Oh for home made bread...

This morning I enjoyed 2 tiny little eggs courtesy of the friendly girls out back. You can see those little cream colored eggs in the photo below. I wish I had a photo of the gorgeous yolks, but my camera was not handy and I didn't want them to get overdone. They were bright orange! Along with my eggs I had a cup of locally roasted coffee from the coffee roaster just a short trip down the road from our place. The aroma! And some toast. This was the one disappointment in my morning. The toast was made from some store bought bread that we had in the freezer. We had to clean out the freezer to make room for all the stuff from our garden and the wonderful turkey from Spruce Creek Farm. The whole time I was eating my breakfast I kept thinking about the delicious home made bread that Hubby made last week with the organic wheat flour from Misty Brook Farm. It was a sensory experience for eyes, nose and mouth. The store bought bread was rather bland and crumby and I pined for that homemade bread.

Some days, as we are out working around, Hubby says, tongue-in-cheek, "Let's have a farm, he said. It'll be fun....." the monologue continues. The point of the monologue being that it's a bit of work this farming business. But I can tell you that the sense of satisfaction that you feel when you see your plants growing and thriving and your property being improved, and when you sit down to a meal of delicious food that you have grown and prepared yourself it is well worth every bit of labor you put in. And the work itself gives more satisfaction than almost any other kind of labor.

There are sacrifices to be made to live locally and sustainably, but I think that once you have adapted, you wont think of them as sacrifices so much, or you just wont think of them. You'll be too busy enjoying the fruits of your labor.

"What is local?" or "I Haven't Started Making My Own Pet Food... Yet"

So just exactly what is local anyway? Is it the distance you can drive and return home on one tank or on one gallon of gas? Is it how far you can travel by bicycle or on foot comfortably? Does it mean within your own town, or within a specific radius of miles? I think you see where I'm going with this. It can be a complicated equation. And I'll throw another variable at you. Does it have to be the same for everything you are sourcing? 

I'll be completely honest with you. I haven't started making my own pet food..... yet, nor am I buying  it from someone who does at prices rivaling a New York strip steak. But I have stopped buying it from the grocery store and started to buy it from my local family owned feed store. At least that way I know that profits on the purchase will stay in my community. So my pet food purchase is advancing one of my localization goals. It is improving the health of my local economy. But economic health is not the only goal of localization. I personally think that too much focus on the economy is the cause of many environmental, social and humanitarian crises around  the world. 

So I'll get to the point.. In considering what is local I want to think about how far it has traveled, if it was produced ethically (meaning humans and animals were not harmed or exploited in its production), and if it was produced in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner. I'll look first in my own town and neighboring communities, next I'll try to keep it within my own state or region if possible and if I can 't find it there I will see if I can find a reasonable substitute (like substituting prunes for raisins). Before I go much farther afield I'll ask myself if I can do without it. I'm betting that in most cases I can find a reasonable substitute or do without, but there may be some times that I need to go a bit further. At each step it is important to remember to look for products that are ethically and environmentally produced. 

One example of a real challenging product is coffee. Since there is no coffee grown in the continental US, what does one do if they just can't seem to give up their coffee habit?  I've found a pretty good substitute for coffee that is made with a mixture of herbs and spices, but some folks don't have my taste for it and sometime I want a real cup of coffee myself. I'm fortunate in that we have a coffee roaster here in town. So you find yourself the nearest coffee roaster that roasts organic free trade coffee and you drink a bit less of it, because it does cost more than the other stuff and because, after all, you are trying to reduce your carbon footprint. You sit back and enjoy your locally roasted, organic, free trade coffee and you are happy because you made a decision not based purely on how much it cost YOU, RIGHT NOW but on what it will cost the planet and its current and future inhabitants if you don't stop to think before you spend. You sip and you smile. You did good.

No I haven't started making my own pet food yet but, at some point, I probably will, once I work out my own food storage plan and can make a little room in the freezer. I hear you asking, "why would you do that?" Well, I'll tell you... in another post :-) 

My pet. He's definitely cute enough to deserve home-made pet food

Day 5: Local Photo Shoot

Well folks, it has been another very long day. 9 hours at the office and an hour of commuting followed by dinner and housework and yet more apple peeling. I'm exhausted. No energy for a lengthy post tonight, but I will share with you some photos of our recent activities that haven't made it onto the blog yet. I hope you will find them in turns amusing and inspiring. So, without further ado, on with the photo shoot!

I only wish you could smell this! These spices came home yesterday whole from the bulk bin at the local health food store.

Hubby ground them up this evening and made them into a most delicious chai which I am drinking even as I type this. 

The inside of the nutmeg. I thought it was just gorgeous on top of smelling heavenly

Step One: spiced apple and pumpkin wine 

Nora nibbling on some greens in the garden while we were putting it to bed and planting the winter rye. She snacked on her fair share of seed as well. Gladys and Mama Cass got in on the action as well

We don't begrudge them their few treats, as they provide us with these delicious eggs.

Just one of many dozen's of apples we peeled. The pies and sauces we'll enjoy this winter will be ample reward.

A happy apple. Yes it has a few spots but it has never been exposed to pesticides or chemical fertilizers, that makes it happy and makes me happy too.

After looking at these photos, I bet you can see why I said yesterday that my general happiness level has improved already. Well that's it for my photo shoot.  Perhaps tomorrow I'll be able to get up that post on "what is local" that I've been promising myself and you that I would get in here. 

Local Arts and Entertainment

When we ask ourselves that age old question, what shall we do tonight, how many of us answer with the predictable "dinner at -insert your favorite chain restaurant here- and a movie at the nearest megaplex cinema"?  It's not that these restaurants are bad, it's just that as it is a chain or franchise you know that a large portion of the profits from your meal are being shipped directly out of your community to corporate share holders. You don't know where the ingredients in your meal came from or what their environmental impact is.  When you eat at a local mom-and-pop type restaurant your dollars stay in the community and continue to circulate in the community making it more vibrant and economically stable. You can also get a pretty good idea of if the owners support local farmers and if they select natural wholesome ingredients. 

The same goes for that movie at the megaplex. Once again your dollars are being shipped out of your community, but you probably haven't stopped to think about the impact you could have if you supported the arts locally by attending a local art show, local stage production or took in a second run movie at the refurbished theater in the next town. These businesses need our support if they are to survive and thrive. Unfortunately, so many of them have already gone by the way-side. Every time we loose one of these local businesses we loose a bit of our freedom of choice.  

One of the driving concepts behind One Earth Revolution is to get us all thinking and once we've started thinking to remind us that we have choices. We have choices in everything we do, in every purchase that we make and every service that we pay for. These choices, once made, have far reaching impacts on our lives, the lives of our children, our communities and our planet.  We don't all have to follow the same set of guidelines but we should all be thinking about what are the guidelines that direct our decisions, and we should stop and refer to them before making blind purchases without stopping to think about their overall impact. 

Since I've started this experiment, I stop to think about every purchase I make and after I've made my purchase, if I decide to purchase, I am very satisfied with the result. I can honestly say, that already, in just four days, I've seen an overall improvement in my general happiness level. So that I can answer the question posed by this great piece I picked up at a local art show. I know the direction I'm going and I'm certain it's a good one!

Lucky in Where I Live

When it comes to living locally, it doesn't get much better than this little corner of southern Maine. I've been impressed by just how lucky I am since I woke this morning. We have local goat's milk soap and even a factory that makes all-natural toiletries less then 30 miles from our home. We have one of the greatest little breakfast restaurants that serves the freshest gourmet breakfast at prices comparable to the big franchised places and we have great neighbors. Today just for crossing the street and asking we were blessed with the opportunity to pick our own apples for free. They are some of the sweetest most delicious apples I have ever tasted and they are completely organic. 

Here is my darling husband picking apples.

Here are those beautiful apples

And  here they are being prepared for a tasty pie that will be served at our fabulous banquet table. Actually there are two. The first obtained from the local Habitat for Humanity store (proceeds from sales go to support the work of HFH), the second came from the free-cycle shop at our local transfer station. They are a matched set! 

Yes we are truly fortunate in where we live. The great thing is that we can all be this lucky. It takes some effort and some time, but the rewards are more than worth the work and the sacrifice. The steps you take will vary depending on where you live, but the end result will be the same. You will never feel more fulfilled than when you are able to provide for the needs of yourself  and your family right in your own back yard and your community without spending a great deal of money and while meeting interesting new people, making new friends, reconnecting with old friends, and learning new skills. 

This has honestly been one of the most wonderful and blessed weekends I have spent in a long time. I'm looking forward to the new discoveries this coming week holds in store. 

Revolution Day 2: Bit of a Ramble

It is a beautiful day and I am happy to be alive and living local. Last evening we had some wonderful friends and neighbors over for dinner and enjoyed just sharing food and conversation. There are some big plans afoot in our town, things you don't read about in the newspapers, if there are still any newspapers in your area. It was good to learn about the things that we should be concerned about as a community and about opportunities to get involved and help our community evolve. Some interesting topics that came up that I will explore further in another post: How do you define what's Local? What criteria do you use when evaluating products to determine if they align with your principals? What resources  do we have as a group that we can mobilize to benefit our entire community. It was a great evening and the food was fabulous. I think I'm becoming one of those people...You know who I mean. Because I just can't resist....

sharing this picture of the glorious roasted squash and vegetables that one of our guests brought to share. It was fabulous! And today has been just as amazing. We started out by dropping by the popup art show put together by the Berwick Art Association and picked up a wonderful piece of art by local artist Erin Duquette. It was then on to Spruce Creek Farm in Eliot to pick up our locally farm raised turkey for our Thanksgiving feast. A stop at King Tut's Apple Cider Mill on the way home netted us some fresh cider and Macoun apples for the mince pie. 

A tasty lunch of leftovers from last-night's feast rounded off the afternoon and now it's out to the garden to finish putting it to bed for the winter. Then I plan to settle down for the evening, put on my toasty warm alpaca slippers crochet with wool from the friendly alpaca down the road and do something creative or just finish that pair of socks I started last week. 

Tomorrow I think there will be apple picking and turning the rest of those beautiful left-over veggies and rabbit into a pot-pie for dinner. Life truly doesn't get any better than this. 

Nobody Plays Croquet Anymore!

One Earth Revolution: Day 1 - This was NOT the subject I intended to write about today, but the thought suddenly popped into my head as I was on my third read of Bill McKibben's Deep Economy. Yes, I really am that passionate about this stuff. The subject of social isolation has been much on my mind of late. I've been thinking about how little time folks spend with their family and neighbors these days.  I have known some of my neighbors for most of my life and others are family, yet I generally only see them in passing. We don't drop in on each other and share coffee or tea and cookies. That wasn't so rare when I was a child and was even more common in my parent's day.  As a society we have become, as McKibben terms it, hyper-individualists.

There are several causes of this hyper-individualism, one of them is the break down of the extended family which began with the industrial revolution and seems to have  reached its peak at the turn of the 21st century. This break down has been inspired by a society that treats people as cogs in the industrial machine and teaches that it is most efficient to be mobile and follow the jobs. Add to that commuting to those jobs! On top of this we have television and other personal entertainment devices. In his book Bowling Alone (2000), Robert Putnam attributes 25% of the breakdown in American civic life to technologies that have "privatized entertainment." I personally think the percentage might be higher. 

So what does all this individualism get us? According to researchers we are more likely to become sick and depressed. That doesn't seem like a great trade off to me. Trade the companionship of family and friends and the stability of a strong local community for a head cold, heart disease, dementia and depression. 

What's the solution? Build strong social networks. Get involved in your community. Volunteer. Shop locally. Studies show that we engage in many more conversations and interactions when we shop at farmer's markets than when we shop at big box grocery stores. And well... play croquet. It is a great game that allows for plenty of social interaction. 

Everyone's situation is different, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you are one of the millions of Americans who just isn't finding life very fulfilling, you might want to have a look at where you are living it. Are you spending a lot of time at work or commuting to work and then spending most of the rest of your time feeling drained and falling back on the habit of sitting in front of the TV until it's time to go to bed before waking up to do it all over again? Perhaps you want to move your living into the space between those two. Move the job a little closer to home. Save some energy for other pursuits. Unplug the TV and get out in the yard, into your neighborhood, into your community. You will find your sense of well-being and your wellness improves. I'm preaching to myself here as much as to anyone. I can be a bit of a hermit and I've spent more than my share of time in front of TV or computer, seen my social networks dwindle and my waistline increase. I'm hoping that this intensive experiment in localization is going to help me turn that around.

I hope you will stay with me on this journey and that we will all make many new discoveries about our selves, our friends, our communities and our world.