Our Green Living Journey

raw milk

December 17, 2009 by S

Here it is! Our very first gallon of raw milk! The farmer we most recently bought our whole chickens from comes to town every 2 weeks and I believe the other farmer is a member of his family. Regardless, he offers shares of his dairy farm where you can support the farm just like a CSA and in turn get gallons of raw milk. They wanted us to try it so they gave us a gallon for free yesterday.

It was delicious! Every one I know that drinks raw milk says once you try it you’ll never want regular milk again. I think I was hesitant because I was worried it would taste differently or it would be SO creamy it would almost be gross. Neither was the case. It is creamier, obviously, but not like heavy cream. I think it’s safe to say we’re converted! Another great way to support local farmers and drink good milk straight from the cow as it was meant to be!

Another garden blog I follow, Chiot’s Run, did a really great post today on genetically modified seeds. I think it’s a really great explanation for people who don’t understand the issue with GM seeds and why so many see them as being a problem. Check it out here.

That blog post coupled w/ the light shed on the issue in Food, Inc. are a great background on the topic. We bought a decent amount of non-GMO seeds last year, but this year my goal is to purchase 100% non-GMO seeds. Things we purchased as “starts” may be a bigger problem, but we’ll revisit that issue in the coming months as we plan our next garden and try to find ways to get around that.

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Food, Inc.

December 3, 2009 by S

I watched Food, Inc. last evening. I am appalled, to say the very least.

It was truly and utterly disturbing. And this coming from someone who feels pretty well educated on the state of our food “system” in this country.

We grow our own food. We get a lot from our organic CSA. We also buy our beef and pork from local pastured (grass raised and finished) organic farms. We also get our eggs from these same local sources. But this is just stomach-wrenching. I will never again purchase conventionally raised meat from the grocery store. EVER again.

Ironically last night was the very first time I picked up some local organically-raised free-range chickens. Thank goodness for our local amish farmers!

I urge anyone out there who has not seen this movie or is not fully informed on these issues to watch this movie. It is alarming – eye opening. Watching chickens get kicked to move….. cows and pigs being forced to slaughter by ramming them with skid steers…..chickens being fed the wrong food and genetically engineered to grow so large so fast they can’t even walk because their own legs cannot support their own weight…..ugh.

To say I’m disgusted right now is a huge understatement.

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End-of-summer garden update

September 24, 2009 by S

Well, here we are. Lots to talk about so lets just dive right in!!!

Well, isn’t that just about the most pathetic thing you’ve ever seen? Our japanese maple, which did pop back and was hanging on after the awful freezing temps we had last winter, has officially croaked. RIP. Not really sure what happened – it did leaf out – but only part of it, and then slowly more and more of it died. The melons around it were not planted – they were all volunteers. And they did okay – not great – just okay. More on the melons in a bit…

The blueberries are on the left and are fine except for some strange browning of leaves taking place on the left one. The raspberries are doing fantastic! See all the berries? And that’s after Noah and I grabbed a bowlful!

The strawberries were a pain the entire season. First the chipmunks. Then even through we heavily protected them they were still being eaten. Critters and bugs. They also didn’t produce very heavily. And now a few plants have died for strange unknown reasons…we’re at a loss with these!

The corn and melons were…well, let’s be honest. Pathetic. We already decided we’re not growing melons again, and the corn we’re going to try again but differently next time. Out of all those stalks, we only had one decent ear of corn. ONE!!! The beans did fantastic though! The melons don’t get any bigger than a baseball….not sure what the problem is there.

A bed that already holds our fall stuff. Peas, carrots, lettuce and spinach. All doing great!

It’s also ironic that our squash is doing FABULOUS!!! (we planted a late 2nd crop) and yet is also covered with this horrible white stuff (which I can only assume is a fungal disease of some sort). Anyone out there have a clue?

Isn’t that just horrible? UGH!!! I need to research it because there are some nice squash coming in on these babies!

And then there’s the tomatoes. Don’t see any? OH! Well, that’s because ours were so badly damaged from septoria we eventually tossed them all. We did get quite a few nice ones though, and have canned some tomato and pizza sauce, so all was not lost!

And finally, last but not least, the morning glory/bean teepee. The morning glories have all but choked out the beans, so next year I’ll be sure to plant only ONE thing on there. And since we want to get as much food out of our garden as possible, the beans will probably win out!

So there you have it. We’d LOVE feedback/advice from any of you reading this! This was definitely our biggest garden year and we learned a lot but also have a lot to learn.

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remember me?

September 23, 2009 by S

Yoohoo??? Anybody out there? ….

Just checking. Not that I can blame anyone if you stopped reading…I did kind of um…disappear for a while there. I could make a million excuses for why that was…but does it really matter?

We now have 2 kids – and having 2 kids is very demanding! I also took up sewing and found that I loved that far more than I ever thought I would, started a new blog for that, opened an etsy shop, and well…you get the idea. Apparently I think there are more hours in the day than 24….

But, we still remain committed to why we started this blog in the first place. So, Derrick and I talked about it tonight – all the ideas we have for the blog, the direction we’d like to see it take, etc. So, stay tuned! Tomorrow I’ll bring you all out to the garden to see what you missed… There were definitely lessons learned!

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CSA

July 16, 2009 by S

Just had to share the bounty for this week! Boxes are getting fuller and heavier! Loving it!

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Status

July 12, 2009 by S

Well this should relatively short but we wanted to get something out there. With the new baby we don’t have much time.

The garden is doing well. The onions are starting to fall over so they should be ready for harvest in the next few weeks. The garlic has fallen and will be ready soon. The peas have died off from the heat.

The potatoes flowered about three weeks ago. Today we did our first test. We dug up one of the six plants to see how things were going. You can see from the picture below we got six nice sized potatoes and a couple of smaller ones. There were probably 10 more potatoes that were tiny. We are going to leave the other plants for another month and see how the littler ones do. With any luck we will double our yield. As a note there was one decent sized potatoe for each stalk.

Corn is doing okay but so far we only have one cob. The beans on the other hand are doing great. They are starting to grow up the stalks and are actually out growing the corn.

That is it for now.

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our newest addition!

June 28, 2009 by S

She arrived Wednesday morning and we’ve been enjoying our babymoon ever since! And for the record, yes, she officially beat the quilt here!

Meet sweet Lilah Rose….

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progress!

June 22, 2009 by S

I was going to do this whole cute little “waiting for baby” post, but honestly, I just don’t have it in me today. (So you can guess how that whole “waiting” thing is going, eh?)

Anyhoo…I am making progress! Right now it looks like the quilt will beat her here!

Posted in Sewing | 1 Comment »

father’s day

June 21, 2009 by S

I am truly blessed to have the husband I do. He is caring, generous, thoughtful, and an amazing father. I don’t say that lightly either. There is no idea in his mind of what “my” role is or “his” role is – we share it all. He changes dipes, was totally open to and is fully on board with cloth diapering, he wore Noah, plays with him, comforts him, bathes him, and on and on. He’s lucky to work a pretty regular 40 hour a week kind of job and the days when he has something else going on, he works late or is busy with house projects and doesn’t get as much one on one time with Noah – you can tell he gets bummed and craves that interaction again. He truly is an amazing dad – and man. I love him dearly, and can’t wait to welcome our next child into the world with him!

This year, since I had taken on these new hobbies, I decided to make him something. He’s been hinting at me making hats since I even talked about knitting, so I decided that a hat was most definitely in order! And in his college colors? Even better!

I chose a pattern off of ravelry and chose this one (not sure if that link will work or not – you need to be a member of ravelry to see it I suppose). Derrick went to college at the University of Illinois, so I needed navy and orange colors that would work. Finding good yarn in that color orange is tough! Well, at least it was at my local knitting shop – and they have an amazing selection too!

I ultimately chose Blue Sky Alpacas worsted hand dyes in Midnight Blue and Nectarine. This yarn is gorgeous! It’s color is great, it’s super soft and is a blend of 50% wool and 50% merino and not itchy feeling in the least (pays to get good yarn!).

I was up early this morning and finally had a chance to finish it! Here it is!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out – and most importantly – so is Derrick! It fits him and I didn’t screw up too many things (turned 2 knit stitches into purl and noticed it a few rows up…I just left it). So, I think it was a really successful first project (not counting the scarf, of course!)

My next project? Well, Noah wants a hat – so I’m going to make one just like daddy’s in the opposite colors (mostly orange with blue stripe). I’m excited!

Posted in Knitting | 1 Comment »

art bags

June 19, 2009 by S

As a thank-you for all the wonderful gifts we’ve been receiving, we decided to make art bags for our little friends! This idea, both the bags and the freezer paper stenciling, was taken from The Creative Family.

Rather than a design on all the bags, I decided to use everyone’s initials for this project (see the required chocolate chip cookie included in this picture? )

Then the letters were cut out and ironed onto the bags. The bags were simple canvas drawstring “backpacks” from Discount School Supply.

Then the painting began!

Noah, as usual, was a great helper!

Once the bags were painted, dried, and stencils removed, we washed them all to “set” the paint. You can see the difference in “before” (top 2) and “after” (bottom 2). I really liked the way they looked out of the dryer!