I love Saturdays!

Happy Saturday!!!

In my opinion, Saturdays are much better than Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, or Sundays. I do like Friday evenings also. But Saturdays are so nice- a whole day to do what I want to do!

So thanks for celebrating this Saturday with me :) Here's the Homesteading things I've achieved so far today:

• Master Gardener class in Monroe on House Pests. The Monroe County office was just great.. Jenny who is the Extension Agent there was so full of information and willing to share it- I love that!
• Went out to lunch w/ Jen and Jess in downtown A2
• Picked up a roaster chicken, 2 dozen eggs, and a smoked turkey breast from Karl Baer, my meat guy (doesn't sound too good..). I will be referencing Di's (from Life in the Prairie Box) wonderful tips on whole-chicken roasting, since I am inexperienced at this kind of thing. Thanks Di! :)
• Stopped at Downtown Home and Garden in A2- look at the spoils of my trip! :

Got a thermometer for outside, since I don't have one. Thought it would come in handy. Also got some Burpee Sunflower seeds. Sunflowers are my favorite flower of all time. Even though they can get pretty huge and tall, it seems terrible to think about not having some in my yard. I'm thinking maybe they can kind of be a back border to the section of my garden that will have my raised-beds?

My last exciting buy was The Backyard Homestead! I usually don't buy books- I borrow a lot from the library, etc., but I've seen it's bright, warm, inviting cover for nearly a year, and I've lusted after it! I even picked it up in the bookstore, but didn't have money for it at the time. So today I did, and it came home with me! I've read the first chapter so far, and I really enjoy it. It seems like a nice overview for those looking to pursue Urban Homesteading, whether that might be just having 2 chickens in your backyard, growing some tomatoes and canning your own tomato sauce, or trying to achieve some kind of self-sufficiency!

Here's what it looks like if you're interested:













Now I am off to read, reflect, eat some dinner, and maybe to roast a chicken! Ahh!!

My visit to Destiny Farms

This weekend, my parents came in to town to visit from Columbus! We're very close and I love to have them visit/ visit them, so it was great that they came up! Unfortunatley we spent 2 hours looking for Athena on Friday night, so by the time we finally found her (sleeping in a box under our bed), it was too late to do much of anything. Here's the culprit (Helo on left, Athena on right):

La la so we found her and went to bed, and on Saturday a lot of fun adventures happened!

• We picked up our 1st order from Karl Baer, meat guy :) We got 2 pork chops, a dozen eggs, some spicy italian chicken sausage, and a pound of smoked turkey breast. There were a fair amount of folks there to pick stuff up, which made me happy! Karl said he is starting a sort of meat CSA in March, and will be delievering to people's homes every two weeks, rather than going to 4 farmer's markets a week.
• Mike, my parents, and I drove out to Destiny Farms in Brighton to meet Mike and Joni, who are the owners and farmers! Before I ordered plants for the spring, I wanted to see the place myself. They have about 3 acres that they farm on, and it was impressive use of space! They have 2 green houses, about 350 chickens, some goats, turkeys, and a sweet Golden Retriever named Anna :) I feel really good about buying Michigan-grown plants from people I know. I placed my pre-order today, and I am eagerly awaiting planting time!!!
• We then went to IKEA, because is a trip to Metro-Detroit really complete without a trip to IKEA? I'll let you answer that :) I got to see some old co-workers (used to work there), and my parents bought some stuff. I ended up getting these cutes frames, for about $5 each, which was a pretty good price! Each year a local nonprofit, Growing Hope, puts out a calendar, with awesome locally-grown food pictures for each month. I decided to use the old pics from last year, and frame them and put them in my mudroom, which is where I'll be storing most of my put up food for the year! Here's my favorite picture, of carrots:

Cute and cheap- my two favorites! I got 5 frames total, and put 5 pictures in: carrots, raspberries, cucumbers, green onions, and strawberries

That's all for now!

Success!!

Next Saturday, I will be the proud consumer of locally-grown meat! 2 lbs. of turkey breast, 6 pork chops, and a dozen eggs. A small, humble order but it feels good. I got a hold of Karl Baer, a local farmer (from Adrian, MI) and he was really friendly and informative.

He walked me through the order, haha, because I am incompetent- when you buy meat from the supermarket, you get it all chopped up where you can't even really tell it was ever alive, and you don't have to mess with technicality. I didn't even know how to go about ordering from him. The conversation went something like this:

Arika- "Hey... can I have some turkey?"

Karl- "Sure, what type? We have smoked turkey breast by the pound, fresh turkey breast by the pound, turkey sausage, spicy turkey sausage, turkey burger, turkey wings, turkey thighs, turkey carcasses etc. etc. etc..."

Arika- "Hey... can I have some turkey?"

Anyway, he was understanding and chatty, which I appreciated. He's at the Ypsi FM every other Saturday, including next Saturday, which is when I will be picking up my first order! He also had whole roaster chickens, but I don't think I can handle that. I did make chicken noodle soup last year from the Moosewood cookbook, with a whole chicken that cooked over-night. Maybe I will have a soup making party and do that soon. Anyone up for an all-night chicken-cooking sleepover?

Who could resist that invitation?

I don't think a former vegetarian has ever been this excited about meat before. I'm missing my Master Gardener class tonight because I have a meeting, which is a little disapointing, but a fact of life. Sometimes, you have meetings. I'll have to shlep down to Monroe in 2 weeks to take the class I'll be missing at their MSU-Ex. office. Oh well- I'll get to see another MSU-Ex office and meet some new folks- that will be an adventure!

Here's to hoping it doesn't snow too much this weekend. My ground is frozen and I can't dig in to get my soil sample! Come on Mother Nature.. can you warm up just a teeny bit?

MEAT and lead poisioning (what a nice combo!)

So after my last post on food goals, I got some helpful info from several folks, including Chelsea, Ashes, Di, and Liz!

As far as locally-raised meat goes, Ashes mentioned that she buys from Karl Baer, who sells @ the Ypsi FM during the summer and evidently still sells out here every other weekend! I tracked down his phone number, and I'm going to call him and find out some more info! I also looked up some farms on Local Harvest (great site, by the way) and found a few more meat/animal product farmers. Haven't checked them out extensivley but I will be excited to:

Imagine Cattle Company- Belleville, MI

Mira's Egg Farm- Ann Arbor, MI

Firesign Farm- Whitmore Lake, MI

Casa Del Pollo Contento- Dexter, MI
 
Also, thanks Liz for the article about lead and Urban Gardening! I will definitely have my soil tested, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that you could still grow things in raised-bed gardens, if you line them with lanscaping fabic that helps block the lead from being absorbed. It also said you could treat your soil with lime, but I don't want to raise the pH any higher than it already is- that could affect the types of plants I'm able to grow successfully. Plus I think Michigan already has a pH of 7ish, which is supposed to mitigate lead absorption.
 
So while I still want to get our soil tested to make sure, it seems like I will be able to grow something, in some way, as long as I am up for pitching in a little extra bit of money-good to know :)
 
I was reading some interesting books I got from the library on vegetable gardening. One topic I am interested in learning more about is root cellars. I think my mudroom is cold enough that it could totally store some root vegetables for a few months- Ashes and Sara and I had apples in there for at least a month or two and they were totally good!
 
Hmm.. so many exciting things to think about! :) Thanks for all the input- it's great to be able to share information with fellow foodies and hippies.