CSA

I'm all excited about trying a CSA -community supported agriculture- for the next growing season. Our garden is just in the beginning stages and while I hope to have it up and running next year there is no way it'll be fully functional. The twin cities are so advanced in sustainability issues! CSA is, basically, hiring a farmer to grow your food for you. If the eggplant crop fails you don't get any eggplants, but maybe you'll get a double amount of beans. It is paying someone else to do your vegetable farming for you. I want to eat the way I believe. I don't get to do that at the grocery store. I'm not ready to be a total vegetarian but after having raised chickens I really want the animals I eat to have a good life and a quick death. The CSA I'm choosing also has some meat available. I don't need much meat, but I do like to use some, it really adds a lot of flavor to food (meat as a condiment).

liquid soap

After getting out of the soap business I finally tweeked a recipe for liquid soap that turned out perfect. I'm very happy with it. It is in the closet "settling out" for a week before we use it, but it looks fabulous, like honey. Liquid soap was the one thing that I really struggled to make in my business, and now, that I'm out of the business, I finally figured out the perfect recipe.

my state fair is the best state fair

Shortly after we moved here we were informed that attending the state fair is not optional, you have to go. So we went. It was strange, but fun. I can't possibly do it justice but I will describe the three pictures I posted. Food on a stick. The state food. They will put anything on a stick. They deep fat fry it and people q up to eat. Animals giving birth, in public, in front of large audiences. VERY popular exhibit. The babies sure are cute, but the poor mommas that have to go through that sort of trauma in front of that many curious bystanders. Grass horses. It sounds like a rock band, doesn't it? I just thought they looked pretty. I'm not even sure why they were there.

Libby

Libby has entered the homestead. She's my brother's cat and, thanks to allergies, needed a new home. We have really missed our kitty friends and offered to adopt her. She has been wonderful. She came ready to love us and we were ready to love her. I am a cat person.

decisions decisions decisions

I'm looking over the yard and trying to decide what to plant, where to plant, how to plant. I feel like I have been presented an embarrassment of riches with all the space I have, and I don't want to mess it up. The soil isn't very good, but I was planning on doing raised beds, so that isn't a major concern. What is a concern to me is that I've heard reports of killer compost. The big chemical companies have bred herbicide seeds that have entered the composting system and as a result the compost is toxic to plants (other than the specific plant it was bred for). Here where I live there is fairly easy access to free compost, similar to what I had in St. Louis, but now I'm freaked out over the killer compost and I'm not sure I can use the free compost. I just don't see how I can produce, in my backyard, the amount of compost that I normally use in a year's time. ARRRGGGGGG.

my son the airman

My son, Chris, just finished his basic training to become an airman. Basic training is meant to be extremely difficult and naturally it was tough on him, but he did a wonderful job and we are very much enjoying being with him for a few days before he goes on to his technical training. He earned many honors during training and it was fun to have it be publicly announced how well he did. In addition, it was a special joy to hear him talk in church this morning about the importance of families. Families are eternal and we are here on earth to form loving families. I love my kids and my husband so much. I'm so happy to be sealed eternally with them.

master gardener

I applied to be a master gardener here in Minnesota. We'll see if they want me. I'd really like to do this. It is a volunteer, community service job. Not a paying job, but a service opportunity. I'd get to be trained by the University of Minnesota gardening experts and then I would be a community liaison and occasional teacher. I like the idea of promoting gardening, especially food gardening.