It's Easy Being Green

A lineup showing just a couple jars of what we've been able to put up over the last two weeks here at the half-acre homestead. Our shelves in the garage are now over-flowing with food to last into the winter season.

As I enter the fifth week of unemployment, I’ve started purging my magazine racks scattered throughout the house.  It’s been a welcome sight for my Homestead Hottie, seeing a few magazines trickle out the garage door and into the recycling bin destined for bigger and better things than collecting dust and taking up valuable space.

I got a bit ticked though thumbing through the November 2009 issue of Organic Gardening though.  A brief article flipped my lid, informing me for the first time that canning jar lids produced by Jarden (brand names include Ball, Kerr, Golden Harvest and Bernandin) contain BPA.  Bisphenol-A is the very industrial chemical that we have diligently tried to purge from our home and food supply, tossing storage containers, water bottles and even commercially canned food.  Now I come to find out my freshly preserved organic goods from the garden might be tainted with a chemical linked to reproductive and developmental problems, diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

The news disgusts me since Homestead Hottie, Darling Daughter and I just wrapped up two very busy weeks preserving this Summer’s harvest.  So far we’ve proudly home canned and shelved:

4 jars of cinnamon apple slices
4 jars of pickles
12 jars of strawberry jam
4 jars of halved tomatoes
8 jars of apple sauce
3 jars of apple butter
8 jars of tomato sauce
3 jars of whole tomatoes
5 jars of chicken stock

Some websites claim the only lids containing  BPA are those with a white coating on the inside.  One or two mention that Jarden quit using BPA in their products.  Still others yet warn of chemicals used in the competitors lids (Tattler) called POM which apparently contains formaldehyde.  Now I’m so confused I don’t know what to think.  I’m trying to put a call into Jarden to see what info they can give me about the situation.  Stay tuned for updates!

In the meantime, I’ll keep looking at the alternative to avoid BPA in our home canning.  What have you done to keep the chemical out of your food supply?

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Is the price we pay for food really worth the impacts it will have on our life in the future?  I think it’s a question more Americans should be asking themselves as they cue in line for a meal at the drive-thru or pull in to the local convenience store as they nab 44-ounces of carbonated diabetic bliss iced in a Styrofoam cup.

If more Americans took the time to learn about how their food is made they would inevitably make smarter choices.  King Corn, a documentary highlighting the amazing influence corn has on our daily lives, is just another wake up call for people to change the way they think about the means in which they fuel their body.  I’m left wondering why a product that is nutritionally void for humans, deadly to the animals that eat it and is worth next to nothing on the open market is so beloved by our federal government.

As the harvest ramps up here in southwestern Indiana, more and more fields of Number 2 corn are meeting the combine this week.  I’m glad I watched the film King Corn, the brainchild of two college buddies, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis.  It has given me a new perspective on a harvest process that I used to think was quaint and steeped in tradition but now I know is anything but.  According to the Environmental Working Group, more than $50 Billion has been paid to subsidize corn farmers in the past decade. Between 2003 and 2005, 66% of those subsidies only went to 10% of our farmers.

The Global Development and Environmental Institute in a report titled Industrial Livestock Companies’ Gains from Low Feed Prices showed just how far those grain subsidies stretch in our food system.  Between 1997 and 2005, the industrial broiler chicken industry saved $11.25 Billion and the industrial hog industry saved $8.5 Billion from the very farm bill policies that keep corn and soybean prices below the price of production.

King Corn goes on to show the dramatic rise in human consumption of high-fructose corn syrup over the past three decades and the severe health consequences we as Americans now face because of it.  I highly recommend this documentary to anyone interested in learning the impacts brought about by what you might think is just a quaint field of corn.

If you’re interested in purchasing a copy of the DVD:

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This past week we had a brief taste of Autumn here in southwest Indiana.  We fell out of our 90 degree temperatures and sticky humidity to land in a string of a few days that left us topping off right around 80 degree during the day and dipped us well into the 50’s at night.  It summoned the first opening of the doors and windows of the season, bringing a halt to the endless whine of the air conditioner for the first time in about three months.

Admittedly the delightfully cool temperatures were a bit of a shock to the system.  My Homestead Hottie bundled up in her fuzzy housecoat and flip-flop slippers morning and night, only breaking free during the afternoon warmth.  I, attentively watching marinated chicken grilling over red hot coals out on the deck, found myself standing as close to the grill as I could get without climbing right in and singeing myself to a crisp.  Darling Daughter has taken to pulling pairs of sweat pants from her dresser and waving them about until we get the message and put them on.

While we were grateful for the change in temperatures and the flirt with Autumn, we’ve found ourselves back in the upper 80’s this week.  The air conditioner has come back on and the windows and doors have found themselves sealed tight, waiting for the next opportunity to let the outdoors in.  The Indian Summer is a good reminder of what is to come and a spur to kick us into gear and hopefully get a good fall crop of vegetables sown before our first frost of the season.

For the past week we’ve been pulling plants ravaged by the long Summer season and sending them to the composter, the beginning of  a re-birth that will find them once again turned back into the soil but in a completely different form than the started.  The open space feels weird.  Sure the garden beds are beginning to look much more clean and tidy but I begin to feel  like I lost a good friend.  I’m missing a plant that produced so much and yet it feels like I just didn’t have enough time together.  The counter tops here at the Half-Acre Homestead tell me otherwise though, filled to the brim with fresh produce and at least two-dozen red, yellow and green hued canning jars preserving the Summer’s bounty.

Some have told us we’re about four weeks away from our first frost.  The long, warm Summer would tell me otherwise and thanks to a quick glance at the Farmer’s Almanac Frost Predictions this week, the good people there predict we’re about 60 days away from our first brush with Old Man Winter.  That means there is plenty of time to reap more goodness from the garden beds before we have to put it away.  Homestead Hottie and I have been busily sowing lettuce, spinach, peas, snow peas, carrots, potatoes, green onions, swiss chard, turnips, beets and radishes.  All are cool-season crops that, in theory, should grant our dinner plates with some more wholesome goodness before we begin dipping into storage.  I’m also experimenting, planting some Butternut squash to see if by chance we can eek out a supply of sweet winter treats.

It is also time for me to dig out a large stack of old, wood-framed windows I picked up thanks to Freecycle.  They will form at least one new cold frame in the square foot garden, hopefully keeping one of the beds warm enough to extend the season for some produce into Winter.  My to-do list once again begins to grow making me feel a bit like the local squirrels beginning their seasonal acrobatics, hop-scotching around to build their nest and food cache before a long Winter’s rest.

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Over the last few years we’ve become increasingly better at storing and saving produce we grew at home and even stuff we bought while it was in season.  Surprisingly we ended up with about a dozen lemon cucumber plants this year that in a flurry of growth, took over much of the backyard.  We’ve had lemon cucumber vines trailing across the back fence, climbing a prickly pyracantha bush as it reached toward the sky and meandering throughout three different flowerbeds.

We never anticipated we’d have this many lemon cucumber plants.  Last year’s lone vine didn’t fair too well, setting a couple small cucumbers before withering to unrecognizable remnants.  With only a scant amount of seeds left in our seed box, I ended up planting them in seed trays but forgot what they were.  We’ve had a lot of unknown plants this year and another round of John Does didn’t concern us at all.  My wife set them about knowing we’d soon figure out what they were.

Two months later we’ve picked several baskets of delightful lemon cucumber.  My Homestead Hottie wife has loved the lemon cucumber ever since we were first introduced to them at the Farmer’s Market in our old hometown of Flagstaff, Arizona.  We slice them and eat them raw or mix them in with salad when we need a nourishing cool-down from Summer’s oppressive heat.  But with the amount we’ve harvested, there was simply no way we’d be able to eat them all before they went bad.

I wasn’t convinced they were able to be pickled but Homestead Hottie quickly found a canning recipe online that proved they were in fact a candidate for pickling.  Jill over at Jillicious Discoveries has a great recipe that we put to use this last week.  Our four quart jars of lemon cucumber pickles are now resting quietly beside their cousins, four jars of freshly preserved tomatoes, on the shelves in the garage.  I can’t wait to try them out.  Winnie Abramson over at the Healthy Green Kitchen also has a recipe for lacto-fermented lemon cucumber pickles that I’d be interested in trying as well.

Do you have a favorite recipe for lemon cucumbers or a favorite pickling recipe to use them in?  Let me know, I’d love to try more!

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Termination seems like such a dirty word.  The societal stigma attached to it is enough to make you feel vile; rolled in the dregs of society and tossed out into the street for all to see and smell.  You, left to feel like nothing more than an offense to the olfactory and beyond.  Why is it I feel like I should embody that feeling, sulking further into my own self wallow?

There is this great aversion to getting fired.  Nobody wants to hear it and most don’t want anybody to know it ever happened to them.  That’s why our corporate forefathers came up with terms like “let go”, RIF (reduction in force), laid off, “opting out” and canceled contract.  Like wrapping a blanket around a Billy club, is it merely to ease the blow to one’s ego?  Or is it like a golden ray shining down from above, making employers feel at ease, almost angelic in letting you down softly and tiptoeing around the word fire or terminate.

This week, I’m learning to embrace being fired.  I was ambushed.  Walking back to my desk at the end of my shift late Friday night, there sat my boss.  He magically reappeared, wearing the same damn clothes he left the office in four hours before.  It wouldn’t have won him any awards for his performance but he tried to act sorrowful.  He wasn’t soft about it at all.  He didn’t even try to let me down easily.  It’s the only time he’s ever really truly had the balls to act like a real manager and he managed me right out the front door.

The kick in the ass brought an end to two years of this Midwestern misery.  They moved me 1800 miles away from home promising a long-term commitment.  From day one though, it’s been anything but.  I was sold a bill of goods and unfortunately drank the Kool-Aid.  Each quaff left a taste in my mouth that grew more and more wretched.  Luckily I choked and regurgitated the rotgut and am now cleaning house.  One chapter is ending.  Another one is beginning.

It’s ironic this has hall happened because just about two weeks ago T and sat down and made lists.  Not for grocery shopping or things to do around this half-acre homestead.  These lists were our priorities in life; a test to see where we each stood at this very portion of our lives.  Little did we know that these lists would come into play just a few days later.  Here is how my priorities panned out:

1)                  Make sure my T, my wife, and my darling daughter are taking care of emotionally, physically and financially

2)                  Find a job that makes me happy

3)                  Live life as sustainable as possible

4)                  Buy a farm, ranch or other plot of land to build a life on

5)                  Financial freedom: ditch the debt, save more

T’s priorities were surprisingly similar.  Our thoughts and notions on what we wanted to achieve together weren’t as far off as we might have expected them to be.  We never expected to be in the position of changing career paths this quickly.  I had a contract that would leave us a year to think about our next moves but now that has shriveled and died right on the vine.

So another chapter begins.  We have two months, possibly three, of funds to get us through until the next opportunity beckons.  We’re looking at ways to stretch every possible dollar and every possible resource we use on a daily basis.  It can only help us make it through and last even longer than some would anticipate.  It will be the true test of our skills and desires to live life in a more sustainable, environmentally friendly and happiness inducing way.

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I just took action by submitting a letter of concern to the USDA regarding their current consideration of implementing some long-overdue rules that would make markets fairer for poultry and livestock farmers.  Big agribusiness is trying to fight back of course, preventing the new rules from ever passing.  If you’d like to help out the cause, head to the Food & Water Watch website.

Here is a copy of the letter I wrote.  I used the form letter but personalized the first part:

Dear Secretary Vilsack,

Let me begin by expressing my deep disgust and distrust with the mass-market meat system currently in place.  I have taken my consumer dollars out of the meat department at my local grocery stores and instead invested in a share of a local, Community Supported Agriculture operation.  For my investment in the farmer just down the road, which averages $5 per pound, I am guaranteed about 20lbs. of farm fresh, organically raised meat products each month.  It’s the best investment I ever could have made and don’t intend to buy meat from the local grocers case again any time soon.

I am writing to express my support for the proposed rule on “Implementation of Regulations Required Under Title XI of the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008; Conduct in Violation of the Act” (“Farm Bill Comments, FR page 35338, June 22, 2010). This new proposed rule is an important first step in leveling the playing field for livestock producers, improving market transparency and protecting poultry growers from unfair contract terms.

The proposed rule would eliminate the most abusive contract terms and practices used by poultry companies, ban retaliation against growers who speak out about unfair conditions or contract abuses; protect growers who make expensive upgrades to their chicken houses; require notification before companies suspend contracts with growers; and allow growers to opt out of arbitration clauses.

Unfortunately, the proposed rule fails to rein in similarly unfair practices in livestock markets. The proposed rule addresses a few specific unfair practices widely used by meatpackers, but it fails to establish guidelines that would prevent meatpackers from unfairly favoring one hog or cattle farmer over another through marketing agreements and contracts. It does prevent one limited kind of price discrimination (the full trailer volume discount), bans packer-to-packer sales, prohibits one auction buyer from representing multiple meatpackers and offers only limited improvements on marketing transparency. These are important and necessary improvements, but do not address most of the widespread unfair treatment in the cattle and hog industry. In addition to implementing this proposed rule as soon as possible, I urge you to take the next steps necessary to address the market power of large meatpackers and require packers to pay a firm bid price for all livestock they procure and require them to sell in an open public market where all buyers and sellers have access.

Sincerely,

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Do you have a ton of extra veggies in your garden right now?  Why not trade them?  We stumbled across a great  website the other idea called Veggie Trader.  You can sign up, post what you have a lot of and what you’d like to trade for and then wait for the matchmaking to happen.

Unfortunately there isn’t anybody currently signed up for our area so if you do live in the Tri-State, join now so we can start swapping our extra produce for other things we might be able to use.

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