, energy and resources. There and only there. Our values change and will always continue changing. They are different than they were nine years ago when I first studied a focused life. They will be different in ten years from now. But, no matter what our values are, we'll be "peaking" for decades. We'll be "achieving" (or at least attempting to) our goals and living our life in-line with our vision and focus WAY before retirement and WAY after.

Trisa and I have done the exercises I learned nine years ago together for the last six years at least once per year. We've found that a profound change has taken place: we live a life we like and love and can see God's generosity to us in that life. You might ask if we think everything is easy or if we do things we don't want to do. the answers are NO and YES. Of course we have to do things we'd rather not, it's our duty. But the bigger picture remains - our vision of our future and our life many years ahead instead of tomorrow. When we go to work at our day jobs, when we garden, when we go to farmers markets, when we sell wine, take classes, read books, spend time with family and friends, do things we'd rather not, etc., all of it is focused and intentional (usually). We've found ourselves in vocations and work that is "in tune" with our wiring, our desires and passions. It doesn't feel like work. It all feels like life, abundant life.

We hope to give back at least a little of what we've been given. THAT'S why we're locavores - and why we're growing as much food as we can on our small piece of dirt at our small home.

M

It's been a while

To the eleven (faithful) followers, we're sorry it has been so long since our last post. We've been on vacation and busy busy busy.

I'd like to update you on the happenings on the farm and in our lives. Trisa is back to work after a week off last week. I took three days off and am back too. We went to Mt. Saint Helens for a house-sitting vacation. We toured WONDERFUL Willamette Valley near Portland twice while on vacation for some of the best wine tasting we've ever had. We also went to Windy Ridge, the Ape Caves (just a quick stop, not into them), Johnston Ridge, and the surrounding countryside. If you've never been, you seriously need to get off your rear and go. It's absolutely some of the most beautiful, peaceful countryside the earth has to offer. Plus, it's only a quick hour and a half to Oregon's most storied wine region - W Valley.

Two weeks ago we were interviewed and photographed for a possible news(y) article/photo essay for grist.org. I'd like you all to go to grist.org and bookmark the site. They have some very different world views than Trisa and I have, but their agricultural and urban ag (placemaking) articles are first-rate. My coworkers call it a lib rag, but I think very highly of grist.org's work.

We're still on the happy bandwagon of no grocery store food. We bought 2 gallons of Ocean Spray Cranberry juice last week, but it's a beverage, and a tasty one at that. I can't tell you how close I was to stopping at Trader Joe's for their feta with Greek spices. Man, I could eat a tub of that in a flash and only crave more. But, as much as I miss it, I'm sticking to the ban on all food from a grocery store.

We've visited a couple more farmers markets too. I went alone to the Snohomish market and it isn't half as good as I remembered. I think there's less vendors this year and the fruit and veggies are a little less impressive than last year. I left without purchasing anything. I went again to the Everett market and different vendors were there. I bought some dip mix so now I need to source some sour cream to mix them in. I also bought some alder smoked salt that is FRIGGIN AMAZING!

We've learned that the Edmonds farmers market changes every week. Basically there's two markets that switch back and forth. Who knew? I guess people who go every week, but we'd gone every other week for two weeks and so we didn't know there were other vendors until I lamented to the milk dude at the Everett market about having to drive to Everett for milk. He said that if it was more convenient he could bring our milk to Edmonds and told me that he's there every other week and we'd just missed him. So satisfying to know this now and we'll be hitting the Edmonds market two weekend straight to test out the "other" vendors.

We went back to the Ballard market in search for Deborah's Meat Pies. I seriously cannot imagine anything worse than last month's surreal situation where I found out that Deborah's meat pies is JUST Deborah's fruit pies in Edmonds. So, the drive, $2 for parking, the walk and the search being worth every amount of work and the cost weighed, we set out for the meat pies. Lo and behold: NO EFFING DEBORAH! I'm beginning to wonder if in some freak of nature we found Deborah's meat pies in an alternate reality and will never again find her because here, in this reality she seems to not exist. I have only the wisp of a memory, and even that is fading fast, of the most moist, delicious, heavenly meat pie I ever ate. I'll grant you skeptics - it's the only meat pie I ever ate, but I'm telling you it was awesome. Meaty and awesome.

If you haven't seen the picture, go to my facebook page and check out the freak of nature that came form our back yard. It's in the form of a 4.25 lb zucchini. We also harvested another one that weighed 3.75 pounds, but I gave that one to a friend. Trisa nabbed 3 pounds of bush beans, we planted a second planting of them so we'll be eating a lot of "green beans" for the next month or so. The carrots are getting huge. We pulled our peas because they were done. We planted rainbow chard. That stuff is PRETTY. The tomatoes are are on the verge of harvest and there will probably be about 75-100 lbs of them. We pulled our first planting of potatoes. We had about 25 lbs. I expected to get 30-40 pounds, but I think we pulled the first few before they were completely growing. The second planting will be ready in about a week.

We might have a watermelon. There's an awfully watermelon looking thing growing in our back yard. The first planting of beets came up - 10 lbs. We're onto our 3rd planting of lettuce and about out of it. Our 4th is ready to pick this week and we'll be planting a 5th in a week. So far we've reaped about 25 pounds of peas and 40ish lbs of lettuce - I'm going by bags and an average weight per bag that we weighed. We didn't have a chance to weigh every leaf we cut and every pea we picked.

At the end of August, the farmer is coming back to help me build 3 or 4 hoop houses over the garden boxes in the front yard. We're going to plant winter carrots, spinach, and miner's lettuce to have green (and orange) veggies throughout the winter. A few people have mentioned that they would like to join us when we rent the commercial kitchen, but so far it's just talk. So Trisa and I will plan on being the only ones to go and we'll be making cheese, butter, jams, soups, maybe some breads, and blanching and freezing some fruits and veggies. Maybe next year we'll get some bees and make our own honey.

We found a grain vendor who is local to Washington that we'll be buying fresh grains from. I'm planning on buying a home mill and milling my own flour for bread making.

Ok. I think that's all for now. I gotta get back to work. Peace out homies.

Mike