Gratuitous canning shot

What's left of the tomatoes. Five jars of canned plus another six jars of green tomato relish that I didn't take a picture of. I'm definitely over canning tomato product.

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes

That's ALOT of tomatoes

We were pretty lucky this year in this part of Virginia. Our first killing frost normally appears around Mid-October. But this year, we hit the jackpot. We didn't see our first big one until around the beginning of November and it extended my growing season by at least two weeks if not more.

While everyone was ripping out vines, tilling their soil, I was still desperately holding on inorder to eek out the last wee bit of sunshine and warmth. That's not to say that I didn't rip out beans and such like, but I was loathe to touch the tomatoes. Hell, they were still flowering and creating babies!

And my procrastination (or persistence depending on how you look at it) paid off. We had a bumper late crop as pictured above.

Which raised the question - What do I do with all these tomatoes?

Unfortunately, late tomatoes aren't very tasty. They are normally pithy, a bit bland, and generally a pale imitation of their earlier counterparts. I know when we're getting late in the season by how many are in the fruit bowl - it's in direct correlation to Jon's rye bread with mayo and tomato fetish. When the tomatoes start losing their flavor Jon also starts to lose interest, hence more tomatoes in the bowl.

So what to do with them especially the green ones?

The green ones with the most promise of turning are kept aside in a brown paper bag to ripen. Eventually they will probably become sauce. Those unlikely to do anything other than rot will no doubt be turned into some sort of relish. If you've got vegetables you don't know what to do with, there's always relish/chutney/chow chow/pickle. Sad but true. In fact, I went looking for something different with green tomatoes, but gave up after my 6th or 7th chutney recipe. Having never had green tomatoes before I wanted something fun and exciting. Instead what I got was relish. BUT, I have to say it was pretty tasty relish and in fact, weirdly enough, it resembles hotdog relish. If you've got green tomatoes that you want to use up, try it. You might like it.

My Green Tomato Hotdog Relish Recipe

• 2 quarts chopped green tomatoes
• 1 quart chopped onion
• 3 cups apple cider vinegar
• 3 chopped and seeded green peppers
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 pound of brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp celery seed

Wash and chop the tomatoes to make 2 quarts. Peel and chop the onions to make 3 quarts total. Sprinkle a 1/2 cup of salt on the mix and allow these veggies to stand for 12 hours or overnight. Then put them in a colander and rinse under cold running water. Drain.

Bring the rest of the ingredients to a boil. Add the tomatoes and onions and bring back to a boil. Simmer for 15-20 minutes. Make sure to stir often. When the tomatoes are translucent, the relish is done.

Pack into hot jars with seals and lids and process for 15 minutes in a hot water bath.

Garlic, Onion, and Kale Oh My!

Well, Guy Fawkes has come and gone. Somehow we ate 60 potatoes, a couple dozen hotdogs, 5 lbs of halloween candy, and who knows how many marshmallows. Even our dogs got in on the marshmallow action by becoming real-life hoovers the next day, vacuuming up all the errant marshmallows out of the woods. You would've thought that we were using pigs to locate truffles given the amount of rummaging and snorting going on. Luckily, the marshmallows didn't really give them that much of a sugar buzz and while my shoes may be covered in the gooey stuff, my kitchen floor, thankfully, is not.

It was also great to see some many people enjoying the fruit of our labor - the pit of despair. Our fire pit was a roaring success and I know of a few unhappy husbands who now have to build their own pits if their wives have their say. Sadly, I took few pictures from said festivities, but I thought I'd share a few passing moments here:

Themis and Jon tend the fire	Watching the Guy burning
Our Guy Effigy

Meanwhile, on the topic at hand, today I am planting our garlic and onions for the spring. Yes, I am probably about two weeks late on this and I hope that my tardiness doesn't cost me next year's harvest - that would really suck especially as last year's harvest was a bit of a letdown. Not so much garlic bulbs as garlic bulbettes that I affectionately called "garlic spring onions". I planted at the completely wrong time of the year last year and suffered for it. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice . . . well you know how that goes.

What we're planting is -

• hardneck garlic (Romanian Red)
• softneck garlic (Red Toch)
• shallots (Grey Griselle)
• yellow potato onions
• Egyptian walking onions (over a year old)

Unfortunately, I waited too late to buy my onion and garlic sampler from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and so I ended up with a hodge podge of varieties that I haven't planted before. The walking onions are left over from last year's purchase so they may or may not grow. I am seriously tempted to plant them under a tree and let them be, but I may just pot them up and stick them in the greenhouse for now.

And on the kale front, I made kale chips and then proceeded to eat too many. I love kale chips. You may like them too. Here's a recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 bunch kale (I prefer curly)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (or a light spraying of Pam)
• 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 250 degrees.
2. With a knife remove the leaves from the stems and tear into bite size pieces. Alternatively, you can just rip kale off the ribs/stem by hand.
3. Wash and thoroughly dry kale with a salad spinner (or spread out on paper towel to dry).
4. Drizzle kale with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning salt (or spray with Pam instead of olive oil if you're prefer less oil).
5. Spread out in one layer on a baking tray or cookie sheet.
6. Bake until the edges are brown but not burnt, 20-25 minutes. You may need to check on them at 10 minutes and use a spatula to move them around on the cookie sheet.

This is just the basic recipe. You can substitute seasoning salt for sea salt. Try it with garlic powder or curry powder. Very tasty. There are endless combinations. If you get a combo you really like, let me know!

The Pit of Despair

Not exactly SSF material per se, but thought it worthy of posting here.

Themis and Jon - the A Team

The story went something like this.

Two years ago (approximately), I bought a bunch of concrete wall blocks at 20% off from Allied Concrete. I had seen some fantastic wall work at my neighbor Dan's house, which he had built himself. So I thought, "Hey. If Dan can do it, we can do it!" Ahh, such enthusiasm.

The blocks showed up on a ginormous palette - caps and all. That was pretty cool. Got to see a lorry try to reverse down our driveway which was also spectacular. Unfortunately, what wasn't so cool was the color of the block. The James River Range was less tan and terracotta and more, well, let's just say PINK. Yep, good old-fashion dusty rose pink. Ugh. So now I had $300 dollars worth of ugly pavers.

Cut to August of this year. In my commitment to build neighborly spirit and to invest in my community in general, I opted to throw a big Guy Fawkes Night for the entire neighborhood. Yep, Sections I, II, & II. For those who don't know what Guy Fawkes Night is, check out Wiki. While that's a lot of people, I was actually sweating the bonfire part, not the people part.

As of September 1st, we still had a big forest with no fire pit. With the help of my dad, we cleared some pines out and now had some open land, but still no pit. Jon wanted to just dig out a small hole and throw some rocks around it, but I had bigger plans . . .

Enter the ugly pink pavers.

Yep. Jon called me crazy. Themis said it wasn't necessary. But I wouldn't listen. What a perfect way to get rid of the ugly blocks and also add an outdoor feature to our house. (I've been watching too many home programs on HGTV).

What I didn't realize when I had this brilliant idea was how much bloomin' work it was going to be.

First off, I wasn't happy just building a small fire pit. Oh no. I had to build an 8 foot wide fire pit. And honestly, the block wasn't the problem - we had plenty. The issue was digging the hole in such a way that we could bury the first course. Don't even ask how many cartfuls of dirt we took out or how many times we almost got the tractor stuck down in Narnia. Some weekends it wasn't pretty.

The beginning.

Next came the leveling. Once we got most of the dirt out, we had to use a tamper in order to ensure that the outside of the ring was level. Easier said than done when a) you build said pit on a slope and b) you try to build pit on top of a boulder. The boulder wasn't fun. Ask Jon. He did most of the sledgehammer work chipping away at horrible big boulder.

Foundation is laid.

Jon gives up the ghost.

Once the leveling was done, we put down 40 lbs of sand around the perimeter of the circle to give us some wiggle room when setting the first course. The first course has got to be right - it's the foundation for the rest of the wall. So we get the foundation down when Jon says to me "Um, you're going to hate me for saying this, but I think those blocks are upside down."

Unfortunately, he was right. So I had to flip them all over and re-measure each brick from center to make sure we kept our perfect circle. (Math has never been my strong suit).

Once the foundation was laid, the rest went smoothly. Thank God. And in fact, I would even go as far as to say it actually wasn't too bad laying the blocks. We used up 98 1/2 blocks, which I have to say was pretty spot on given the fact that I had 100. I didn't even measure! Luck just happened to be on my side.

And to to finish the look, we topped the new fire pit with the caps that had come with the blocks (although they really need to be individually cut to sit properly and possibly be concreted down. But hey, I was pretty impressed to get this far.)

Finished Fire Pit.

In the end, we have a big and lovely fire pit that probably took three weekends to build. Two weekends more than Jon would've liked. And we got rid of all the ugly block as well which was a bonus.

Am I happy with the end result? I think so. Is Jon? Well, better to not ask I that one, me thinks.

I'm an apple nerd

Some of you may think, given my former background, that I'm talking computers here. And in fact, that would normally be a good guess. I wouldn't blame you. But as this is a blog about self-sustainability, well, it's not necessarily a good fit is it? (unless you're talking about hooking up solar cells to power your MacBook, now that would be cool - ed.).

No, I'm talking about those small, round shellacked orbs that we often take for granted when we're perusing the aisles of a grocery store.

Merriam-Webster defines the apple as -

1: the fleshy usually rounded red, yellow, or green edible pome fruit of a usually cultivated tree (genus Malus) of the rose family; also : an apple tree

I define it as one of my favorite fruits to not only eat, but to also cook with. Apple butter, apple sauce, apple pie, apple cobbler, spiced apple cake, fried apple pies, dried apples, apple strudel . . . I could go on and on.

Problem is that most of what you get in a store is rubbish. Sorry, but it's true. Commercial apple growers have narrowed our field down to three specific varieties: Red Delicious (red), Golden Delicious (yellow), and Granny Smith (green). Yep, we've gone that simple - red, yellow, and green.

That's not to say that you can't find some other varieties in there somewhere. Most people know the names Fuji, Gala, Pink Lady or perhaps Honey Crisp. However, such varieties as Ashmead's Kernel, King David, Arkansas Black, Albemarle Pippin, etc. have fallen out of favor with commercial growers and we suffer for it.

Instead what we get is a bland, mealy, homogeneous group of mediocre apples that seem to last forever in your crisper bin.

Well, I'm over it. Have been for a while. I remember getting beautiful apples on family trips to Vermont back when I was a kid in the 70s. What I wanted was that type of apple, that crisp-tart-yet-sweet-firm apple experience. (And also those apple cider donuts - oh man, those were the bomb)

So we took some classes, a lot of them which I will discuss later in this blog at some point, and now I've become an apple nerd. I can't help it. I love talking apples. I love eating them. And I'm in the process of growing them.

And in my usual way, I've gone off track here. What I wanted to tell you about is the rare (old-fashioned) Winesap that I found growing down the street.

Simple short story really:

We walk our dogs every morning. About 6 weeks ago, Bailey our golden retriever, started picking up half eaten apples out of our neighbor's yard. Originally I thought some kid has just thrown away an apple from their lunch and Bailey with his astute sense of smell just happened across it. When he started picking up rotten apples every day I became suspicious. I never saw where he got the apples from because I never paid attention. Finally, my other neighbor who happened to be walking with us one day told us that our neighbor had apple trees and that on any given day you could see the deer having a small party under them. (Remind me to blog about the deer at some point.)

Anyhow, sure enough, our neighbor had 3 trees loaded with apples. When I asked if we could pick some, our neighbor was more than happy to oblige although she didn't know what type of apple they were. The trees were already here before they build their house in the 60s. They didn't prune them nor did they spray them. They just left them. (Note: West Leigh was developed on an old farm site from the 1800s)

I wasn't too worried about the lack of information. I didn't know what they tasted like, I didn't know much at all, but we went ahead and pick some for apple butter. And by some, I mean alot. Here are some pictures:

A bowlful of the better looking ones

Imagine my surprise, when they were not just tasty, but actually amazingly delicious! Crisp-tart-yet-sweet-firm plump spheres of juicy goodness. Yes, some were ugly and pitted due to lack of spraying, but the quality of fruit was extremely high.

Well, we decided right away that we were going to graft from these trees for our orchard, but it was driving me nuts not knowing what type of apple they were. Surely the tastiest apple I'd had in years couldn't be a complete mystery?

There is one person who is probably the top expert in apples on the East Coast and we're lucky to have him in the area - the apple professor himself - Tom Burford. If you ever get a chance to speak with him, do it while you still can. Tom is in his 80s not that you'd ever know it.

The Apple Professor, Tom Burford

As my husband will attest to, I am Tom's number one fan. Not only have I taken several courses with him but I've also quite happily stalked him around the apple circuit this year going to several events just to seek him out. Perhaps not necessary as we converse via email anyhow as Tom is helping us put in our orchard, but I absolutely love him to bits. There is something about his vivacious and charming personality that I find enticing. He's like the grandfather I never had - funny, witty, and extremely patient when it comes to teaching his craft.

So it was a no brainer to bring the mysterious apple to him. And as luck would have it (and I swear I wasn't stalking him that day), we ran into him at Vintage Virginia Apples when going to speak with Chuck Shelton about apple varieties. And I just happened to bring several specimens of the MA (mysterious apple) with me:
And you know what?

I got a gold star! I had found an old-fashioned Winesap. Yay me!

You see, most of the Winesaps available via nurseries these days are a relatively new strain/variety that is a pale imitation of the older varieties hence "old-fashion". The older varieties are known for their tartness, their keeping qualities, and for being slightly larger than something like a Stayman Winesap. I think that the old fashioned may be immune to cedar apple rust as well, but I'm not sure. I'm no expert yet, especially with Winesaps, as there are so many strains, but either way, I was impressed by this apple.

And I wasn't the only one - so was Tom and Chuck. I think VA Apple may even graft from the scion wood next year, which just goes to show you how good of an apple it is.

So I've done my good apple deed for the year. Who knows? Maybe at some point you might be buying one of my "found" old-fashioned Winesaps from your local nursery.
 

We took a goat class

Jon making new friends

Yep, you wouldn't be the first one to boggle at this. In fact, my fabulous friend Elizabeth was like, "You're doing what exactly?" To which I replied, "A class. You know . . . goats."  I should've known this would amuse Elizabeth to no end. As it was, I got a voicemail from her later that day with her bleating "baaaaaaaaaaaah" down the phone at me. Only Elizabeth would have the bravado to do so.

So before I start telling tall tales about Elizabeth's priors, I should get back to the topic at hand - said goat class. Lots of people are probably wondering how we came across a class on goats. It was in a roundabout way really.

At the Heritage Harvest festival this year, we ran into some people from the Blue Ridge Permaculture Network. While at the stand coveting all sorts of cool hippie stuff including a home-made solar dehydrator and rocket stove, I decided to put my name on their mailing list. For me this was me being magnanimous. In general, I loathe mailing lists especially when you start receiving the paper version in the post (if I wanted to kill some trees, trust me, I'm happy to go out in my yard with a pair of loppers - ed.)

I didn't think anymore about it until I got my first mailout. It had inadvertently ended up in my junk folder and I had planned on keeping it that way, but as I was procrastinating on writing my next chapter I had a quick look. It turned out to be a veritable cornucopia of events/classes/lectures that hit the sweet spot. Including said goat class. Here was the blurb:

Want to learn about what's involved in keeping miniature dairy goats (which were recently legalized in Charlottesville)?

The Charlottesville Goat Justice League has organized an urban goat keeping workshop at Dragon Hill Farm in Scottsville next Saturday, Oct. 9, 2-4:30pm, rain or shine. Wear farm-friendly clothes and bring a folding chair.

$20/person with pre-registration, $25/person at the farm. To pre-register, make check out to Dragon Hill Farm for $20/person and mail to Meghan, P.O. Box xxx, Cville, 229xx For more information, please contact Meghan at 434-293-xxxx ormxxxxxx@gmail.com.

Everyone who pre-registers will receive 2 free bags of shavings from Tractor Supply.  There will be other  door prizes donated by Whole Foods, Rebecca's, and Fifth Season.  

I mean who could pass up something that a) had been illegal and b) came with 2 free bags of wood shavings? I didn't know what on earth I would do with said shavings, but I'm always a sucker for freebies.

In addition to the two of us, we roped in our neighbor Themis who is already a goat aficionado (his uncle owns over 200 goats in Cypress). I'm not 100% sure why he took the class unless it was to placate me (I can be pushy imagine that.)

So, alright already what about the class?

Well, although I was freaked out that goats have the eyes of Satan, they were in fact very lovable and friendly creatures. If you will, a dog with horns. And they were cute, not too smelly, and generally well-mannered citizens of the barnyard.

Some things about goats that I didn't know:

• Goat's milk tastes just like full fat cow's milk
• Miniature Nigerians have a higher butter fat content than standard dairy goats
• Unlike popular belief, goats shouldn't eat just anything - There are tons of plants/foliage that are poisonous
• Goats have to be vaccinated once a year & get rabies and distemper boosters like dogs
• Does have to be impregnated every couple of years to keep milk standards high

And lastly, it's not cheap to keep goats. You can't just let them roam and eat grass. They need grain like other barnyard animals. So expect to spend $100/month to keep 2 miniature goats.

After finding out about the last part, it didn't really make a lot of sense for us to have goats. The amount of milk and cheese that they could provide and that we could sell would be substantially less than what it costs to maintain them every year. People seem to either keep them as a hobby/pet and/or breed them (selling buck and doe kids). Neither of those options really appealed to us. After all, the objective of the SSB is to be as self-sufficient or self-reliable as possible on the amount of land we currently own.

Final thought: it's highly unlikely that we will get goats.

Yet, the class was invaluable for giving us the knowledge to come to this decision so it was a worthwhile endeavor regardless. And if nothing else, I learned how to milk a goat.

Me milking a real goat

Colony Collapse Culprit Found?

Honey bee covered in pollen

I wasn't going to post today, but I came across an article that I felt was newsworthy enough to blog about (Thanks Guy Hammond!). The article is from the NY Times.

As someone who's going to be starting her own hives shortly in the spring, CCD has always been in the back of my mind. Will I get it? Will my bees one day suddenly disappear? How will I know if it's a swarm or CCD? (I'm assuming in CCD, the queen is still in the hive with drones, just no workers).

It's up there with Varroa mite infestion in terms of worry. And I like to worry. Alot.

Anyhow, I was intrigued to see the article in the NY Times talking about a possible viral/fungus combo that may be the primary suspect for CCD. Almost as intrigued about the idea of the army and academics combining forces to squish bees for research. I'm not so keen on the squishing but understand why it has to be done. Something like 85% of our food production in this country requires the honey bee for pollination. So, yeah, it's a big deal.

The thing that was a bit of a downer was the part about them not being 100% sure that it's causing CCD, but rather, it's another suspect. I guess this is probably a bit of ass covering going on, and I can see why they say that. However, it's a good sign that they only find this combo in colonies with CCD so maybe we're finally getting somewhere before it becomes too late.

So why the small suburban farm?

This is a good question and one that I feel is apt to answer in the kicking off of this blog.

It's funny to me to think back to where Jon and I started. We were young, smart, vivacious, over-eager twenty somethings yearning to leave our mark. The chosen path - the games industry. That's how we met. Jon was head of a games studio at the time and I was a domineering pain-in-the-ass games producer who wanted to be one of the guys, but also, had career aspirations to do something spectacular in a field that was at the time very male-centric. I also wanted to be well-liked which often times didn't gel well with doing something spectacular. After a short bout at said work place, we set up an independent games company where we learned a lot of life's hard lessons including the one about never working with friends and family. Determined not to wreck our budding relationship I went off to pursue my own path and left the industry all together.

Seven years later, here we are. Married homeowners with two dogs and too many books (so Jon says). And we now live back in the US, which frankly was a huge culture shock for me especially having lived in England for the last 10 years.

One thing we noticed coming back here was that things seemed too good to be true. It was 2005, house prices were off the scale, the stock market was ticking along nicely thank you very much, and people were consuming like nobody's business. Three car garages and McMansion houses had become the norm. People spent all their time watching TV, driving their kids to soccer practice, online in chat rooms, but no one was talking to one another. There seemed to be a break down in community spirit and awareness. Everybody was too busy consuming to really notice.

Until the economic rug was pulled out from underneath all that debt. Yep, as predicted, the housing bubble was bursting, foreclosures were on the rise, people started to lose jobs, and I got to know the term subprime mortgage very well. Hell, you couldn't pick up a paper or turn on the news without hearing about it. All of a sudden, America was in crisis and it was down to all those poor people who should've known better than to take out a loan that they couldn't afford. Wow. Talking about kicking the American public when they're down. So it had nothing to do with the fat cats on Wall Street who incentivized those people to take loans so they could reap big benefits then? Hmmm. I was perplexed.

What was clear to us was that it wasn't going to get better any time soon so we needed to make a plan and fast. Some friends laughed and some thought we were a bit nuts talking about wood stoves, water purifiers,  MREs, generators, and hand guns. Well, even I was skeptical about the hand gun and put my foot down. If things really went to hell in a handbasket last thing I needed was to accidentally shoot myself trying to protect my property and supplies. But the other things did kind of make sense if I thought through the implications of where the economy was heading and while embarrassed to talk it up with friends, Jon and I slowly started implementing our plans.

For starters, we bought a property on 1.5 acres situated between two towns and within relatively easy distance of prime shops, but far enough away that we wouldn't be directly effected by anything that may erupt in the middle of a city. We also went about clearing part of the land in order to have passive solar heating, but also to make space for edible landscaping. We installed a wood stove, changed all lights to CFLs, bought energy efficient appliances, installed a gas stove on propane, added multiple water barrels, and of course bought the MREs (thanks Dad!). Many more things happened as well, but I won't bore you with the details.

So where does this leave us?

I started this blog for two reasons:

1. To document all of our efforts to be self-sustaining in times of crisis
2. To educated those around us to what's happening in the world and why preparing for crisis and being involved in a community is important

As a society, we have become too lax in our attitude towards our well-being. We'd rather spend $150 bucks on a pair of sneakers made in a sweatshop in China than use that money as an investment in our future or community. For that amount of money you could:

• Buy all the seeds you'd need to feed your family for a year
• Take a class on vegetable gardening, wood working, orchard planting
• You could make 3 rain barrels for your house that could hold up to 160 gallons of usable water
• You could replace your old leaky toilet with a water efficient one
• You could buy a half cord of wood for a wood stove

I could go on and on. And I probably will in this blog. But don't worry, I won't be debbie downer all the time. Honestly. This self-sustaining business is actually pretty fun.

My final word on the induction of the small suburban farm:

Don't be scared to join the revolution. It isn't just for hippies after all.