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!!!