CSA week 3

I can't believe that we already are picking up our 3rd week's share. The summer is starting to fly by...I guess having a new baby does that. It's crazy to me that little Miss Emma is going to be 6 weeks on Monday...yeah...crazy. So I am a little behind in posting...what a surprise. I'm hoping eventually someday my life will resemble order again. Perhaps not with a baby though...Onto this weeks goods!

This week our basket was even bigger than the past 2 weeks. Literally, the basket that holds our produce had doubled in size. We got the following:

2 bags of beets
3 bags of lettuce
1 bag of spinach which looks like baby swiss chard
1 bag of carrots
1 bag of broccoli
1 bunch of green onions

Now, I don't know what the grocery prices are like for anyone else out there, but that amount of produce probably would have cost us around $50 at the grocery store (seeing as how our CSA farm is certified Organic). And we got it for a mere $20, not bad right? I am really excited to see how the weeks progress. Since we are in Maine it takes a little longer for produce to come in during the summer, so the beginning is a lot of greens, but once we get into July and August, I foresee a large amount of veggies coming through...I just wish we had a way to preserve lettuce. Now for some pictures :-)

2008 Garden!!!

OK, so I can't seem to post more than once in a great while. I am really hoping to change that now that we have our precious baby Emma home and I am feeling so much better. I won't get into the details of my labor and delivery, let's just say that it didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped. But, on the bright side, I now have this perfect little person at home with me who has brought so much joy to my life and Matt's life. We are extremely blessed!

Now onto my *container* garden for this year! Matt and I finally got everything into the pots this past weekend. I was getting worried that we wouldn't actually be able to plant all the seedlings, but alas, Nana was able to come and watch the little one for a couple hours while we worked outside. I ended up with 6 Brandywine tomato plants, 6 roma tomato plants, 6 basil, 3 cilantro, 2 sweet peppers, 1 jalapeno pepper, and either 3 cucumber plants or 2 cucumbers and a zucchinni. I swear that I bought a zuke plant, but for the life of me, I can't actually see where I put it or planted it. And I also can't remember if we ended up buying 2 or 3 cucumber plants this year. I have a feeling I lost the zucchini plant in transit, don't ask me how.

So here are some pictures of my beautiful garden space up on the high high deck, which, by the way, I am extremely happy we have now. My mom had a ton of herbs up on her deck in pots (she lives just down the street from us), and something got up on the deck and ate them all...along with most of her flowers. We are thinking woodchucks, but can they climb stairs? Never seen any rabbits around here...so we are at a loss...and my mom is seriously upset about it. I'm all for nature, but when something comes up on the deck and eats the plants...come on! That's why I'm happy that any animals that want to eat our plants have to climb up 20 steps to get to our deck ;-) Oh yeah...pictures :-)

I also wanted to talk about my CSA share. I meant to actually post a picture last week for our first share pickup, but in order to post the picture we actually would have needed to take a picture. So instead I will tell you what we got last week. In our 1st CSA share ever we received:

2 huge bags of spinach
5 baby beets and beet greens
3 bags of lettuce
1 bunch of scallions
1 bunch of radishes
2 chinese cabbage

It was a lot of food, and actually we still have a lot of it left over which is interesting. I thought for sure we would eat it all, but apparently I was wrong! Not that I mind having extra lettuce, might as well eat as many fresh salads as possible :-)

This week we received:

8 beets with beet greens (obsviously they come with the greens, but I find that is a whole other meal side)
1 bunch of carrots
2 bags of spinach that looks like baby beet greens (but the board at the farm assured me it was actually spinach, the type I can't remember at this point)
1 bag of lettuce

Now onto the pictures :-)

the art of not blogging consistently

OK, so clearly I haven't held up my side of the bargain...blogging more frequently. I feel like I have a good excuse. I am pregnant, I can barely put two coherent thoughts together right now :-) I am hoping that this little baby wants to come out soon though, because her mama is getting slightly impatient. I am kind of on bed rest...well...if I do too much I swell to the size of a large elephant, and then it ends up taking me at least 3 hours to deflate a bit. Figures. I have gained way more weight than any normal person should during pregnancy. OK, so it hasn't been nearly that bad. I mean, I didn't have any morning sickness! Severe back pain, yes, contractions since 24 weeks...sure...but no morning sickness!

So I'm not working now. And I think that is a good thing. I think that my body was really telling me to stop. I have had fewer contractions in the past couple weeks, and that makes me happy, of course now I want the contractions to be coming on nice and strong...unfortunately not happening. But what do I do when I don't work? Well, let's see...I go on the internet. I don't just go on the internet for entertainment news anymore...ahhh the naivety of a previous life. Nope, now I am on the internet researching everything bad in the world. I have become some crazy extremist I believe. I think that it must be partially hormonal though.

Since last year I have spent a lot of time researching the relocalization of food, peak oil, being kinder to the environment. I'm sure everyone that has read this blog actually sees what a struggle it has been for me. Yet, now, I am starting to freak out even more. It seems like everything I have been spewing off to my co-workers and friends and family about food shortages etc. really is happening. Yesterday I heard that Costco and Sam's Club are both limiting (rationing) the amount of rice you can buy. But, they assure us there is no shortage of rice. That I don't understand. Then this morning...the Wall Street Journal posts an article about how it is time to start stockpiling food. Yeah...that is bad. The Wall Street Journal? It is a publication that I find truly unbiased, which is nice considering I am a conservative republican baptist green mama. :-)

See I don't think that the media is treating this in the best way at all. All week the Today show has talked about the rising food prices and the shortages that we are starting to have. This causes people to panic and stockpile food, which causes shortages and prices to go up. That is not going to help us. Instead, I wish that the media actually gave ideas how to deal with these types of problems. Yes, it is good to prepare for a disaster, but not everyone all at once. Gradually, over time, is what is needed. Instead, I think that they need to get into information about how to grow some of your own food. How it is important to eat seasonal local food and stop relying on food from California. I mean, I live in Maine, we produce quite a bit of food in Maine. Potatoes for one thing, it is a huge crop for the northern part of our state. Yes, I can find Maine potatoes at the grocery store, but more often than not they are buried under the Idaho potatoes...is there a reason we need Idaho potatoes when we produce plenty in Maine as it is? Maybe we don't actually produce enough potatoes in Maine to feed the state, but I would expect we do. And another thing, maple syrup...we have plenty of Maine made maple syrup, yet, it is most likely overpowered on the shelves by the stuff from Vermont. Why is that? OK, so these are probably petty examples...but I don't get it.

I am so thankful that we are joining the CSA this year. I think it is going to be a very difficult summer with buying food from the grocery store...oil prices are through the roof, gas prices keep going higher and higher. What is next? I am seriously concerned about bringing my daughter into this world, and how we are going to provide for her. (this is where the hormones come in) So Matt works an hour away from our house...that is 50 miles...so 100 miles a day on the car, that is filling up twice a week. At least our little yaris gets good gas mileage. But, at what point is it not worth it anymore? When do we sell everything and move into an apartment? OK, we have a ways to go before that would need to happen. It is still a concern though. Do we sell the other car? Try and pay down some of our debt? Well Dave Ramsey would say absolutely...and so would I. But, how do you sell all of this stuff in a time of economic downturn? Part of me feels guilty unloading our possessions on someone else who may not really realize what is going on. At the same time, having less debt is always a plus.

We are looking into getting a wood stove...and also turning part of the upstairs of our house into a studio apartment. It might be able to help us with the oil prices next year. I keep telling my brother and sister-in-law to move in with us. No one listens to me though, and really, I'm kind of crazy, so I'm sure they want to stay as far away from us as possible. I have been talking about a commune, get some cute little goats and chickens and have a community living experience with the rest of my family. It may eventually come to that. Maybe it won't. And will my poor husband be able to keep up with me and all my craziness? Who knows :-) I'm hoping that things just all of a sudden become clear to me and soon, because I feel like I am going in circles and am at a stand still as to what I should do next.

For the time being I am planning on getting all of my jars ready for a major canning extravaganza this summer/fall, and hopefully I will be able to preserve a lot of what we receive from the CSA. Other than that, it is trying to figure out how to afford to install a wood stove in a house with no working chimney, and how to afford to finish fixing up the upstairs of the house so it is livable. Then I can work on calming myself down a bit...I do know that God will always provide for me, but sometimes not knowing how is the worst part for any person to deal with.

wow

I never seem to write anymore. Not that I don't have a million things to say, it's just that I don't know how to get them down in a post. Everyday seems to be the same for me now. I wake up and think about money, I go to work and think about money, I come home and think about money. Not just about money either. How can I live without money? How can I become more self-sufficient? How can I budget my life and what we actually need vs. what we "think" we need? It is a never ending struggle I swear. And of course I am a serious pessimist. Meaning, I think that we are in a food shortage, I think I won't be able to afford to get oil anymore (that's a problem living in the Northeast by the way), I can't feed my family good wholesome food that is produced at least in the country (organic peppers from Israel, what?) It is all very stressful.

Now, am I just oversensitive because I am in my 3rd trimester and ready to give birth at really any moment? Maybe. Or is it because I have spent the past year seriously reading all of the ridiculous information that is out now on Peak Oil, sustainability, food shortages, water shortages? It's probably a good combination of both. It is that never ending stream of information though. The fact that I feel 100 times more educated on food production now than I did last year at this time. It's crazy. And I know that there is even more information out there that I haven't read yet. What happens when I read that? Am I going to build a bomb shelter and become a hermit? Well, I am one for extremes...

So what now? Everything I read on the economy is depressing. Every single elective class for my business major I took in college was in economics, so I feel pretty confident when reading the Fed's reports or listening to speeches on the economy. Not that I am an expert by any means. I am very conservative as far as my political views go, yet, as soon as I start thinking about food and how my little family can support itself and not be so reliant on "the man," it just doesn't jive well. I know that God will provide for us everything that we need. I know that I will never be given a challenge or face some situation that I cannot handle. My loving Savior is not out to get me. But, can I get out of my own way before something else does?

We have been going through a lot of changes in the past year. Becoming more aware of what we put into our bodies, where the food is coming from. How to conserve more energy, keeping the heat down low and barely turning lights on ever. Yet, I feel like it isn't enough. Oil prices keep going up. This is probably the biggest issue. In Maine, a big part of your utilities is the heating oil. There are few ways around it unless you are blessed with a house that has a wood stove. Unfortunately ours was not. In fact the chimney isn't even functional. So, in order to become less dependent on oil, we need to shell out quite a bit of money to get a wood stove and either build a new chimney, get some type of venting system, or redo the old chimney...yeah...have you seen how much a mason costs? But, once we have the wood stove, then maybe we can have the house warmer than 55 degrees during the winter. Although keeping the heat down this winter hasn't been nearly as bad as I expected. Yes, there have been some days where we have had to turn up the heat (mainly when relatives come to visit), but our bodies have acclimated to the cold. The problem for next year? Having a baby does not give us the same luxury of just sucking it up. See! I'm already stressed.

I feel like I do a lot of talking about what we can do to change, but we never actually get to that point. Is that normal? How can I get out of this funk and actually take a step in the right direction? I think that part of it is my "planning" nature. I mean, I really need to plan the crap out of something before I do it. Not always a bad thing of course, but maybe in this situation I need to talk less and do more. At the same time I am feeling a lot better about how we are living now. We are all signed up for our CSA, something I am extremely excited about. I buy organic free range meat from a farm close to my work. We are keeping the heat down and keeping the lights off. I'm even making my own bread each week! Maybe it is about baby steps. One thing at a time. Once you get comfortable, move on to the next thing. But, I don't want to take too long to get to all these steps!

I have a lot more to say on all things money/food related, but I think I will wrap up this jumbled post right now. Someday I will be able to have coherent thoughts on these subjects, but for now, just random ramblings. I kind of like it like that :-)

electric bill

It's amazing what turning off some lights will do! Matt and I got our electric bill for the month and it was 1/3 of what we actually budgeted! I can't believe it! That definitely makes me happy. We are really in the process of trying to cut as many bills down as possible. For me I thought electricity should be a good place to start, since it is summer and we aren't using the oil (except for the hot water.)

This entire past month I have been taking advantage of the fact that it is light out so early, and stays light so late. I rarely have been turning the lights on at all, and have been after Matt to keep them off as well. We also have been drying a lot of our stuff on a clothes rack, and when we use the dryer we haven't been using a heat setting, just air dry. Now, I don't know if that actually makes a difference, just using air dry instead of a heat setting, but it appears to be doing the trick.

We both have laptops, so I know they don't use quite the same amount of energy as a desktop. We also got rid of the cable, which has to save us some in electrical usage. No more TiVo, no more digital box, both plugged in constantly. Now, we haven't all together gotten rid of the TV, we have an antenna, in case there is something important on the news.

The next step is to start replacing the lightbulbs in the house with those CFL bulbs. They are expensive up front, but are supposed to save you money in the long run. Unfortunately we are going to have to buy one at a time, because we just can't afford to replace all the bulbs right off. Hopefully our cash flow will get a little better sooner rather than later. Anyways, I was just so excited about it!

In other news, I made oatmeal bread last night from scratch, not even using a bread machine! I have never made bread before, and I was so proud of myself. I would say about half the ingredients were local too, yay! Although we have already gone through an entire loaf...I may need to start making it every other day! Pictures to come soon!