Truffula Tuft

Drying Beans and Tomatoes

I'm trying to dry the abundant beans and tomatoes of the season.

I've layed out the beans on old screens separated by stacks of cat food cans. I got the screens at Habitat for Humanity for 1.00 each. Some beans have dried nicely and some have molded, phew!

I've been reading about the old fashioned "leather britches" thing, where you string them on thread and hang them in the attic or over a stove. It seems very time consuming. How did people in the old days dry bushels and bushels of beans around here without mold problems? Beans were a basic staple. It would be easy as pie in southern CA but here with 70+% humidity most days....

Varieties: Blue Lake for fresh eating; State Half Runner for fresh and dry; Queen Anne's Black Eyed Peas for drying; 2 kinds of Indian Cornhill for drying (part of the 3 sisters experiment)

My tomato plants are loaded down with fruit but none are red yet. The Community Garden tomatoes are coming in red, fast and big though.

My friend Anne loaned me her fab Excalibur dehydrator for the toms. It works in about 8 hours. Kind of noisy, reminds me of the woodstove fan. The problem is, once I take them out to "condition" them (meaning let them even out in moisture level), they get a little soft and sticky again in this humidity. I'm worried if I put them in jars they will mold. I could freeze them, but the whole point is finding low energy ways of food preservation.

Anybody know how to solve this?

This will probably be the last post for a while. We're off to CA. I really hate to leave when so much is ripening every day. I hope my neighbors will take advantage as I have invited them to. I'm going to stick the dry tomatoes in the freezer until then. I hope I don't have a moldy pile of beans when I get home.

peace,
Jennifer

Where for art thou, chickens?

The chicken coop/potting and art shed/composting toilet has stood forlorn and unfinished for 4 weeks now. I kept saying "We'll have our chickens by the end of the summer!" But here comes September and it's not ready for occupancy.

There is a lot of chicken activism in Asheville. Because of it, we now have fewer restrictions on legally keeping poultry within city limits. This is a trend across the country. The combination of the poor economy and the growing awareness of factory farm horror has clued people into the economic and health value of homegrown food. 

There's even a documentary film about it, Mad City Chickens. Looks interesting, anyone seen it?

A few years ago, when I first got chickens in LA, I put together this lens about Keeping Backyard Chickens. It's a good intro if you are thinking about getting some cluckers for yourself, or are simply curious.

Now the word is, "By Halloween, we'll have our own birds again." Meanwhile I'm getting our eggs from friends. Love those big blue ones with the double yolks Amber!

bok, bok, bok,
Jennifer

PS -- I have now allowed comments on the blog. I've kept this blog since December 2003 (!) and during those early fevered days of Bush bashing I got a lot of stupid comments from ignorant people. So I disabled the feature. I thought I'd give it another shot because I like the idea of more interaction.

So, if anybody actually reads this, and has a thought to share about what you've read, share it in a comment.

Food Preservation on Full Speed

The garden is amazing these days. The summer rains have wrought miracles.

Now, while madly making inventory for our next festival and prepping for fall homeschooling, I'm also trying to preserve some of the harvest. It's a busy season.

 

I took a pickling class at the Extension office last month. We canned cucumber pickles and made relish. Here are some lower energy cucumber ideas - refrigerator pickles and lacto-fermented pickles. Also a yummy salad with calendula petals and mint. The refrigerator pickles were the biggest hit. They are sweetened with sugar but next time I will try honey. Will post the recipe soon. It's really easy.

 

Here's a pretty but failed experiment in preserving zuchini by drying. The sun dried stuff molded in 3 days and smelled ghastly. The electric dryer (got it on Craigslist for 10.00!) dried them fast but there was almost nothing left. My friend Anne said she tried this and later used it in a recipe. The taste was like cardboard.

 

Nettles are a girl's best friend. This picture of nettles drying in the kitchen window is from early July. We picked these in the woods nearby. Wear gloves when you pick nettles! They are a rich source of vitamin A, C,E, and D, and lots of minerals including calcium, magnesium and potassium.

Make an infusion by filling a mason jar with a cup of dried nettles and pouring boiling water over it to fill the jar. Leave for several hours, then refrigerate. Refreshing and nutritious!

 

Hooray for garlic! I was thrilled to have enough garlic to braid it into 2 big braids. I've got one hanging in my kitchen now and love to snip off the bulbs as needed.

 

Vegetables are God's art:  True Blue potato, Valentine beet, and Danvers carrot.

Next on the preservation agenda are about 30 pounds of beets. We are planning a canning party next week.

peace,
Jennifer

Swine Flu Vaccine Worries

I am worried about the swine flu vaccine. Homeschoolers are a little more "off the radar" but public schools are one of the first places they expect to do mass vaccinations, possibly mandatory. Whatever your thoughts on vaccines, it seems this one is very rushed and not adequately tested.

Dr. William Sears, attachment parenting advocate and author of "The Baby Book", has written about his worries about making the vaccine mandatory:

Now, what you can fret about is whether or not the government will make the vaccine mandatory. Not “mandatory” in the sense that all vaccines are “required,” but parents can sign a waiver. I’m talking about mandatory in that Child Protective Services will take your kids away, or hold you back while they force the shot on your child. Yeah, that would be something to worry about. So, write your senator now and put in your two cents. OR, don’t even worry about it until they decide whether or not it’s mandatory, but by then it will be too late to make your voice heard.

Having put that conspiracy on the table, I will offer one piece of reassuring news. The latest report I just got from the AAP discusses their anticipation that not everyone who is recommended to get the flu shot will go out and get it. That tells me they aren’t thinking “mandatory” yet. However, I’ve also seen reports that the government is thinking about making it absolutely mandatory. I don’t know whom to believe yet.

That is alarming to me, coming from the trusted Dr. Sears. Read the rest here.

Dr. Joseph Mercola (health activist and author) has written Swine Flu is NOT the Problem -- It is the Vaccine that May Harm or Kill You. I read his newsletters regularly. They are strident at times but based on fact.

The last one is from the NVIC (they call themselves the watchdogs of vaccine safety) "Swine Flu Vaccine: Will We Have A Choice?"

All of these articles recommend contacting our government officials sooner than later, and demanding protection of our right to opt out of vaccinations. I wrote a sample letter blow that you can copy freely.

Peace,
Jennifer

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear Senator/Congressperson _____________

 

I am concerned about stories I read in the media on the possibility of mandatory vaccinations for H1N1 Swine flu. I have heard that the United States Emergency Medical Powers Acts and other legislation, including the Patriot Acts, provide for mandatory vaccination.  No exemptions (religious or otherwise) are provided. I want to retain all my rights to make my own health choices and I ask for your support in this.

According to the CDC and WHO vaccines produced for the potential Swine Flu pandemic will not have been tested in any meaningful way by late 2009. They contain potentially dangerous substances like the oil-based adjuvant squalene.

 

Many trusted physicians, including Dr. William Sears, Dr. Joseph Mercola, and Dr. Ron Paul, have warned about the dangers of forced vaccination and the ineffectiveness of such measures to stop infectious disease. Their independent medical opinions must be given great weight. Please commit to protecting citizens rights to opt out of vaccinations, and to hold hearings to evaluate the true status of the pandemic threat and treatment safety.

 

Thank you,

 

______

What is Your Walkscore?

My friend Heather at Mama Is  just told me about Walkscore. It's a website that calculates how walkable your neighborhood is, according to how close things like grocery stores, libraries, and schools are. I plugged in a bunch of addresses and had fun comparing.

Our wonderful neighborhood got a 75 (out of 100), which is very good. My sisters house in Brooklyn got a 89, other sis in Santa Monica 88, sis in the burbs of CT 6, sis in the burbs of RI 3, parents in small mill town in MA 66. My old hood in northeast LA 69. The White House gets a 98. W's ranch in Crawford, a big 0. But a place like Polyface Farm in VA, the height of sustainable ag, also gets a 0.

The Walkscore blog had this video about the "New Urbanism" on it. It's catchy and slick and makes some very good points. They blame many of the world's ills on sprawl. It's a bit tongue in cheek (Cul-De-Sacs!!). The idea of more efficient use of space for humans is very appealing to my virgo love of re-organizing closets etc. It's common sense really, but one concept is not going to "save the world". It's all connected after all. If you don't look at where the food, energy, water and waste are coming from and going to, in relation to the denser neighborhoods, as well as the elephant in the room of too many people, you are not going to succeed in being SUSTAINABLE.

This is a word I am getting sick of. I like the word REGENERATIVE - something that can not only maintain itself without taking more than it gives, but actually improves ecosystems, restoring them to their previous healthy states. And another great word is RESILIENT. Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns clued me into that one. Resilience - a capacity to adapt to or ability to recover from changing conditions. We are certainly in for a lot more changing conditions, from the economy to the climate. Cultivating resilience as individuals and communities is a timely idea.

peace,
Jen