We're Officially in Kansas (Oklahoma), Toto.

We woke up this morning to a rumbling outside the window. No, for once it wasn't an April thunderstorm, but you're on the right track.

Family, you will be very happy to know that after 2 years in Tornado Country, we finally have a hidey-hole.

There was enough dirt left over from the hole to spread to several spots in the yard for eventual bed-making. We're putting 2 flower beds in the front yard, and a really long one in the garden.

After the really hard winter we've had and knowing the wind we face in the next few months, we decided we couldn't put off the shelter any longer. Though I really hope we never have to stay down there for any length of time because I'm SUPER claustrophobic and it's hard for me to breathe down there. Also, it's going to be a challenge to convince the cat and dogs to get down there with us, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I Told You

Yes, it's only been 10 days since our last blizzard, but this is the forecast for today:

Nearly 90 degrees. What did I tell you about Oklahoma weather? Of course, I thought we'd be well into late April before we saw temps that high, but apparently late March is just as good a time as any. My trees and shrubs are loving the warmth and are leafing out all over the place, but I am a bit worried about my crops of peas, lettuce, and spinach.

Last night I set up my first attempt at an irrigation system, aka a leaky hose:

I had a bit of an issue with powdery mildew last year on my peas due to watering from above and getting the foliage too wet, so hopefully watering on the ground will help with that. I obviously need to buy more hose length for the rest of the garden. The super high temps are only supposed to last for a few days and then we'll be back into the 70s, but summer will be burning down the house before we know it.

Oklahoma is Number 1...For Once

I wanted to jot down a quick post reflecting on my trip to the Annual Oklahoma Food Cooperative Meeting that I attended today with my partner-in-crime One Acre Homestead (Note: She actually took pictures, so be sure to check out her blog).

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this gathering of producers and members, but I knew there'd be free food, and I'm all about that. There were also free samples of ridiculously good-smelling soaps and bath salts and a tantalizing display of worm castings (I know my non-gardening friends are throwing up in their mouths). We gathered in a large all-purpose room at the Moore-Norman Technology Center (who knew?) and the producers lined the perimeter of their room with tasty goodies while the members sat family-style at round tables in the middle and got to know each other. As we walked the gauntlet around the room, we really had to eat fast to make room on our plates for the bounty of local food there was to enjoy--it ALL looked good.

A few of the products I've already tasted in my first order, but there will be MANY more things added to my cart after this adventure. Things like cinnamon creamed honey, garlic yogurt cheese, feta-stuffed lamb sausage, whole wheat chocolate chip blondie brownies (OUT OF THIS WORLD, people)...it was quite the feast.

The famed yogurt cheese from Wagon Creek Creamery, and now a staple in my kitchen.

During the meeting we voted on at-large members and briefly discussed financials, but what stuck with me was something from the opening speech given by the VP for Customers. She said that there have been 16 statewide coops started throughout the country based on the Oklahoma model, and that for a state that is normally not too high up on other national lists (e.g. education) that's something we can really be proud of. What the OK Coop has right is the distribution--it's entirely volunteer-run and volunteers can actually earn work credits that can be applied towards their order. It's a workable, sustainable system that continues to improve itself.

I left feeling very excited about the decision I'd made to join the coop and fired up to spread the word. If you live in Oklahoma, I encourage you to check out the Coop. If you don't, click over to LocalHarvest.org to find a local coop or CSA in your area.

Hooray for Local Food!

 

This beautiful bounty is my first order purchased from the Oklahoma Food Coop, which I've recently joined. It includes farm fresh eggs, grass-fed ground beef, grass-fed Italian pork sausages, bulk pork neck bones (awesome for saucemaking), super-healthy yogurt cheese, local organic honey, fresh organic radicchio, and a beautiful 25lb pail of local, organic whole wheat flour. I also ordered 36 strawberry, 26 tomato, and 20 pepper LIVE PLANTS, but those we won't pick up until March or April. 

As you may remember from my post about the movie "Food, Inc." I was pretty grossed out by the things I learned about the food industry in this country and started investigating other options for feeding my family. The Oklahoma Food Coop delivers in my area, and connects dozens of organic and certified naturally grown producers in our state, many of whom practice the humane techniques for growing livestock discussed in the movie. I already prefer to batch cook meals to save time, and so with a little extra planning, I could buy fresh, local, HEALTHY ingredients, spend a day cooking, and then be good to go for the month and know exactly what was in the food I fed to my family. 

This resolution also coincides with the March Challenge posted on Not Dabbling in Normal in which readers are being encouraged to try to avoid commercially processed foods for the entire month. For many of us, that will more likely mean cutting out as much as we can. I've already taken steps to make more basic staple foods from scratch, like our bread, and I'm planning to tackle pasta next month. With the meats pictured above, I plan to make a large batch of marinara sauce (from my grandmother's recipe) and meatballs. The sauce will be used for spaghetti, pizza, and lasagna that I'll be making next month. The wheat and honey will be used for our daily bread, which I make about twice a week. Once we start harvesting greens, dinner salads will be a big staple, too. I whipped this up last night:

 

Chicken salad with the local radicchio and hard-boiled eggs, and a homemade honey mustard vinaigrette. The chicken, while not locally raised, WAS humanely raised cage-free organically and I bought it at WALMART of all places, for the same price as the commercial stuff.  

Check out Local Harvest.org for sources of local foods in YOUR area, and give responsible eating a try. Supporting local business, eating more nutritious, better-tasting foods, being good to the environment...what's not to like?

Coming Soon to a Plot Near Me!

I'll show you mine if you show me yours! My seed orders are arriving and packets are showing up in stores--it's go time, people!


The following is a list of what I'll be trying not to kill in the garden this year. I know it will change as I stroll through nurseries and stores and things jump out at me and bed to be taken home.

Vegetables:
Snowball Self-Blanching Cauliflower
Flame Lettuce
Little Gem Lettuce
Oregon Sugar Pod II Snow Pea
Red Malabar Spinach
Gotte Jaune D' Or Lettuce
Five Color Silverbeet Chard
Purple Hull Pinkeye Cowpea
Danvers 126 Half Long Carrot
Patisson Golden Marbre Scallop Squash
Early Prolific Straightneck Squash
Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin
Table Queen Squash
Butternut Waltham Squash
Garden Pea Burpeeana Early
Garden Pea Wando
Bean - Heavyweight II
Soybean - Green Pearls
Striped Italian Zucchini
Early Golden Bantam Sweet Corn

Herbs:
Basil - Cinnamon
Sweet Italian Basil
Italian Flat-leaf Parsley
Lavender
Thyme
Spearmint
Rosemary

Flowers from seed:
Empress of India Nasturtium
Lemon Queen Sunflower
Orange Hawaii Marigold

Transplants still to buy:
tomatoes*
potatoes
onions
peppers*
sweet potatoes
asparagus
strawberries*

*I am planning to reserve an order for these plants to be started by a local grower, High Tides & Field Greens, who is a member of the Oklahoma Food Co-op. That way I won't mess up starting them from seed, but I can feel better knowing they are coming from a local farm instead of shipped from who-knows-where and sold on the verge of death at Lowes.

Snowklahoma

I started to write a long post about the Christmas Eve blizzard that shut down our state, and, not unlike the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, threatened to shut down Christmas altogether, but it stressed me out. So, I'm going to do a picture post instead of some of the prettier moments of the extremely rare Oklahoma blizzard. It snowed again a few days later, and it looks like it may be in the forecast again for later this week.

Suffice it to say that snow on the windy prairie, especially powdery easy-to-blow snow, is considerably more dangerous than heavy snow in East Coast cities where there are plenty of windbreaks. I know lots of friends back East who laughed at our panic over a few inches of snow when they were maneuvering easily through their 2 feet of the white stuff, but when you're stuck on a highway where you can only see a foot in front of you on all sides and you never know when you may hit a 4+foot snowdrift, things get complicated. But I digress.

The pretty:

I Don't Want to Get My Hopes Up...

The weather forecast for Christmas Eve:

First Dot

In college I took a course on the Internet (this was pre-Facebook), and a major part of the course requirements was that I had to maintain an active blog. It was such a drag. Writing for the sake of participation is beyond forced, and I sort of felt dirty knowing that my professor was reading my posts everyday. So my blog was a drag. I gave it up the second the semester ended.

Now I think about participation in a totally different way. I work from home and I live in a very rural area where I know a handful of people. For me, participating is anything I want it to be that day; whether that means getting dressed, arranging to visit friends, completing an assignment, or baking all day. This is not as luxurious as it sounds. It's very easy to feel like I've spent all day rattling around inside my house with nothing to show for it.

I am very good at keeping in touch with the people I care about, and I'm not ashamed to admit that most of that communication happens online. I spent the first 2 weeks I lived in Oklahoma at the Burger King 10 miles down the road because it was the only place that had wireless internet and mine was not yet set up. It only seems natural that so much of my product--the result of my days spent puttering around my little acre of land--appears online. I send pictures and video of my son to family via YouTube and Facebook; I send and receive assignments from clients through various FTP sites; and I spend an embarrassing amount of time looking up recipes and gardening tips...mostly while I'm elbow deep in flour or soil. I've noticed lately how I seem to get "stuck" on other people's blogs, scrolling endlessly backwards through their posts as I learn more than I ever intended to.

So. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in an attempt to not live life in a vacuum, I'm going to blog. I'm not one for scrapbooking or photo albums (did we ever get one printed of our wedding? Um, that's a big no.) but I do love progressions. You could probably call me a line graph kinda girl. Here is my first dot.