CAUTIONARY NOTE! ONLY FOR FENBENDAZOLE aka PANACUR aka sold OTC at feedstores as SAFEGUARD! NEVER USE IVERMECTIN ON COLLIE BREEDS or MIXED BREEDS OF UNCERTAIN PARENTAGE!!

1. Go to the feedstore and purchase Safe-Guard (Fenbendazole) Dewormer for Goats, 10% Suspension (100 mg/ml);

2. Weigh the hairy beasts. Oh yea, good luck with that. If all else fails, guesstimate based on vet visits where unsuspecting vet techs were forced to wrangle the hairy beasts onto the scary scale;

3. Accord to the vet at The Psychotic Farmers Forum [note, please, that the vet is not insane, although the forum owner and his cadres are]:

Safeguard=Fenbendazole=227mg/10#=2.27ml/10# (yes dogs get 10X the dose per pound compared to horses) [ed.'s note: and 10X the dose per pound compared to ruminants {aka goats}]

4. Measure using a pipette from Sunrose Aromatics, or convert to teaspoons, with 1 ml = 1/5 teas. and 5 ml = 1 teas.;

5. Hide in sardines packed in water, canned dog food (doggie junk food, imho) or treat of your choice;

6. Enjoy not only the money saved by deworming without a vet visit and resulting prescription, but hairy beasty frolicking after completion of worming, and sometimes during, before and for no reason whatsoever.

A ^%$$# palmetto bug crawled up one of my walls last night.

1. What the &^(#@@ do I do about ^%$$# palmetto bugs?

I have done more dehydrating. Got the strawberries done, about three pounds of cremini (baby portobello) mushrooms, and some yellow carrots that came in the co-op bag this week. Today I am going to make zucchini chips.

I made hamburger rocks, too, as an experiment. I need to make up a big batch and then can them, but so far I am pleased.

Food: I’m experimenting with lots of different types of greens with an eye to growing something other than lettuce or spinach, which are completely impossible here in the summer.

Otherwise, I’m making lists. I hope that later in the summer I can go back to buying some equipment — I’m looking at a solar battery recharger and a few other relatively high-priced items like that. Keeping an eye on the local Freecycle and craigslist sites for useful things (although sadly, they’ve been more about people wanting/needing things lately instead of getting rid).

And now I have to go be a good dog mom. It’s thundering and I have one 60-pound puppy in my lap shivering and the other hiding under the furniture.

A mixed bag this week. I’ve got clients mad at me because of missed deadlines and three new work projects that I need to get started on, so non-work time was at a premium. (I suppose that “making money” counts toward independence, though?)

1. Plant something. Four tomato plants, one fernleaf dill (already looking pretty sad — I’ve killed a dozen dillweeds in the last couple of years), and some bush beans and zucchini. I’ve ordered Blue Lake pole bean seeds and those should be here this week. I’ve also set up the plan for fall planting, since spring planting was pretty much a total no-go this year.

I don’t seem to be able to get nearly enough done in my days. How do ordinary people with families and full-time jobs do it?

2. Harvest something. A double handful of strawberries this week. Last year we put in a tiny strawberry patch early in the spring. Our region then proceeded to have a 100-year drought and severe water-use restrictions. We were allowed to hand-water one morning a week between 6 and 9 am, and I have no idea how any of those little guys survived.

Rainfall is closer to normal this year and the plants are beginning to spread and fruit, but the harvest is still pretty anemic.

3. Preserve/store something. Not much this week. The locally-owned Piggly Wiggly had a major sale on Oscar Mayer hot dogs — 99¢ a one-pound package, regular price $2.99. I bought ten pounds, which was all the room I had in the freezer. Unfortunately, this is hardly long-term stocking-up, because my dear husband can eat an entire pound of them in two days unless gently reminded.

Noticed another interesting phenomenon at the same store. Long-grain white rice, the ordinary Mahatma or Uncle Ben’s kind, was $2.29 for a 2-pound bag. However, on the other side of the same aisle in the section with the ethnic foods, long-grain white rice by La Preferida was $1.19 for a 2-pound bag. I needed rice. I saved 55¢ a pound just by looking right instead of left.

4. Self-reliance. Nothing new this week, unless you count learning to knit (below).

5. Cook something new. I’ll be cooking collard greens today. Yes, it’s true. I was born and raised in the South and had never in my life eaten collard greens until a week or so ago when Whole Foods had them on the hot bar at lunch. I liked ‘em. I liked ‘em a lot. I don’t know if I can reproduce them, but I’m game to try. Report next week.

6. Manage reserves. Does rearranging the pantry shelves count? Oh wait, I also cleaned out and rearranged the freezer, which was overflowing.

7. Reduce waste. Actively composting again. Actively being questioned by the spouse again, who has this pristine suburban horror of anything that creates unpleasant smells and/or attracts insects. And I have one of those nifty covered bins (with a broken lid, courtesy of said occasionally ham-handed spouse)! It’s not like it’s sitting out in the yard in a heap.

There’s part of a leftover straw bale purchased for the potato bin last year, so I’ve been making a pointed effort to cover new kitchen waste with a layer of straw. It won’t decompose as fast as leaves or grass clippings, but it keeps the green compost out of sight and may go some way toward disarming the opposition. We can hope.

8. Work on local connections. Bought locally-grown vegetables from the farmer’s market on Friday. Found out about another suburban Saturday market close to my house, which I’ll visit next week. They tend to be upscale-ish and expensive, but it’s 7 miles away as opposed to 9 miles for the one I’ve been going to and 11 miles to the “real” farmer’s market. (However, the real one is open seven days a week and if I go after taking the spouse to work it adds only three miles round trip.)

What I should have done was go to the Food Summit and solstice celebration yesterday at Jones Valley Urban Farm. I thought about it, and it looked interesting, and there were a lot of people there working on local food security issues whom it would be useful to know. I’m not sure why I didn’t, except that you don’t “join” this organization, you sign a “letter of commitment.” That bothered me. I wanted information, not to commit to something else I may not have time for.

9. Learn something new. Knitting! I took my beginning class on Thursday evening. It was really basic — the instructor cast on for us, taught us the simple knit stitch, and then sat by to watch as we fumbled and to correct the inevitable mistakes. The first project is a scarf in garter stitch and we bring it back when it’s long enough to learn how to bind off.

I’ve been practicing every morning, fifteen minutes or so first thing when I wake up and before I get up to let the dogs out. I’m still really fumbly and my stitches are so uneven it drives me batty, but I am persevering. Once I get comfortable with “knit,” I’ll find some videos online and learn “purl” and then casting on and binding off.

I also am considering getting some larger needles and knitting up some weatherproof flowerpot mats using leftover plastic grocery bags. I think I know enough now to do those. They don’t have to be pretty.

This week is a lengthy report; I paid attention to this challenge this week and have a lot of successes to tell about. I’ve also changed up some of the categories a bit, to make things clearer or to tailor the challenge more closely to our site and what we are doing here.

1. Plant something. It’s mid-June. It ought to be too late to plant spring things and too early for the fall crops. But the latest salmonella tomato recall happened this week and I started worrying about being able to find food later this summer at the farmer’s market. I checked with the county extension, who said it was still not too late to plant pole beans and squash from seed or to put established plants in the ground. In a perfect world, I’d have plants growing under my lights and ready to transplant, but since my world is far from perfect, I bought four Heat Wave tomato plants (they set fruit at temperatures up to 100°F / 38° C) at the garden center yesterday. They will go into the ground this weekend, along with seeds of squash and beans.

2. Harvest something. Not this week, but the strawberries are doing well and if the rabbits don’t get them I should have some ready for picking next week.

3. Preserve something. Last Saturday, I made a pot of chicken stock and canned eight pints of it. I would have done another batch, but something was wrong with my canner and it took a while to figure out that a tiny gasket was missing. I ordered the part but won’t do any more pressure canning until that arrives.

4. Self-reliance (formerly “Prep something”). I changed this topic’s title because to me “prep something” means getting raw food ready to cook and I always had to go look up what Sharon meant by it. “Self-reliance” is a much more general term. (And I didn’t want to spook anyone by calling it “Get ready for TEOTWAWKI.”)

Let me say here that I am absolutely convinced that we (the US) are headed into a prolonged economic depression that is going to last for many years, if not the rest of my life. I’m not quite ready to embrace the idea of a Mad Max kind of world where we all hide out in bunkers and protect our sealed buckets of wheat berries at gunpoint, but it’s time — past time — to prepare for rough times ahead. That means canning, storing, and freezing food while it’s reasonably abundant. It means thinking ahead in little ways — what happens if I wear out my work gloves or my shoes and can’t run out to the store to buy another pair because I can’t afford them or the shelves are empty because trucks aren’t running? What are ways to stay comfortable in 100-degree heat if we can’t afford to run the air conditioner, or if the power grid goes down for extended periods?

This week was research rather than doing or stocking up. I sat down and made a list of things I would like to learn how to do, things I will need to know, things it will be useful to have, and what I should do to reach those goals. One example: I have a treadle sewing machine that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. I know how to use one — heck, I learned to sew on one (yes, I’m so old that dirt calls me “Mom”) — so one goal is to check it over thoroughly and see what needs to be cleaned, oiled, repaired to put it into working order.

5. Cook something new. Because we are all about cooking here, I changed this topic to “Cook something new.” Not only that, but we have the World’s Greatest Cooking Resource right here, our own inimitable AAF. No excuses!

This week I decided to concentrate on beans. I have several different kinds of dried beans that I’ve picked up here and there but I never take time to soak and cook them. I made a white chicken chili using cannellini and I tried red beans and rice. Both require tinkering before I’ll be happy with them.

I can report, however, that the fast soak method works great.

Fast Soak for Beans

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While it’s heating, rinse the beans and remove any debris. Add rinsed beans to boiling water, bring back to a boil, and cook two minutes.

Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it sit for 2-6 hours. Then remove any beans that have floated to the top, pour off the water and add fresh water. (This removes a lot of the starches that cause intestinal gas.) Proceed with the recipe.

6. Manage your reserves. Sunday: Sat down and made up a menu list for the week so as to avoid the 6:00-I’m-starving-can’t-we-just-order-out-for-pizza anguished cries from the men. I’ve been lax about menu planning since DH’s accident because the days have been so hectic, but now that things are calming down a bit I can get back to a more normal schedule.

Friday: After an enormously hectic day in which I completely forgot to eat, I pulled two precooked casseroles from the freezer and reheated them for dinner. The guys were deliriously happy. I went to bed early.

Discovered that the reason that the laundry detergent was running out so fast was that both the men were using two of the little measuring cups per load instead of one. (Sort of defeats the purpose of buying the ultra-concentrated stuff.) However, we have now got that straightened out, managing the reserves of detergent!

Managing the financial reserves: This week I started really paying attention to the CVS sales and Extra Care Bucks program, something I’d read about but had mentally filed with “compulsive coupon clipping.” However, on Monday there was a sign out front of the store advertising four fridge packs of Coke product for $11 with a $3 Extra Care Bucks rebate (which made it effectively $2 for 12 cans of soda). It’s summer. Both men are addicted to caffeine and carbonation (At least they drink diet sodas), so anywhere I can save money on that is good. Looking through the weekly ads, it looks like there are some sales on other products we normally use, so I will save money on those as well.

The trick is not to be tempted to buy stuff you don’t need or use. Doesn’t matter how good that sale on disposable diapers might be if your youngest child is 24. Unless your youngest child has children, of course. Mine doesn’t, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

7. Work on local food systems connections. Let’s change up another category a bit. Sharon’s original plan was to emphasize buying locally and in season, but she has stretched it to include building relationships with neighbors and community. I think this is not only a fine idea, but one that will be absolutely crucial in the coming years. Know your neighbors and be willing to help each other — we have got to get away from the polite suburban habit of keeping ourselves strictly to ourselves. Earlier this year I was ashamed to realize that we’ve lived in this house for fourteen years and know the names only of three families in the neighborhood.

So this week I: Extolled the praises of the local organic food co-op to a couple of people who had written to Freecycle looking for exactly this thing. Updated the co-op’s website with summer pickup dates. Took them a ton of brown paper bags to be used for the next round of orders. Baked a couple of loaves of bread for the neighbor as a “thank you” for the loan of a walker DH used right after the accident.

8. Learn something new. Although it could easily go under “self reliance,” I am adding this subject because I think it deserves its own category. The more we know, the more we can do for ourselves. (Besides, “learning something” is an easy one for most of us.)

This week I signed up to take a beginner’s knitting class: stretch the brain muscles learning to do something new with my hands, something constructive to do while waiting for the spouse to be done with interminable physical therapy and doctor appointments. I can’t stitch by hand very well any more, so I hope this will fill that void and give me a new, useful skill. The class is Thursday evening and I’ll report back next Saturday.

Maybe someday I can reproduce my faithful 30-year-old cable knit sweater that is so ratty I can’t wear it out of the house anymore but so comfortable I refuse to part with it.

I haven’t accomplished much in this regard this week. Hopefully next week… Read about what I did manage after the break.

1. Plant something. Not a chance.

2. Harvest something. Didn’t happen.

3. Preserve something. Aha! Third one’s the charm. I found some lovely red peppers on sale this week. Cored, seeded, julienned, and froze them.

4. Prep something. Basics this week because it’s in between big shopping weeks.

I ordered a case of lids (432 lids) for my canning jars. A month or so ago I bought 14 dozen canning jars from an older lady who was moving and didn’t have room to store them. They’re old but in perfect condition, and I will be happy to use them. Home-canned veggies this winter!

Got some low-sugar pectin to make jelly, jam, and fruit preserves this summer. DH is diabetic but absolutely must have his fruit. I bought a huge pail of fresh, almost-too-ripe local strawberries on Monday intending to make jam, but he ate them all before I had a chance.

Also, this is going to sound a little doomer, but bear with me. I got six dozen candle wicks to make candles. I have about 25 pounds of mixed beeswax and paraffin left over from my days teaching batik on fabric. (Soy wax is infinitely better as a resist and easier to remove after the batik is done.) Rather than toss it, it occurred to me to make some emergency-type container candles. Summer storm season is here and we always manage to lose power several times a year.

I also ordered a new, larger hard drive for my laptop, but I don’t really think that counts.

5. Cook something. Of course! The spinach and orzo thing I made last week was wonderful, and I’ll post the recipe later. I’m also investigating spelt as an alternative to wheat, and I’ll have much to write about that later.

6. Manage your reserves. Well… I cleaned out the fridge and composted a huge lot of stuff that had gone wonky, which (ahem) doesn’t really count as managing, since the goal is to do useful things with it instead of throwing it away. However, it will feed the worms. And now I have room in the fridge and know I don’t have science experiments growing back there behind the lettuce.

7. Work on local food systems. Didn’t do that either. :: Hangs head ::

So that was my Independence Week, in between work and taking the husband who can’t drive here and there and everywhere for medical appointments. One step at a time…

I’m going to do this every week, most likely on Saturdays, and perhaps you will play along too. The idea is to do something every day or every week to further your sustainable lifestyle, to take one more step toward Food Independence.

It isn’t a contest to see who can do the most. It’s more like a weekly reminder, a deadline to check in with people who will help hold us to our goals, and a place to brag when we did do something above and beyond the ordinary.

Each week, I will try to:

1. Plant something.

2. Harvest something.

3. Preserve something.

4. Prep something. Here’s Sharon’s description of this item:

Hit a yard sale and pick up an extra blanket. Purchase some extra legumes and oatmeal. Sort out and inventory your pantry. Make a list of tools you need. Find a way to give what you don’t need to someone who does. Fix your bike. Fill that old soda bottle with water with a couple of drops of bleach in it. Plan for next year’s edible landscaping. Make back-road directions to your place and send it to family in case they ever need to come to you – or make ‘em for yourself for where you might have to go. Clean, mend, declutter, learn a new skill. Independence is being ready for whatever comes.

5. Cook something. (Shouldn’t be difficult for any of us!)

6. Manage your reserves. This means don’t let the head of lettuce in the fridge go bad, or open a can of something and only use half of it.

7. Work on local food systems. Buy something from a local farmer, or get a new member in your co-op, or spend an hour working in a community garden.

Join me?