Two Weeks of IDC belatedly updated

For the week ending July 6th:

Planted:  Nothing

Harvested:  Peas

Preserved:  Nothing

Stored:  25 lbs pinto beans.

Managed:  Nothing

Prepped:  Firewooding with R, got a half cord of lodgepole (went to him).  Ordered a scythe!

Cooked something new:  Sauteed farmer’s market chard & spinach from R’s garden, cooked like mushrooms with red wine (and onion and garlic and a bit of oil), then a dash of vinegar once it’s on the plate.  Needs more spices, otherwise good!

Advocated for local food economy:  Participated in the farmer’s market, selling garden starts from a friend’s garden.

Reduced Waste:  Trying to repair a weedwhacker instead of junking it after one part broke.  A recently-bought new one is so poorly-designed that it’s about to break as well, and I’m pondering returning it.  Then I bought a THIRD weedwhacker for $13 at a thrift store, am mostly using that.  (all this mess with problem weedwhackers became the motivation to order the scythe!)

Learned Something New:  Tried again using the sprouting screen.  Last time I tried to sprout very old red beans.  One or two sprouted, but most didn’t, and the whole thing just started to ferment pretty fast.  This time I’m sprouting freshly bought black beans.

Then, for the week ending July 13:

Planted:  No

Harvested:  Peas and one tiny strawberry

Preserved:  No

Stored:  No

Managed:  No

Prepped:  No

Cooked something new:  Baked a cake (from a mix) in the solar oven.

Advocated for local food economy:  Wore a T-shirt promoting the local organic farm/you-pick

Reduced Waste:   Started feeding the cat raw ground beef instead of cat food.  Even though the beef comes in plastic wrap and styrofoam, it’s a lot less packaging than can upon can of cat food.  I’ve had to feed him less and less at a time, so that he eats most of it right away and there is less food remaining in the bowl to spoil in the heat.

Learned Something New:  When I went to try the cake in the solar oven, I put it out very late in the day (6pm, and I live hard up against the east side of a mountain range, so the shadows cross my yard about an hour earlier than they do farther out in the valley).  So I left the cake out there all night — I did fold up the wings of the oven, since it was quite windy that night.  The next morning I didn’t have to leave until after 10am and I was hoping the cake would cook by then, but it was still pudding, so I left it while I was away, and came home to a yummy cake late that afternoon!