Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Monday, August 23, 2010

Report from Pioneer Week

This weekend we really got cracking on Pioneer Week. Here's how it went down:

On Saturday and Sunday
  • Took a navy/drizzle shower
  • Wore no makeup
  • Air dried hair
  • Line dried all the laundry
  • Saved captured water in rain barrel

On Saturday
  • No driving
  • Walked to neighborhood P Patch Garden Party
  • Husband made chocolate cake from scratch
  • Picked and preserved basil from garden
  • Planted fall/winter vegetables
  • Made pizza sauce and froze (14 half-pints)
  • No movies/internet, little lighting (read by candlelight)
  • Went to bed early / got up early to save electricity

On Sunday
  • Made two loaves of zucchini carrot bread
  • Drove only to pick up CSA (it was raining otherwise I probably would have biked)
  • Made two batches of arugula pesto and froze
  • Walked down to the kid's school and picked a gallon of blackberries
  • Harvested potatoes for dinner
  • Husband made homemade mint chocolate swirl ice cream
  • De seeded blackberries for making jam
  • Worked on hand-sewing quilt

I'll keep you posted on the rest of this week's Pioneer events!

11 comments:

Robj98168 said...

I got on my pony (scooter) "HONDA" and rode to work.

Aimee said...

How do you preserve basil?

Leslie Richman said...

Love the updates! I've been inspired to get back in touch with my clothesline as well :)

Crunchy Chicken said...

Aimee - I preserve it in pizza sauce :) For surplus I either made pesto or dry it:

http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2008/09/drying-herbs-for-idiots.html

Liz said...

Deseeding blackberries sounds a long job - and one that didn't occur to me when I made jam after blackberrying on Saturday!

Crunchy Chicken said...

Liz - I have a food mill, so it's super easy and fast.

brenna said...

What a great weekend! I would love to get more pioneering with making jam and quilting, but I have been really trying with some of the other things. I bet the kids love it...

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

We drove to my in-laws to celebrate summer birthdays with mostly from scratch food. We brought CSA corn to share. Since we had to drive Blitzkrieg yelled Wagon's ho! and Grandpa's or Bust! every so often and pretended we were a wagon train.

Robj98168 said...

Sunday- discovered that my fridge had died. So this week I am roughing it with the cooler. Of course I am pretty sure the Ingalls family didn't have a freezer making ice in milk jugs to get them through!

Surviving and thriving on pennies said...

Okay so I suck. Totally forgot all about this challenge. But there was no way I couldn't drive. My daughter had a soccer tournament 30 minutes drive away. But I did make blackberry jelly (no seeds as well) and I always line dry my clothing.

dc said...

This weekend was the New West Fest so we road our bikes into town and listened to a lot of free music including Earth, Wind and Fire (3 natural elements;o)) and Earl Scruggs and friends (he wrote the theme song for the Beverly Hillbillies and who's more of a pioneer then Granny??) I volunteered to help set up the Creative Garden area and the Save the Poudre booth.

On our way home from the festival on a scorching hot day we went for a swim in the aforementioned Poudre River thus avoiding a shower.

Harvested some of our plums, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, basil, 3 varieties of beans and some thornless blackberries. Supplemented this bounty with organic produce, eggs, bread and cheese from the farmers market.

We drank many local beers both at home and at the festival. It's easy with New Belgium, Odells and Equinox brewing about a mile from here!

Just hung out the third load of laundry and hand watered the garden.

Oh, and I forgot it was the Pioneer Challenge-- it's easier this time of year, isn't it?