Plenty

Pickles, peaches, and jams.   (We are so proud!)

Half a lamb.

Half a pig.

8 salmon.

And some of the veggies from the gardening course:

shucked corn

steamed and cut

vacuum-packed

The good news is that we managed to consolidate our food: earlier in the year, we had our stuff in four freezers across town, but now -- thanks to me no longer storing pies and thanks also to our large appetites -- we're down to just three freezers. 

I finished my first IntelliQuest book, Plenty, which chronicles a couple's year of eating food that came from within 100 miles of their home.  They had all sorts of great food . . . but, basically, they didn't eat wheat for a year (although they can, no one does grow wheat in that area).  I cannot imagine a year without bread.

The book makes lots of interesting points about how we've come to clump our food crops together in different parts of the country, then pick everything before it's ripe, pack it full of preservatives, and ship it hundreds of miles away for consumption . . . instead of just growing it down the street.  I was pretty sickened to learn that even things raised or caught locally still aren't always processed in an environmentally-friendly way.  For instance, much of the crab caught in the U.S. is shipped by tanker across the Atlantic to be packed in China before being shipped back to the U.S. again: because that's still cheaper than paying to pack it here.
 
Despite knowing all that, I still find it very difficult to fork over the $4 for one small, home-grown chicken breast at the farmer's market when I could get a hormone-injected, never-seen-the-light-of-day one for 1/3 that price at the grocery store.  And I know I'm not alone in that.

How can we as a nation be more environmentally-friendly when we're so cheap?

But I'm trying.  Bee is rubbing off on me: there are so many things he longed for, but that -- until recently -- I had absolutely no interest in doing.  He wanted a garden, and now I'm actually excited about trying to grow one myself.  He wants to buy meat locally, and now I 'm thrilled to have half a pig in the freezer.  He wants to only get food that's in season, and now I feel guilty buying an imported banana in January.

Damn it.

(I must note that the same guilt apparently does not apply to my chocolate consumption.  I don't care where it came from, I don't care how fake it is, just get me some chocolate.)

I'm a little afraid of all the other ways Bee is rubbing off on me.  Hell, I'm already helping make a living by being a woodworker; I never thought I'd do that.  He wants to grind our own wheat, and I actually considered it for half a second.  And now he's got me thinking about moving to a yurt in the middle of the forest.  (Which would never really happen;  I could never live that far from a cheapie theater.)

Still, I'm taking those baby steps.  Over the last few years, my priorities have changed: I know they've changed for the better, and I know it's mostly thanks to Bee that they have.  So, although this has absolutely nothing to do with how I started this post, I'd like to end the post by pointing out what a great man my husband is.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to a breakfast of local bacon, eggs from our chickens, and bread made at home . . . but with wheat probably processed in India.