Getting back into the swing of things with the Independence Day Challenge

By late last season I'd seriously fallen short of my weekly updates on ways I'm meeting the Independence Challenge. In a nutshell, it is a way to record and motivate ourselves to do sometimes small or seemingly insignificant things, over time, to make a big difference in our own lives, our local communities and our planet. If you're still curious, swing on over to Sharon's website to get the full details. I'll be posting my updates here every week, most likely on Tuesday, but hey...let's be flexible.

So, here's the first update of the growing season:

Plant something – Nothing yet.

Harvest something – Nothing yet.

Preserve something – Made a batch of yogurt from some dated milk.

Waste Not – Used some leftover Fall apples from the freezer for a tea-cake for the Lenten luncheon at church. Sent the tea-cakes off to church on some cookie trays reused from a Christmas holiday party. Took a batch of dryer lint, TP rolls and newspaper from packages out to the compost.

Want Not – Assembled the new grow lights (gifted from a co-worker) for seed-starting. Placed our order for summer chicken and fall pork from our local meat CSA. Made up another batch of "shampoo" and "conditioner."

Build Community Food Systems – Started planning a workshop for our local church on local food, food storage and security.t

Eat the Food – Roasted some of the last beets for a maple teryaki broil tonight. Made two oatmeal-tea cakes from a slightly altered family favorite recipe -- using up food storage oatmeal and fruit and nuts. Baked up another roasting pan full of the butternut squash from food storage--delicious packed with lunch or whipped up into butternut pancakes or muffins.

Hang onto your hats, here comes Spring!!!

First Frost and graham crackers

Well, it came. The first frost of Fall. We've been watching for it and trying to gauge when to clear out the last of the green tomatoes and eggplants. And luckily we got them out and into the kitchen just in time. Our first frost came on Tuesday evening, and we awoke to 29° F at 5:30 on Wednesday morning. Brrr! We're trying to hold off a little longer before turning on the furnace, for both environmental and economical reasons. Time for layers in the house!

Meanwhile, this adoption waiting has been sitting heavily with both of us. We've passed our 11 months of officially waiting and soon we'll need to update our home study. We know that the average wait with our agency is a year, but had hoped (and heard encouraging words from the agency) that it might have been sooner. I know that when you think of all the stories of people waiting years, this doesn't sound like that long...but it sure is feeling long right now.

The blue funk we've both been in called for a little extra attention (chocolate). On my way home from work the other day, Michael let me know that we were critically low on chocolate, and that some was needed. Meanwhile, I'd been fantasizing about lovely english whole wheat biscuits coated with chocolate ( I think they were called Hobnobs or something), or even the dark chocolate dipped graham crackers from Starbucks. Things we try not to eat, since we try to stick with good wholesome foods from home. But we were clearly hankering for a chocolate treat.

So, after stopping to replenish our supply of organic dark chocolate from Trader Joe's, I found a recipe for honey graham crackers in the MaryJane's Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook changed the brown sugar to sucanat, and commenced to baking. I used a jar as a cutter, since I had round cookies in my head. The outcome, crispy, wheaty, delicious and so I took the next step. Melting a few organic chocolate chips on each round at the end of the baking and then quickly sandwiching two together. Oh, glory be! They totally scratched my itch. And made for a delicious and only moderately decadent treat. Good for what ailed us.

I highly recommend this book for inspiration and recipes for a homestead kind of life. The photography is beautiful and the recipes I've made, delicious!

And the humble graham cracker has been elevated in status at our house to a new fav.

Papa's got a brand new (old) car and the latest look at the garden

Well after a couple of weeks of very frustrating, demoralizing searching, Michael found a new (used) car to replace the one he totaled. His mission was a pretty tough one. He needed to find a reliable, safe set of wheels that didn't cost any more than the insurance company paid him for his old one (not much!) and we were hoping that he could find something that got better mileage than his Mercury Sable.

After many discouraging hours looking at over-priced piles of s.......tuff, being baited and switched, and rudely brushed off by opportunistic used car dealers...hmm is that redundant? We were just at that point when you really begin to think that people suck, when Craigslist came through! We met a very nice man who was selling his older and much loved Honda Civic because he was upgrading to a slightly newer vehicle that his friend was selling him at a good price. Our Honda guy wasn't looking to make a big profit, or rip anyone off. He was completely forthcoming, giving us repair history and even telling us of the next big work that will likely need doing in a year or two. And when we went to sign the papers, he gave us the roof rack and bicycle rack as well as a clean car with a full tank of gas. Our faith in humanity was renewed!

This was all accomplished under the budget that we needed to stay under, and with more than enough money banked for the big repair next year.

Since we also went and met with the adoption agency the other night and found out about the whopping large sum that will need to be found to pay for agency fees, legal fees, medical expenses, etc. , coming in under-budget here was a real big deal. Hoorah!

And I'll leave you with the latest pictures from our burgeoning garden. Hope things are ripening and flourishing around you!

Hope

Well, I've been doing a lot of reading, seeking, reaching for hope lately. Getting hyper focused on the "news" from media outlets, overhearing too many mindless, soul-less conversations, and even looking closely at the sides of the road on my way to work, all leave me in a dark place. I know it is important to be aware of these realities, if only to push against them and strive for better (for humanity, for the environment, for the future). But it is a tricky balance. And often my eyes and ears are almost desperately casting about for something bright and good to land on.

In a Mind Body Workshop I recently attended, we were encouraged to spend a little bit of dedicated time everyday to appreciating, noting, listing things that brought us joy, gave us hope and positively influenced our day.

Here are a few of mine:

• One bright orange giant zinnia blooming/blazing in a mass of green after a torrential thunderstorm

• A very elderly gent on his daily walk down the soggy morning street in a hot pink t-shirt

• Ten minutes of lovely morning quiet to sip my coffee and read

• Greg Greenway's song "Standing on the Side of Love" with the soul-tugging strains of Pat Wictor's slide guitar...the best kind of music for a morning commute!

• The man with the shiny bald head and twirly mustache who kindly held the door for me this morning

• The discovery of another amazing family making a change at Path to Freedom

What's bringing you hope today?