Scored 5-6 DOZEN 1-qt canning jars — yay, freecycle! Now, where do i put them all?

I took Sharon’s Independence Days Challenge to heart. I’d post garden pics, but I can’t get the newly reformatted computer to recognize my digital camera. Argh. Anyway, here’s my update:

For me, the big one was getting over my fear of the unknown by finally diving in and planting seeds on my little balcony. I’d never done that. They’re coming up now, and it really is a thrill to see the little green shoots–except for the beet shoots, which are red!

• Planted: ­ mesclun salad mix, beets, and chives in the Earthbox; a cherimoya tree just to see what happens; also transplanted a gift tomato seedling into a homemade SWC.
• Harvested: ­ rosemary [a sprig now and then for cooking or bathroom air freshening.]
• Preserved: ­ milk [as yogurt].
• Prepped: cleaned and organized the balcony for gardening; got coffee grounds from the Starbucks across the street and mixed them, along with powdered eggshells, into my leftover potting soil from the last failed garden; bought and set up a bokashi compost bucket; mixed some bokashi into the soil for good measure; made a SWC using a 3-liter soda bottle and a 5 gallon bucket; sprouted beans for cooking [didn't like the taste, though]; got more 5-gal. buckets free from the food co-op [used for both storage and container gardening.]
• Stored:­ pinto beans, lentils, popcorn, sesame seeds, herbs, and raisins in a bucket; froze walnuts, pecans, powdered milk, and flour.
• Learned:­ how to amend poor soil and start seeds.
• Cooked something new ­ corn muffins from scratch, flat bread.

Yay!

I love me a good challenge, even though I tend to fizzle out after a few days or weeks. That used to make me feel like a quitter, but now I see that I’m actually making slow progress in developing new and better habits, so what the hell.

Grandma always said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” God, I hated that. But see, that’s where I really failed. I gave up the first or second time I didn’t succeed, largely out of embarrassment, which made me feel like more of a failure than ever. This became a habit over time until it seemed like the normal way to live: don’t risk embarrassment; don’t try anything hard. And fercrissake, don’t BLOG about it when you do!

Well, screw that.

I’m here to tell the world that I fail all the time. I’m a horrible failure at pretty much everything I try–the first time. And often, the second. But the third time, not so much. I’ve learned in the past few months of trying new things that each time gets a little better.

Sharon’s Independence Days Challenge is based on the idea that in order to become free of corporate domination, we need to do something toward our own food independence every day, even if it’s only one thing. Sounds like a bite I can chew. Here’s the list of choices:

1. Plant something.
2. Harvest something.
3. Preserve something.
4. Prep something.
5. Cook something [try new recipes/skills].
6. Manage your reserves.
7. Work on local food systems.

So, in the spirit of food independence, today I:

• Sewed a sprouting bag out of some muslin [#4 - prep something].
• Started some anasazi beans to soak for sprouting [also #4 plus #5, learning a new cooking skill].
• Made yogurt [#2 - preserve something. Did you know that yogurt is a way of preserving milk? I read that somewhere. Cool!]

Oh, and last night I decluttered my IRL desktop [decluttering counts as #4, prepping.] I can actually SEE it now.

Yeehaw!

While the Volvo is sidelined, a friend offered to take me along a few days ago on her weekly trip to the local organic food co-op. I bought almost exclusively bulk items like beans, quinoa, powdered milk, nuts, dried herbs, spices, salt, popcorn [gotta have my treats!] and several cans of diced tomatoes on sale.

I bought triple or quadruple the amounts that I would normally get, and I left the produce section, where I normally spend way too much money, alone except for a few onions and potatoes. The bill was about double my normal weekly bill, but the food will last at least a month. At least I think it will.

I decided to try an experiment and see how long I can live [or stand to live] off of what I bought last week, including a small amount of farmer’s market produce to round out the diet. I want to try to last the entire month of April without buying anything else, other than possibly another trip or two to the farmer’s market.

The verdict so far: I don’t think I’m going to make it.

Over the weekend, I went through my pantry, which I thought already held a couple of weeks’ worth of legumes, corn meal and various kinds of flour, all bought in a fit of Whole Foods ambition back when I decided to go organic for my health. I’d forgotten how old the stuff was. Most of it was bought three or four years ago, and never touched again.

Now, I’ve learned that beans can last for years, but you have to soak and cook them for much longer than you do with fresher beans. You also need to store them properly, which I didn’t. Apparently, I also didn’t cook them long enough for dinner Saturday night, and regretted it Sunday. Then I read that cornmeal goes rancid very quickly, and flour doesn’t last either. I had some split peas and other beans that were also quite old, so I just decided to chuck them all and start fresh.

So I’ll probably have to make one more trip to the co-op to make it to the end of April, but we’ll see first how long I can [stand to] last on what I have.