Well boys and girls, this will probably be my last post under the Homestead Challenge. It's been fun, and I really enjoy having a written record of what I accomplish each week, but things are starting to slow down in the garden, so there may not be much to mention. BUT encouraged by the comments from some of my readers and friends, I'm going to start a new series of posts called, simply enough, "What I'm Doing". After all, a homesteader's work isn't done just because the garden is finished, right?
So, I'll be posting each week about the different activities I'm undertaking to be prepared for winter and/or total infrastructure collapse. Whichever comes first. Feel free to post what you're doing in the comments section; or better yet, take up the challenge and post on your own blog what it is that YOU'RE doing to be better prepared. Share those thoughts, plans, recipes, deals, ideas to encourage one of your homesteading brothers or sisters. But for now, onto the current challenge.
Plant Something: Nope
Harvest Something: Still more tomatoes! We picked about 60 lbs this week, but the plants are really looking puny. Oh, and field corn, I picked field corn. It was supposed to be sweet corn, but apparently my patch cross-pollinated with the field of hybrid GMO field corn behind us, so our lovely white Country Gentleman corn is bi-colored, dry and about as un-sweet as it comes. Very disappointing.
Preserve Something: This week I canned multi-colored tomatoes for the most interesting, beautiful jars of whole tomatoes you've ever seen! Plus, I canned tomato sauce, dried mushrooms, blueberries and corn. Froze some Lima beans and dried some of the beans for seed.
Eat the Food: The entire family has been sick this week, so we tried out some of the homemade tomato soup and OH MY was it delicious! Campbell's has nothing on my tomato soup!
Reduce Waste: I dried a bunch of mushrooms that were, perhaps, a bit past their prime but still very usable. I figure they'll make great mushroom soup this winter. And as usual, the scraps go to the chickens; oddly enough, even the chickens wouldn't eat our nasty corn.
Reuse/Repurpose/Reclaim: I've been too drugged up this week to do anything particularly clever. Nyquil tends to do that to you, ya know?
Have Fun! To be honest, this has been a miserable week. Mara caught a cold, gave it to Isaac who passed it on to Daddy and me. I hope it's a cold anyway. It's definitely the worst one I've had in ages.
2 comments:
Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that your family have been sick. Not fun at all. But tomato soup when sick, especially such a fresh batch, can help with the mood quite a bit I'd guess. Good thought to feel better soon!
we have had the cold/allergy/chest cold going around here also. It does put a huge damper on the wantta go outside and get things done mode. I do hope you all get to feeling better soon.
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