It’s time for me to spend the last of this year in New York, so I said goodbye to the Urban Farm a few days ago. Sure I’ll be back in January, but going away for the next few weeks without my favorite corner of Eugene made me a little sad to be leaving. I spent a chilly morning out there mixing compost and admiring
Turkey Day
As millions of Americans spent their weekend crammed into the grocery store stocking up for Thanksgiving, I was hanging out on a nearby farm for turkey-butchering day. Some people would find that odd, while to others the thought of buying a factory-farmed, hormone-pumped frozen bird wrapped in plastic for $1 a pound – something that doesn’t even resemble the animal it came from – can
Season Race
The race is on to turn my half barren vegetable plot into a success before the season ends. My transplanted tomatoes and peppers are doing very well. Of the seeds I planted, only about half actually survived. Partly that was probably due to a lack of consistent watering, or perhaps it was just related to the rock-hard soil I am trying to cultivate. After spending
Working on the Urban Farm
Since I arrived in Eugene, I have been spending every Saturday morning volunteering at the University of Oregon’s Urban Farm. After putting in a couple hours of work, the director lets me take home a backpack full of goodies. The backpack seems to overflow more and more each week as we enter the full swing of garden season. The work I do there is the
Harvesting January
Everything outside is either dead or sleeping (well, except the chickens of course), but we are nowhere near empty here on our little urban homestead. The last year of canning, drying, freezing and cold storage has left us with tons of options still for eating local, organic produce. I wanted to share just a couple of the super-simple things we’ve been eating this week. First
Last Canning
Our poor, decrepit car finally went to the big junkyard in the sky, but that didn’t stop me from picking more tomatoes at a local farm this weekend. I was quite determined to make one huge batch of tomato sauce before the end of the canning season. I hopped on my scooter and made it happen. With Halloween just around the corner, the local farms
Buying 1/4 of a Cow
Typically we are selective about where we purchase our beef. This isn’t meant to come across as a lecture to people who are not concerned with how their meat was raised, but we choose to be more involved in this area. Things like being grass-fed on pasture, no antibiotics, no hormones, etc. are all important factors for us. Because of how expensive this grade of
Blueberry Fields Forever
It was another gorgeous Friday afternoon spent picking berries after a long work week. My friend and I snuck out of town early and over to nearby Sauvie’s Island. There is a wonderful blueberry farm out there that grows about ten different varieties. This evening we were picking Blue Ray, which are giant bushes heavy with gigantic blueberries. They say they are good for fresh