More Mt. Index and garden set-up

More photos from the guy's trip up Mt. Index to Lake Serene.

Today was Seattle hot, in the mid 80's and humid. I took the lumber we found yesterday and turned it into a raised bed (8.5" x 4") for our fall crops. I lined the bottom with cardboard and newsprint and 3 bags of organic mulch. Then I filled it with 2 bags of organic top soil, 2 bags of organic garden soil, and a bag or organic compost. Finally, I topped it off with some compost from our bin. After all the sawing, hammering, and soil hauling, I was in need of a nice cool garden shower. PHEW!

This afternoon, I found a local farm where I can go learn about organic veggie production and harvesting. I'll go work there on Saturday, and the farm gives a large donation to a local charity that helps feed hungry families. Sounds like a big win-win to me.

For dinner tonight we had a lovely summer veggie pasta with chard, summer squash, zucchini, eggplant, tomato, mushroom, onion, garlic, and basil. Everything came from the farmer's market except the wholewheat pasta (pantry stores), parmesean cheese (one of our August monthly exceptions), and the summer squash (our garden).

Tomorrow, I'm in search of winter crop seeds. Wish me luck!

Project Goal #4: Live and play simply and locally

To live and play simply, locally, and ecofriendly is our final goal. How do we plan to do this in our fast paced life? How fast?

David works full time and takes college classes. Ari goes to college and runs a women's writing cadre. Alex is attends a summer Shakespearean theatre program. Anni runs around to 7 specialty appointments per week and is about to start tech camp. Barkley helps Anni, chases tennis balls, and keeps squirrels at bay. And I get to keep track of all of their schedules, manage the household, write, and study.

So how?

A) Slow down, work less, and live more. We're in the process of consolidating schedules and tasks.

B) Increase the amount of family and neighbor face-to-face time. We have placed limits on the amount of time spent alone with technology buddies and added games night, potlucks, hikes, picnics, and craft projects.

C) Decrease our carbon output with alternative transportation and energy footprints. We're walking and taking the bus more and using our gas guzzler less often. Our primary vehicle is now a Prius for when the bus won't get us there. We hand wash small loads of dishes and only do full loads of laundry. Our showers are shorter and flow restricted. As soon as we can find a place to put a clothes line where Barkley can't snatch and run with the family undies, we're retiring the dryer for the summer.

D) Vacation locally with a 200 mile limit to explore the wonders of where we live. Pacific Northwest: forests, beaches, mountains, deserts, lakes, rivers - why go anywhere else? Okay sun might be a tempting lure, but we do get alittle this time of year.

Okay, okay, now we're done with all the goals. Tomorrow the fun begins.

Building Beds and C Movies

A beautiful view of Mt. Index

Alex armed & dangerous with a snowball

Today, we took a trip to the local hardware store for materials for our first raised garden bed. We found some untreated lumber in the odds and end bin for the right price and also found several bags of organic mulch and garden soil. Tomorrow, I build the bed.

Alex was off to Shakespeare camp again this week. He's been reciting his lines as Romeo all evening. Anni is in Science and Tech camp. She's learning all about mammals. Ari is brain deep in her college presentation and final. I'm zipping them all around in the blue Prius we've nicknamed Birdie.

Today, we barbequed up the oysters from the farmer's market with a big salad and the pasta, also from the market. "Hmmmm!" said David, Anni, & me. Alex and Ari said, "Yuck! Ocean boogers!"

Here's my recipe for a great BBQ sauce for oysters:

Your fav. BBQ sauce 1/2 cup

Lemon juice 1/2 lemon squeezed

Hot pepper sauce 3 dashes

Mix well and put a tsp on each oyster as they open.

Tonight instead of watching a Hollywood blockbuster, we watched "The Natural History of Chickens." It was hysterical!

Project Goal #3: Increase community, decrease our consumerism

Our 3 part composting bin,

built by David & Alex

As a family, we wish to increase our community involvement and decrease corporate consumerism. How?

A) By joining local organizations that focus on green living, organic farming, and the local slow life.
B) By regularly visiting our local farm resources to reconnect to the human food chain.
C) By reducing, reusing, and recycling on a family level.
D) By trading and borrowing over buying.
E) By buying used over new.

What local organizations? One of the first we've joined is the Northwest Earth Institute, an awesome resource that has courses in many areas of green living. I've taken classes in simplicity, food choices, and sustainability. See the links for more info.

Which farms? We are blessed to have over 70 local farms within our 100 mile area. One of our closest favorites to visit is the South 47 Farm. Here you can snip your own herbs, cut some fresh flowers, pick berries, dig potatoes, and purchase loads of fresh fruits and veggies.

What do you mean reducing, reusing, and recycling on the family level? We'll we have awesome county recycling programs in the Seattle area, but that's not quite good enough. Too many resources are lost when a high grade product ends up in a low end filler at the end of the recycle process. Sure, low end filler is better than the land fill, but there's a better option. First reduce, use less; less packaging, less disposables, and less overall. Then reuse. Be creative at the home level! Pop bottles make awesome bird feeders. Glass jars are nonreactive food containers. Finally recycle. Newspaper becomes worm fodder and food scraps become compost for the garden.

What do you mean by trading or borrowing instead of buying? The world is too driven by money. Sometimes we can take it out of the equation and still meet our needs. My neighbor's plums are often exchanged for our tomatoes. We're tired of storing and maintaining tools that we only need a few times a year. We're trying to start a community tool closet for those tillers, hedgers, and thinganmajigs.

Buying used? Are we serious? You bet! New stuff is really expensive and takes lots of new resources to make, ship, and sell. Used stuff reuses existing resources. It's often funky and fun to boot. Searching for used stuff is like a treasure hunt and usually benefits an individual or small local business owner rather than a megacorp.

Goal 4 tomorrow

More fun at the market

Picking baby yellow squash

We tried our luck at the Sunday farmer's market today in another town today. We found fresh oysters from near Port Townsend and smoked salmon from La Push. We also found apricots, peaches, dill, shallots, flava beans, pepper jelly, and fresh pasta. Grocery shopping has never been so fresh!

Anni and I spent the afternoon making peach-apricot jam and jars of spicy dill pickles. Ari had a college final to work on. David and Alex went on all day on a trail up Mt. Index.

The sun came out today, and we harvested our second garden tomato - yipee! We made crepes for breakfast with some of our gooseberry jam. It was sweet and tangy! Dinner tonight was an eggplant curry with amaranth greens over brown rice. Most of the ingredients came from the market yesterday. The brown rice is from our existing pantry.

Does anyone know a good recipe for flava beans? Besides "with liver and a good chianti"?

Here's our take on a recipe for Veggie Bread:
Water 2/3 cup
Cabbage 1" wedge
Carrot 4" piece
Whole wheat flour 1 and 1/2 cups
Rolled oats 1/2 cup
Honey (optional) 1 tsp
Yeast 1 tsp
Sea salt 1/2 tsp
Veggie oil 1 Tbsp
Directions: Pulverize carrot and cabbage in blender with water (or grate very finely). Put this mix and all othe ingredients in bread machine bread pan, and turn on machine. This 1 lb loaf makes 12 hearty slices.
Notes:
1-The honey is optional because the carrots and cabbage provide the natural sugars to feed the yeast. Honey just sweetens the bread a tad more, especially for the young ones.
2-This bread can happily bake in your bread machine. We like to make it into small round loaves and bake it in the oven. If this sounds like your plan too, simply remove after processing the bread through the dough cycle (first rising) and then hand shape. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes, until loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

More tomorrow.

Project Goal #2: Grow more of our own food

The feather our turkey visitor left behind.

We want to grow more of our own food. How are we going to attempt this?
A) By expanding our organic garden plot with 3 raised garden beds.
B) By expanding our composting bin and worm binning.
C) By extending our spring/summer garden via year round growing techniques with hearty fall/winter crops, a low-cost green house, and gardening under plastic.
D) By preserving peak food crops through dehydration, freezing, canning, and pickling.
E) By adding chickens for egg production.
F) And if possible (zoning?), by adding a goat for yogurt/cheese.

Why raised beds? To increase the soil temperature for continued growth and help control pests.

Why composting and worm binning? To improve soil quality and decrease kitchen garbage volume.

Why year round growing techniques? Do you have any idea how much it rains around here? The slug is our mascot, and summer is short.

Why food preservation? Have you tasted grocery store tomatoes in January? Yuk! Sun dried tomatoes in January? Yum! Besides, it sounds like some good times in the family kitchen.

Why chickens? Why not? We love animals and eggs. Chickens seem like an easy way to start. (Don't you just love the blissfully ignorant?)

Why a goat? This may be wishful thinking due to zoning restrictions, but we're checking it out just in case. We're thinking the added benefits of weed control and fresh yogurt and cheese. Can you say Mah?

Goal 3 tomorrow.

Local Food Shopping

(The start of our family suburban farm)

So how did we do at the Saturday farmer's market?

For fruit, we found gooseberries, red currents, and an Asian honey dew melon.

For veggies, we found a beautiful eggplant, okra, tomatoes, white potatoes, fingerling potatoes, leeks, amaranth greens, bok choy, carrots, pickling and slicing cucumbers, chinese long beans and jalapeno/green chili/pablano peppers.

For herbs, we found basil, cilantro, and Italian parsley and for dairy, yogurt and basil-sundried tomato sheep cheese. For meat, we found Italian lamb sausages and just because, a jar of honey.

After the market, Anni and I went to a local farm and picked raspberries. She was very red after that. We spent the afternoon making jam; 6 jars of raspberry-red current, using the last of our sugar, and 4 jars of gooseberry, with local honey. This is our third session of jam making. During our first, we made blueberry jam and mixed berry for the next go around.

Dinner tonight was a wonderful stirfry with the long beans from the market, peapods from our garden, and spotted prawns from the Salish sea (better known as the Puget Sound). Delicious!

Tomorrow, we're making pickles!

Project Goal #1: Eat seasonally, locally and organically

(Barkley and his beloved ball)

To eat seasonally, locally, sustainably, and organically, we intend to buy our food directly from farms, CSA's, farmers' markets, and coops whenever possible.
Rules:
A) 75% of our food purchases from within a 100 mile limit of our home.
B) 25% from with a 200 mile limit.
C) 3 family exceptions per month
D) Just 1 personal exemption per week, individually sized.
E) All exceptions must be organic and sustainable.

Why seasonal? It's all about the taste and the nutrients. Foods in season are at the peak of both their flavor and nutrient content. They very often need little other seasoning when eaten. They are crisp and delicious, juicy and lucious, hmmmm! The snap of tender spring asparagus, the sweetness of early summer strawberries, the sticky, gooey juices of peaches, and the crunch of harvest corn; a symphony of goodness.

Why local? It's all about the vast distances our food is being transported. Studies have shown the average food item times travels 1500 miles to reach our grocery stores. That seems to be an incredible waste of energy resources and food freshness. It also produces lots of greenhouse gases. Why not buy closer to home and support the farmer directly?

Why organic and sustainable? It's all about the chemicals and the environment. Much too much of our commericially grown plant food is exposed to pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and other agents that damage the environment and cause concern for our own health. Similarly, our commericially based animal food is often raised in conditions that pollute the environment and contribute to poor animal health, which then must be treatrd with antibiotics or hormones to boast production. Organic foods eliminate the chemicals. Sustainable foods don't damage the environment and are usually more humane.

Why the mile limits? We are blessed to live in the abundant Pacific Northwest. We can obtain most of what our family needs to eat within a 100 mile limit. A few products, most notably grain, require the extention to 200 miles.

Why the exceptions? This is a family project, not a punishment. We wish to see if we can live in a better way, but we all have our guilty pleasures. Ours include chocolate, coffee, Pepsi, Doritos, Fruit Loops, and dog biscuits. Therefore, we are giving each family member one exception per week, but they'll have to be healthier choices. Likewise, 3 family exclusions are allowed per month to allow for basic menu necessities. Family exclusions must be voted on by all family members. Our first family exclusions are 1 bag of lemons, 1 bottle of olive oil, and 1 wedge of parmesean cheese.

We're off to the Farmer's Market this morning and then to a local farm. We need fruit, veggies, cheese, honey, and grains. Wish us luck.

Julie Ann

Welcome to our Funny Farm, an adventure in suburban farming!

Take one middle class, American family, living in suburbia and mix with a desire for a simpler, greener, more local life, and what do you get? Down on the funny farm, adventures in suburban farming, a three year project with a modern family nearly clueless about farming.

We are a family of five living just outside the Seattle area, with a desire to live a slower and fuller life. We want to know where our food comes from and that it is healthy to eat. We want to leave less of an impact on our beautiful environment and grow closer as a family.

So welcome to our blog: Down on the Funny Farm. Now meet the cast of comedic characters:
Julie Ann: Mom and principal instigator of the project. I'm a former biologist and biotech scientist now pursuing writing, ecologocial causes, and education.
Dave: Dad and former military man. I'm the principal investor of the project and hoping for a good return.
Ari: Daughter and newly graduated. I just started my college degree in anthropology, and my family is a cultural study in and of itself.
Alex: Son and wielder of a wickedly witty sense of humor. "To bean or not to bean, that is not the question..."
Anni: Daughter and a dynamo of spirit. I can't see well , but I truly live through every other sense. I love dirt!
Barkley: Woof! arf! arf! (translation: I'm Anni's service dog and chief defender against ferocious squirrels.)

As if to officially kick off our experiment in suburban farming, we had a barnyard visit yesterday afternoon. Just how it managed to escape it's coop and arrive in our backyard is a mystery. Barkley was more than perplexed by this large bird. It was Anni who alerted us to its presence by repeating, "I hear it, I hear it!" and sure enough, she was right. One of the neighbor's turkey flock was parading around with ever panicking gobbles. His cohorts on the other side of the fence were responding with a rising cresendo of their own. Barkley ran and hid in his kennel, ferocious beastie that he is. After a quick trip around the block, the wayward turkey was returned to its rightful side of the fence, and all was again peaceful by side of the veggie patch.

Stay tuned for more info on the goals of the project and what we've tried so far. More pictures coming too.

Julie Ann