reverse shopping list

I like to make lists.  After a bout of purging it's good to take inventory.  Here we have our pantry cupboard.  I decided to clean it out and take stock before we went out shopping.  For someone new to the whole-food plant-based lifestyle it may seem like there is not a lot to eat.  After I delivered my son, the one of the midwives went looking for a snack.  She couldn't find anything!  Eventually she settled on an apple which was located in the fridge.

A few notes on the inventory: We don't cook with oil anymore.  We don't even eat much oil really.  I just use the oils to season our cast iron frying pan.  Some of the sugars and the all-purpose flour are a rare treat, just for birthdays, etc.  They are vegan, but not wfpb.  My source of shame, in the vegan community is at the bottom right.  Honey isn't vegan; technically I'm a mel-vegetarian.

food forest and family

I'm back!  There comes a point when a person has minimized too much. So before I find myself alone in a white room with no furniture or clothes I'd like to slow things down a bit.  What's the point of getting rid of almost everything if not to focus on the important things?  For my family, what's important (besides family, which includes family-like friends) is:

1. Our health
2. Our home
3. The food forest

These things all tie together.  In our yard we have a 3.5 year old food forest which surrounds our home and supports our health.  I remember now that I started blogging to document the process of our lives, paring things down, and growing vegetables.  I had a second child and found myself too tired or busy to blog.  But when I look back at old posts I feel so overwhelmed with joyful gardening memories (even though it's my husband that does most of the work).

A garden is a creative outlet, but it's a little bit four dimensional in that it changes over time.  Every day is a little different and every season is a lot different.  It changes so much that it's rewarding to capture it in photos or writing.

So what's new in the food forest?  The temperature dropped to -15 and we got a late season dump of snow.  A herd of deer have penetrated the makeshift fence and I made three separate attempts to chase them out.  They keep sneaking back. They knocked some branches off our still-small fruit trees, fertilized the soil, and for now have moved on.  Luckily everything else is under a blanket of snow and hopefully safe for now.

goodbye

I've been meaning to tell you guys this for a while.  This blog was created to document a purge of our belongings and the creation of our permaculture food forest.  I've released everything I don't need and the garden is growing fine.

I no longer have space in my life for this blog.

THE END

vegan

I've gone on a whole foods plant based diet.  So did my parents, siblings, husband, and children.  We're doing it for our health.

weird food

We've long had self-sufficiency on our radar and now we've got a chance to work a little of it into our lives.  We wanted to simplify, so we got rid of half of our possessions.  It seems like we still have lots of stuff, but this isn't just minimalism, it's urban homesteading.  We had to keep a few things, like a garden hose.  We wanted to spend less time shopping and more time cultivating the food forest.

The food forest is planted, first with apples, peaches, raspberries, kale, and the like.  Now we're moving into territory I don't remember at Save-On-Foods:

Behold, the medlar.

We're diversifying our garden, and also our meals.  The medlar is known for being under-ripe until it's rotten, a process known as bletting.  One sample looks a little soft on the corner.  It's almost ready.  We haven't tasted it yet.  I'm a little scared.

My husband was digging in the food forest and he extracted another new-to-me food, a Jerusalem Artichoke, also known as a Sunchoke.

I chopped it up and roasted it.  It tastes starchy and sweet, like a nutty potato.  

We also grow things that many people can identify, yet they don't have the faintest idea how to eat them.  "What do you use those for, jack-o-lanterns?"

"No, we eat them."

Stay tuned, more wierdness to come!

alien growths

They say kids these days don't know where their food comes from.  They've never seen a farm or a garden, only commercials.
"It comes from the store!"

I thought I was pretty versed in the basics.  I knew that chicken, the meat, came from chicken, the animal, and probably from a farm.  Yesterday, I was out wandering the food forest (the backyard garden) when I saw for the first time...

Brussel sprouts growing!  I had no idea they looked like that.  Last time we planted brussel sprout seeds, cabbages came up.  I think there was a mix-up at Seedy Saturday.  

It's one of those vegetables that you either love or hate, but I enjoy them and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

lovely cabbage

She came from the cabbage patch.  I feel like this is a good environment to bring her up in.

Somehow I ended up dragging her in a lap around the mall a couple weeks ago.  I was looking for boots (for myself).  I never found what I wanted, I'm so particular.  I felt bad, that I didn't want her to spend too much of her childhood getting trained to consume, so I got her back to the garden as soon as I could.

It always seems easier to shop than say, make saurkraut, but I swear it's worth it.  Tonight, I finally pummelled that cabbage into a jar with some salt and caraway seeds.  Now it's covered in water.  Wish me luck on the ferment.