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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Winter Sustainability

 Yuletide greetings all!

So, I wanted to have a pretty snow-scene of our mini-farm for you but it is all mud out there right now, so this adorable Victorian print will have to do for now! :-)

 December has been a very busy month for us! This year we decided that for all of our Yule gifts to family and friends we would be handmaking a variety of items that represent who we are and what we stand for in our homesteading adventure. We can't share the details with you yet, but to be sure, you can expect a whole heap of blog posts and how-to's from us after the holidays have passed and we've given out our gifts. We are happy to say that most of the ideas are very budget and time friendly and we hope that you will enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them.



On our first post, a good friend, Lawrence Mitchell asked about sustainability through the winter months. This is a wonderful topic and one that I will address in today's blog posting. I will admit that this year we are not as self-sustainable through the cold months as we had hoped to be. However, as Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms (one of our biggest inspirations!!) says, "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing it wrong first." So, we are learning, improving, and marching forward.

Here is what we have learned so far:

1. Sustainability is best achieved in small steps.

Just like most things in life, if you try to jump in head first you will usually end up in over your head. Keeping this in mind, we are making small changes to help move us towards the goal of being able to one day provide most of our own food. So far we have our chickens and ducks that provide us with all the eggs we need. We have not purchased eggs from the supermarket in well over a year at this point. It may seem small in comparison to some other people's sustainability models, but when  you consider the whole chain that has been affected by this one small step, it is rather a large movement.

By raising our own hens for eggs we have eliminated purchasing eggs from mass-production farms. In doing this we have eliminated ourselves as a fuel burden in more than one way. We are not supporting commercial battery hen operations which reduces the demand (even by one family) for eggs that are produced under cruel conditions. (Don't think they are cruel? Watch this video and tell me they aren't: Life as a Battery Hen ) We also are eliminating the burden on the fuel system that it would take to not only produce and clean those eggs, but also the fuel it would take to ship them possibly thousands of miles from the production facilities (let's face it, you can't call those kinds of conditions a farm) to a local store that we would have to drive to and from to get the eggs. So it seems small but we've already broken a link in that one simple step.

Now, hens naturally decrease egg production as day length shortens. We provide a light in their henhouse so that they get a normal 12-14 hour period of light to help encourage them to continue laying eggs. We also make sure that their nutrition needs are met by allowing them access to free range on approximately one acre of land, providing all the kitchen scraps they could want (veggie trimmings, leftovers, etc.), and supplementing with oyster shell for calcium and dry feed in their henhouse in the evenings. Even in the middle of December we are getting about 4-6 eggs a day from our layer flock. We are expecting to have about a dozen a day once they pick up production in the Spring.

2. Planning is key.

The biggest thing to consider when making a move towards being more self sustainable is to plan, plan, plan! I have a bad habit of getting super excited in the Fall and Winter when hatchery and seed catalogs start avalanching out of my mailbox. I am always excited to try new varieties of heirloom veggies and it is always a thrill to think about the new chicks we will add to our flock in the spring. However, the most important thing to consider is what foods you and your family eat regularly, what foods are seasonal (meaning that you will enjoy them only while they are readily available) and what foods can be stored.

The tough part is figuring out how much of which crops to grow to provide a nice balance of ready to eat foods in the peak of the season balanced with how much of which crops to grow for putting by. This year we had great success with seasonal veggies but didn't dedicate enough to storage foods. That is ok. We are learning. :-) For the upcoming year, we plan on clearing out a part of our cellar in the early spring in order to create a root cellar. Root cellaring allows you to store fresh produce for use all throughout the year. Many fruits and vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, squash, onions, melons, and apples will all store rather well if kept at the right conditions. In storing for the months ahead, we hope to be able to go "shopping" in our root cellar and pantry through the colder months in order to increase our sufficiency even further.

Another area we have been exploring is home canning. We have had wonderful success (as some of you have tasted) in canning our own jellies, jams, and chutneys. By preserving the seasonally available foods like strawberries, blueberries, cucumbers, and tomatoes, we are able to use those foods later on in the winter months when these foods would not normally be available in our climate. This again reduces our impact on the overall food system by taking us out of the stream of foods that are shipped thousands of miles so that we can enjoy foods that would not seasonally be available in our area. Our goal for 2013 is to expand our already successful canning to include pickles, tomatoes, beans, sauerkraut, and corn to put aside. I am very much looking forward to building a pantry of fresh, homegrown foods.

3. Eat Seasonally and Locally

This is an easy first step and one that everyone, regardless of yard space or economic status can take part in. Locally sourced foods break the chain of fuel-driven food production. It takes much less fuel to bring a food grown locally (within your own town or even neighborhood) to market than it does to bring Strawberries grown in California all the way to Pennsylvania in the off-season. This goes hand-in-hand with eating seasonally. Strawberries don't grow in Pennsylvania in December. This is a fact. So... don't eat them in December unless they have been preserved ahead of time (frozen, dried, canned, etc.). This breaks our dependence on foods that are shipped great distances. I won't lie, I am guilty of wanting out of season fruits and veggies in the winter. It is simply a product of the food system that we live in these days. It is tough at first, but the more you shift to a more seasonal eating ideal, the easier it gets. I have found that I relish certain seasons even more now that I know a certain food is only available in that time of year. There are tons of wonderful cookbooks available that help to provide seasonal recipes and treats that make the transition easier.

I hope that this has helped answer the question at least to some degree. Please, as usual, feel free to ask questions and suggest topics you would like to see more info about from us. :) Stay tuned in the near future for updates on our micro-farm as we plan for the year ahead. Also, don't forget, we'll be sharing our big Homemade Yule gift idea list in the near future as well!

Blessings and Abundance to all and thank you for your love and support of our happy little homestead! :)

ETA: If you hadn't noticed, at the bottom of the page we have a handy little widget that will tell you what foods are seasonal in your area! :-) Check it out! 

~Sarah

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