Living off the land

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I was recently telling someone about how we've been eating this winter.

I began with... "well, I don't really go to a grocery store much anymore, only once in a while to get something for the kids like bananas or oats, whole wheat flour...".   Also, we don't eat out much (maybe once every month or two as a special treat at our friends' Mexican restaurant).

I stopped to dwell on how we really have been eating, especially this winter because it's our first winter living on the farm... basically, we've been eating all the foods that we grew here last spring, summer, and fall!  Most of the fresh vegetable crops are gone, with the exception of some winter spinach & green onions outside in our unheated greenhouse tunnels (and you bet we're still eating those, whenever it's warm enough to open the greenhouse plastic!).  So, what are we eating?

From our root cellar: onions, garlic, beets, winter squash, rutabaga, turnips, carrots, potatoes, and black walnuts.  From our pantry: our farm-grown and farm-canned jars of tomatoes, salsas (red and green!), pickles, pickled jalapenos, apple & pear butters, and grape juice canned from our grape vines is a special treat when an illness strikes.  From our freezers: our own farm-raised and farm-butchered stewing chickens, awesome beef raised on a nearby organic farm (they are one of our CSA customers - we try to support back!  :-), raw milk from the same farm, raw honey (my latest batch was purchased from one of our egg customers :-), kefir (similar to yogurt) made from the raw milk, maple syrup from another friend's farm, and of course all of our farm-raised fruits & vegetables pulled from the deep freezers: sweet corn cut fresh off the cob last August, green beans and sugar snap peas, chopped & frozen sweet bell peppers, and fruit from our fruit trees & vines: bags of frozen mulberries, peaches, and black raspberries.  Plus tiny strawberries picked on my cousin's organic farm 2 summers ago (awesome).  I even bought a 50 pound bag of red winter wheat from a farmer down the road, borrowed a friend's hand mill, and we ground some fresh whole wheat flour!  That was fun - my oldest son especially enjoyed it, but I will admit we're mostly using purchased whole wheat flour.

We still do buy quite a bit, especially things like dried & canned beans, cheese, and treats like tortilla chips, but as I'm writing this I'm realizing that we're mostly eating off our own land.  Guess this is what "the fruits of our labor" is all about!

And, to be honest, we're eating so well.  It's all so delicious, all the winter soups, stews, casseroles.... we can't buy vegetables & meat this good in a store.  Or in a restaurant.  It's just not the same.

Although I will admit I am missing lettuce....our farm's lettuce, that is...  but not enough to buy lettuce from the store - store lettuce doesn't taste good!  I'll be content to wait about 2 more months until our first crop is ready.  :-)

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Pilgrims & a self-sufficient life

I need to spout off about something that is really irritating me!

I recently read a book to my 6 year-old about the first Thanksgiving (to my readers not from America, Thanksgiving is a November celebration which commemorates a feast between first permanent religious settlers in America (Pilgrims) and the Native Americans).

This was a really simple children's picture book, only 20 pages or so long.  So why am I spouting off about it?

Oh, did it irritate me!!!  After taking this path toward a more self-sufficient life, I've learned so much about growing & preserving food, using wood for heat & cooking, and more.  Apparently the Pilgrims were, ahem, lacking in such knowledge.

This book mentioned that the Pilgrims landed at Massachusetts on December 21 after a 2-month journey across the ocean.  Hello?!!  What???!!  You left England at the end of October for a country that is colder in the winter, and you left to arrive on the Winter Solstice???  Did they not plan this out or what?  If I had been a Pilgrim, I definitely would have left in March.  Seems obvious to me!  They would have arrived here with plenty of time to plant the seeds they didn't bring along.

So now I have had my eyes opened.  It is no wonder only 50 of the original 102 survived the cold winter. 

I now realize how truly wonderful it was that the compassionate Native Americans stumbled across them in the spring and taught them how to plant the 3 sisters: corn, squash, and beans.  Of course, sharing their own seeds because the Pilgrims didn't bring their own (!).  Teaching them to hunt (!) and on and on.  Imagine what these Native Americans must have thought of these Pilgrims!  :-)  I'm surprised they didn't laugh them away, but after seeing them starving to death amongst all their dead & buried children and kinfolk I understand why they felt compelled to help.

I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this, and of course I'm drawing this assumption after reading a simple children's book, but.... were the Pilgrims a religious fanatic cult?  I know, I know, they were persecuted in England.  But why would they follow this leader (yes, there was a leader, it mentioned his name in the book), and embark in October for a cold land without any knowledge or preparation to survive once they got there? Risking the lives of their children in doing so?!  I truly wonder if nowadays we wouldn't label them as a religious cult.

I'm hoping to find a good book about Squanto, the Native American who taught them to plant vegetables. It mentioned in the book that he had been kidnapped, brought to England, and found his way back to America 5 years later. He spoke English as a result, which is how he communicated with the Pilgrims.  What a story! 

Hope I didn't offend anyone with this spout, but really I was shocked about the Pilgrims after my own journey.