Finally... Cheese.

Yep, you read that right. I've finally made cheese.

It was awesome. I brought it in to work today for show and tell (it's become a rather common activity, my coworkers are quite interested in hearing about the next thing we're doing on the farm). Some of the comments were, "this is the best snack I've had in months." "This cheese is awesome." "Good job Mikey." I think it was a hit. The pound of cheese was gone, approximately 1 hour after we dove in. I brought in some alder/cherry smoked salmon to go with it and that was supremely awesome. I think tonight, or another day this week I'm going to try again, but this time add some seasoning and make a smokey mozzarella or add some basil to it. We'll see... Here are some pictures of the making of the cheese. This pic is of the kit and the recipe booklet. There's some seasoning (which I didn't use) and the rennet and citric acid is in the plastic bag on the right in the middle. The little package hanging from a string in the top left is a sunflower. We're hanging it to allow it to drop it's seeds into that cheese cloth that's tied around it. This week we'll have 3 or so more (and bigger) sunflowers all dropping their seeds too. When they're done, we'll roast them and season them and have them for snacks all winter.

That is YUMMY dairy milk. "Cheese Making at Home, 3rd Edition" recommends that Fresh, pasteurized dairy milk is used. I used 1/2 gal of 2% milk and 1/2 gal of whole milk. I think next time I'm going to use all whole and then all 2% to see what the differences are.

Here's me stirring the pot. The temperature has to be just so and there's a lot of pot stirring. Pretty much the whole time, except for about 5-7 minutes while the rennet does it's enzymatic magic.










And finally... the cheese loaf. One gallon of milk yields about 1 pound of GLORIOUS cheese. I've already found ways to make these next cheeses better, quicker, and with less mess. Now I just need a cow and a goat... After I've made a few more mozzarella, I'll make a Gouda, then a smoked Gouda. After that, I'll try my hand at a cheddar and a Parmesan.


For dinner, we had grilled chicken over spinach troffie with some of the cheese melted between the meat and the noodles.

It was scrumptious.







Last week, another farmer came to the house. Our main farmer's partner. Our main farmer went on vacation. We built two row covers for winter crops. They are going to come in real handy. We've planted enough spinach, lettuce, and mustard greens to keep us fed all winter. The carrots we planted for winter harvest are just now coming in. The Brussels sprouts are AWESOME. we planted 18 and we'll be harvesting 15, I think. I stepped on a couple when we painted this spring and I think we lost one more to bugs. But on those 15 we have GOBS upon ginormous gobs of sprouts.

The tomatoes came out this week. they are done. It wasn't a great year for toms, but it wasn't a total waste either. Trisa made some fried green tomatoes for a snack the other day and I ate some and didn't gag. No, that's not a commentary on Trisa's cooking. I literally have an aversion to tomatoes. Can't eat them. But those fried green ones were pretty darn tasty. I do however love tomato soup, salsa, red sauce, etc. Maybe I can finally expand this to eating tomatoes like a normal person...

This weekend we're going to cover crop all the garden space we're not using over the winter. We recommend that anyone with a garden do this. Now is the time to plant Rye grass (carbon fixer) and Dutch Field Peas (nitrogen fixer). In the spring, early, we'll turn over all that good green growth and it'll help keep the land needing little to no fertilizer. Be careful you don't let the Rye and Peas go to seed in the Spring. You'll be fighting that ALL SEASON if you do. By Springtime, those cover crops will have boosted the soil's fertility to just about where it needs to be for awesome production.

And finally, I must set the record straight about breaking the rules. Yes we did indeed break them. When Trisa says that she "made mention" of her desire for chocolate, she leaves a little detail out. The devil is in those details. Made mention means that she stated clearly that she would like me to go to the store and get some chocolate at least 14 times in one hour. She also stated that since we really couldn't go to a farmer's market to get ice cream, then it's an even lesser break to get ice cream. I fully agreed (with the ice cream part). I had a hankering and I just had to have some ice cream. So off to the store I went. I bought 2 gallons of ice cream for about $10 and a whole bunch of chocolate for about $20. These are the things we didn't really think of going into this. We used to eat a lot of junk food and we just couldn't quit cold turkey. We eat way less, but we still need some ice cream and chocolate from time to time... If we break the rules again, we'll let you know. But so far in more than 16 weeks, we haven't broken the rules except this once (and the two times in the very beginning when we went on trips - but we're not really counting those).

We will be buying Halloween candy at the store in a few weeks. Remember, we're not imposing our rules on anyone else.

Well, that's all for now.

Mike

Cheese delayed another week

Drat. Just when I was all ready to go with the cheese, a business trip came up. So we're postponing cheese until the weekend or sometime next week. We also have to postpone Survivor Night. I hate missing Survivor Night. Next week, my friends. Next week we will have both Cheese and Survivor.

For those of you who don't know: a little background. I work (the day job, that is) at a third party Power Plant Operations and Maintenance company. I write procedures, assess procedures, operations and maintenance, and do all sorts of various and sundry other things that an Analyst does at a 3rd party PPO&M company. I've been asked to go to Sonoma - literally the HEART of CA wine country tomorrow and Thursday to "find out what they're doing with solar-power-generated steam at wineries and see if we can sell them something." Well, alrighty then. I'm an analyst, not a salesman, but for some reason they picked an analyst to go and I happened to be their pick.

Who gets lucky enough to get paid to do THAT?!? Once again, I must say I really do like my day job. I don't like that they informed me I'd be travelling Wednesday on the Monday prior. Had I even a week or so notice Trisa would've probably been able to make this trip with me. Now, I have even more motivation to find some way to sell my company's services. Chances are good that if we can sell them some service that an Analyst would perform there will be more business trips to Sonoma and Napa...

This afternoon, I'm helping a coworker chop down four or five trees in his yard. In return, he's going to give me the pick of the Alder logs and rounds that we collect after the carnage. I have just the box to put the wood in to season them for a year. I have a big wood box that I got from work that was used to ship something. It's about 3' square and 2' deep. I'll put the Alder in there for just under a year and it'll be PERFECT for smoking. Alder smoked Gouda, here we come. I'll also smoke some fish and other meats to cure them for storage as well as because it just tastes good. This way I can avoid buying wood chips at Joe's or another outdoor store. AWESOME!

I feel like my posts are too long sometimes, so I'm going to try to post more often, but shorter posts. Please feel free to give us your feedback in our comments section. Let us know if you've a particular interest you'd like us to talk about more, or if you have questions about gardening/farming/locavoring, etc.

One last thing: check out northwest coupons connections on the web (www.couponconnectionsnw.com). A our neighbors a few houses down from us run that blog. It's not too applicable for Trisa and I as we don't buy food from grocery stores, but for those of you who do, this website will save you a TON of money. I check it often for coupons for non-food items.

That's all for now.

Mike

It's bread time

The last couple of weeks have found us out in the garden doing a lot of maintenance. There hasn't been much in the way of harvesting, except another ginormous Zucchinni and a whole mess of beans. The potatoes got done and dried in the sun for a few days befoe going into the cellar. This week or next we'll be ready to harvest the Brussels Sprouts. In the front yard, our rainbow chard and winter harvest broccoli are coming in like mad.

Next week we're building two or three hoops for the front beds and planting winter spinach, carrots and lettuce. Now is a great time to plant carrots. They'll begin to grow and while they're still baby, the frost will come and they'll go dormant and stay preserved in the soil until spring. As soon as the temps begin to rise next year, the carrots will grow again and you'll be the first to have wonderful fresh carrots ready for harvest in your garden.

Last night I baked my first loaf of bread. I've added ingredients to a bread machine and pushed go before, but I'd never before made my own from scratch. It was very fun and very rewarding. The loaf came out superb, if I do say so myself. I substituted about 35% of the white bread flour with whole grain Emmer wheat flour. Emmer is an old red wheat. It grows very well in WA. I buy Emmer grain from Bluebird Grain Farms in Winthrop, WA. They mill their flour about 1 week or less before taking it to market.

I also harvested pickle cucumbers and made our own pickles. I hope in three months they are as yummy as I expect them to be. I used a white wine vinegar and added some spices and a sweet bell pepper and a jalapeno pepper from our backyard. So they should be tasty and a wee bit spicy.

Yesterday we bought a gallon of dairy milk that will be used for cheese. FINALLY. The cheese kits came last week a day or so after my birthday and I've finally read a few chapters in the cheese making book and have everything ready to start. I think Thursday or Friday we'll start making cheese. Everything I've read says to start with soft cheese before trying the more difficult hard cheeses so this week we'll focus on Mozzarella and Ricotta. After I've mastered those I'll try a Gouda, then a cheddar, then maybe something even more intense...

Well, 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

A farmers market vendor named Desire

"STELLA" I cried out in my heart. The sky went dark and my soul hurt. The kind of hurt that shatters the air like lightning and sends grandmothers and puppies for the shelter of home and a warm fire. Poor puppies. I'm sorry. But there was nothing to lighten my burden and make happy my path upon finding out that the "Deborah's Pies" at the Edmonds Farmers Market doesn't carry her meat pies. OH THE HUMANITY.

I'm positive I made a spectacle of myself and completely horrified the poor girl selling JUST Deborah's fruit pies. I didn't yell Stella out loud, but I did cry out in shock. Can you believe it? Deborah's Pies in Edmonds FM doesn't sell the meat pies because of "permit" rules. For Pete's sake, why?

All that aside, Edmonds' has been the best farmers market we've been to so far. They have all sorts of produce, meats, cheeses, and many prepared foods. Shortly after my life was ruined by the pie maker, Trisa found a bacon vendor. I was restored by the wonderful, awesome power of bacon. There's a cafe in Edmonds who's chef cures, seasons, and cuts his own bacon. They have a booth at the market and even cook up some bacon for samples. HOLY COW! Those teeny tiny bits of bacon packed an inch of heaven into every bite. I took a pound home. This weekend, we'll cook it up alongside some farm fresh eggs from the backyard for breakfast. I think I've got to get some bubbly and OJ for Mimosas... Next to the bacon was a coffee vendor. Finally, we found somewhere to get some good coffee outside a coffee shop or grocery store. I can't remember the name of the company. I did a quick search on the internet and couldn't find it.

As an aside - based on what I just researched on the internet, the marketing for the Edmonds Farmers Market is ATROCIOUS. There is no list of vendors online - at least that is easily accessible. I couldn't even find a mention by the businesses that are there on their own websites saying "find us at the Edmonds Farmers Market" or anything like that. Why don't these places advertise and market themselves better? Don't they realize that there are TONS, literally TONS of people that they could reach through a few simple steps?

Anyway, the coffee we bought last weekend at the market is phenomenal. It is robust, and full bodied without the normal acidity that goes with such powerful beans. It's not a blend either, which surprised me. Usually to get such a well rounded cup of joe, the beans would be blended to mask weaknesses in certain beans and highlight the strengths in others. But this coffee had little if any weakness. I can't wait to get back to the market this weekend and buy some more coffee and find out their name. I'll be sure to let them know that they could sell a lot more coffee with just a tiny bit of advertising on the internet.

If anyone knows which coffee company it is, please don't hesitate to let me know in the comments. they are a small, independent coffee roaster in Woodinville, right off Woodinville-Duvall Road.

In the weeks ahead, I'll be learning to make cheese. One of the renters of our pea patch is bringing over her cheese making kit and she's going to teach Trisa and I how to make fabulous cheese. One more step toward self-sufficiency. I LOVE CHEESE. But not as much as pie and cobbler.

At the EFM there was also a vendor who makes his own raspberry vinegar. We had it sprinkled over a green salad with raspberries and boysenberries last night. Along with the salad, I grilled some tri-tip steaks and made mashed potatoes. The potatoes were harvested by Trisa this week. They were AWESOME. Anyway, the vinegar guy owns a small commercial kitchen in North Seattle that he rents out. I inquired about it some more and he'll rent it to just about anyone whenever there's no one already booked. Right now he's got gobs of time slots open. What Trisa and I would like to do is to get a group of peeps together and rent it out for a day or two. We'll take anyone who wants to bring in bulk items they want to process for storage and would like to trade at the end of the day. We envision there being a person or couple or family who would bring veggies, someone would bring milk for butter and cheese, someone who wants to make jams/jellies, someone who wants to do salsa, sauces, gravies, pies, breads, etc. I figure most people will produce way more than they need or want and we'll all be trading and going home with stockpiles of home grown preserved foods packed with wicked awesomeness.

If you are interested, please let me know in the comments what time frame works for you (i.e. end of august, weekday, etc.) and what you would like to bring. If we have doubles and triples of things, we can always have a second kitchen day or just have doubles and triples. Either way, it'll be fun and valuable. I'd prefer it be adults only, but if childcare is an issue, let me know. I'll bring the wine for an exclusive wine tasting with the wines being paired with the items people bring. We'll taste them all day long.

That's all for now.

Mike

Tennis Elbow, Whooping Cough and the Ballard Sunday Market

No, I don't have whooping cough. Neither does Trisa. But I did get a booster vaccination for it today along with my Tetanus and Diphtheria boosters as well. My doctor practically frog marched me to injections to get it done. I thought there was a chance I'd had it in the past 2 years, but he said I had to have it in writing, or else. So, down to the crotchety nurse with the needle I went.

I've since come to find out that California, Illinois, and Alabama might all have Whooping Cough (also known as Pertussis) epidemics. Vaccines for Pertussis only last through childhood, so right now many states are recommending adults go get their shots again. My doctor takes vaccines very seriously, evidently. I'm in for a sore left arm for the next few days.

I went in to have my right elbow looked at. With little poking and prodding, Dr. Mac pronounced me afflicted by the ever-so-serious repetitive motion injury known as tennis elbow. I went to Rite Aid and got me the rather inexpensive cure - a large, glorified, rubber band that I'm to wear for the next week or so. If that doesn't do the trick, I'm back to the clinic for a cortisone shot.

Yesterday, we went to the Ballard Sunday market. To say the least, it was a spectacle that everyone should behold. There's music, weirdos, and TONS of "farmers" peddling their wares.

Trisa and I purchased Deborah's famous meat pies. We presume that they are not full of people as they are known to be on Fleet Street in London. But only time will tell if we presume correctly... We also bought a strawberry rhubarb pie from Deborah. We took home some goat patties, pears, cheese, cheese, and more cheese, and couldn't find BUTTER anywhere. What cheese maker hasn't got enough milk to make a little butter? Sheesh. We picked up lunch at some "world famous" veggie Quesadilla stand. We found out it's world famous for the WRONG reasons. Fool me once. We also bought a CD form a street musician playing haunting, somber cello melodies. He's called the Gypsy Cellist. I didn't see any Gypsies, but what would be the fun and mystery if they were seen? So they all must've been hiding somewheres.

Groceries for the week from the Ballard Sunday Market came to $50. We spent a little more than that on lunch and the CD. Parking was $2.

I can't wait to try the peasant's meat pie this week. I'll write up my full review when we do and post it here. I'll also review the strawberry pie. I love pie, so it'll be VERY hard for me to criticize it at all. If you all knew how much I love pie, you'd say "WOW! You love pie an awful lot!" I'd have to agree.

I'm waiting, praying, for the day that we find a cobbler maker at a farmer's market. If we don't find one soon, I'll have to make my own cobbler after we go to the u-pick berry farms. Maybe cobbler is the only food I love more than pie. I'm decently sure that when God was sitting around making Eve, he took a break at some point for cobbler. Seriously. Cobbler is heavenly. It's a well known fact that most angels carry the stuff around with them wherever they go. Anyway, I digress. Digressing is not good for tennis elbow, so I'll shut up now.

Peace out,

Mike

It's about time

I know, it's been a bit more than a week since my last blog. Trisa has been keeping up weekly and more.

I got busy last week doing a landscaping project that was way bigger than I'd thought it would be.

These keys are sticky.

Let's begin with the tallies of the farmers market grocery shopping for the last two weeks.

Week 2 - our first week shopping at farmers' markets we went to Pike Place.

We bought, cheese and mac and cheese from Beechers. Bread from La Panierre. Milk from the sanitary market dairy section. Veggies and fruits from the corner produce stand. The total for our groceries came to $46. The biggest expense was the processed food items - mac and cheese. But we can't walk away from Beechers without it. It is truly the universe's best mac and cheese.

Week 3 - we found ourselves on Mercer Island trying out a new market (new to us). The MI market prides itself on being a no-trinket, no gimmick, no resale market. There's JUST FOOD and beverages. We bought bread, cheese, fruit, smoked tuna and tuna jerky, two muffins, and a but load of apple ciders. We wanted to try out the cidery's wines and hard ciders so we spent $56 there.

The cheese monger has only 2 cheeses and 2 cheese spreads. I know for a fact I'd get tired of their cheese if we shopped exclusively at MI. The fish monger was great. She was knowledgable, friendly and wicked awesome at sales. Plus there were canned, fresh, smoked, kippered, and bagged varieties. We will be going back to the tuna girl. We bought some kippered tuna and tuna jerky.

All told we spent $108 on everything at the MI market. If you take out the $56 for all that cider and wine, then groceries for week 3 cost $52. I forgot, we also got some great pasta. There's a pasta maker there and he makes friggin awesome pasta.

So, for those of you that only read the bullet points:
Week 2 = $46
Week 3 = $52

There you have it. I'll blog again later.

Peace out,

Mike

The Beginning and the Rules

After little deliberation and even less thinking, my wife and I decided to begin a journey and a blog. For one year we will live by a few simple rules regarding our food. This idea came to both of us at the same time: in our hot tub, drinking Gin Bucks and waiting for our store-bought frozen lasagna to get done.

Our biggest rule, rule number 1: The following seven (7) rules will apply for 1 year.

Rule 2: ZERO food may be purchased from a grocery store. No food that passes our lips from this point on (after our lasagna and what we bought at the grocery store today, or have in the cupboard already) will be from a grocery store.

FYI: We did not prepare for this journey. We have some things that will last a year in our pantry already that we will eat or cook with from time to time, but we in no way stocked up for this. Chicken stock will come from a chicken carcass that is what'll remain form our farm-bought chicken.

Rule 3: Only items that are non-food, like beverages and household cleaners and shampoos and various and sundry other items may come from a grocery store. This only applies to beverages that are not produced locally or by a farm (i.e. milk is NOT to come from a grocery store, but Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice cocktail may).

Rule 4: Effort must be made to source all grocery (food or otherwise) items locally and/or from a farm. In other words, we will search for locally made milk, olive oil, cranberry juice, soap, tooth paste, etc. Since we can't spend all day every day on the internet or in a library some items may be brought to our attention by others, or after some time of us buying them from a grocery store. The intent here is to work diligently toward finding equivalents to what we have bought in the past from a grocery store at a farm or a local producer knowing full well it'll take time to find and to get. So if we end up buying SOMETHING at a grocery store that we later find is available at a farm or farmers market or from a local producer, we'll let you know that we did and that we'll purchase it there going forward.

Rule 5: The grocery list and costs for food items must be posted at least monthly. We will make every effort to post weekly, or when we go to a farm or market, but we want to give ourselves an out just in case we don't feel like it.

Rule 6: Both of us will hunt, fish, slaughter, grow, harvest and produce as much food as we can with literally zero preparation (except our already built home garden) than we have done already. In other words, I will take a basic hunter's course when I can and get a hunting license. The both of us will go fishing from time to time. We will (and already do) grow vegetables and fruits in our garden. We will (and already do) gather eggs from the chickens we keep in our backyard.

Rule 7: We both must blog about our adventures at least once each week other than to post our grocery bill and neither may read the other's blog (or tell what they are going to write about) until after both are posted that week. This is to encourage us to both write weekly and to not sway the other to write or not to write about a particular event. Some blogs of our may be about the same event, but from different perspectives.

Rule 8: It is not imperative to turn down food purchased by others from a grocery store, but we may not ASK for it. In other words, we may from time to time go to a party and eat a chip or fifty. We might go to a pot luck or to dinner at a friend's house and we will not turn down their hospitality. What we must not do for one year is ask our friends to buy us stuff at a grocery store to get around our rules.

We hope you enjoy reading about our journey as much as we are about to enjoy living it.

Mike and Trisa