2026 Pantry Challenge Week #1

I've been a fan of Three Rivers Homestead on the Tubes for a while now and have followed her annual Pantry Challenge. It's a great way to focus on using up all that you've preserved, stored, dehydrated or frozen. For us, living in the mountains, it's also super beneficial because sometimes we get snowed in and need to rely on what we have on hand because getting to the store can be a bit of a challenge in itself (although, frankly, I'm in walking distance to our little town grocery, so it's not that dire).

As of this writing, we are supposed to get 20 - 30" of snow in the next couple of days, so this week I'll be hunkering down and doing a bit of baking. But, enough about this upcoming week! I started this Pantry Challenge on January 1st, and wanted to give you a report.

But first, the rules I've adapted... I'm allotting us the ability to buy some dairy (milk only) and fresh fruits and vegetables. 

I don't have enough canned or frozen vegetables on hand to last us, although the challenge does make me focus on using up what I do have, which isn't much. We just aren't big canned/frozen vegetable consumers. I'd rather rely on stored onions, garlic, squash, potatoes and sweet potatoes during the winter months and throw in fresh greens and other longer storing vegetables like carrots, parsnips and broccoli. 

I do have a lot of frozen fruit and canned fruit, so we'll be using those up. Which is a good thing, otherwise I'd be ignoring them since, during peak fruit season, I'm apt to just throw stuff in the freezer because it's too hot to process. And then promptly forget about them.

As for the dairy - I'm planning on making my own yogurt during the challenge. I also have a lot of cheese making supplies (aka enzymes and starters) hanging out in the freezer, so I'll be making some soft cheeses as well. Stay tuned for that.

Week 1:

I started off the New Year by making chicken stock out of the roasted chicken that we had for Christmas Day. I had frozen the carcass, along with some other vegetable ends and simmered it in the crockpot. I also soaked some dried red beans overnight to make Hoppin' John for New Years Day dinner. I had defrosted some bacon that's been hiding in the freezer to use as well. And so, for dinner, we had that. We ate this for dinner leftovers the next two nights.

I also defrosted some 5 Seed Whole Wheat bread from the freezer (from a batch I made 2 weeks ago). We used this for toast to go with some jam I've been trying to use up. I also made a big batch of granola to eat for cereal and to go with yogurt (when I make some).

I defrosted some chicken to use in a Chicken Tortilla soup for another dinner. Since I had soaked too many beans for the other night, I simmered the rest of the red beans in leftover chicken stock to use as well. My son had made some pasta sauce that was sitting in the fridge, so I threw that into the crockpot with the rest of the ingredients for the chicken soup, so that didn't go to waste. 

I got a griddle for Christmas, so I decided to make some flatbread to go with the soup and it turned out great. Honestly, it was a naan recipe. I got rid of my tortilla press when we moved and I didn't have the energy that day to make tortillas, so naan it was! And it was a hit. I thought we'd have leftovers of the bread, but they were all eaten. 

Last night, I made a "Hamburger Soup", although it's really just more of an enormous pile of vegetables and ground beef. I made it with some of the chicken stock, some tomatoes and a lot of herbs. I used some of the Yukon Gold potatoes we grew this year that were hiding in the pantry. I dialed back on the amount of broth so it was more of a stew. I thought we'd have leftovers, but it was gone before I knew it. Are you sensing a theme here?

Oh! And the Boil Advisory was lifted Sunday afternoon, so no more of that shenanigans! That added an extra layer as I didn't want to use anything that needed to be rinsed when I was planning dinners. 

I feel like I'm missing a few things - I'll try to keep better track this next week.

How long am I doing the challenge, you ask? I think Jessica runs hers for the months of January and February. My plan is to do at least through January and see where we are. I do have an Azure Standard delivery scheduled for late this month, but I may put it off unless something is on super sale and we absolutely need it. Otherwise, I might just stick to things like more carrots, onions and the like if we're running low (and the snow situation doesn't make it difficult to go pick it up).

No (Potable) Water for the New Year - A Dry Run

Last evening, a water main in town broke, sending a flood of water down the hill into neighbor's homes and flooding the streets, creating a skating rink of ice. When I initially heard about this, I filled a ton of water bottles and glasses on the off-chance that we'd lose access to water. I didn't want to have to dip into our emergency water stores.

Not too long afterwards, we got the warning that the City of Roslyn was under a Boil Advisory. Twenty-four hours later, the water main has been fixed, but we still can't use the water without boiling. We are definitely lucky in that we never lost water or water pressure, most likely because we are above the break. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for many people in town where they had no water or very little water pressure. Or were flooded. A neighboring town offered a water fill-up station for those impacted more than we were.  

All that said, we are still able to run the dishwasher with the "Sanitizing" setting on, run the washing machine and take showers. Although, I felt like we could lose water access at any moment.

I considered this a bit of a dry run, with pretty minimal impact. Others were not so fortunate. But, even just having to boil water to use for drinking water, brushing teeth and cooking was still a reminder that we are always mere minutes away from losing a very valuable and precious resource.

Since we have a ton of snow outside, I took advantage of the fast cooling by putting our pots of boiled water outside on the deck to make the turnaround from boiling to using very quick! Once the water was cooled, I ran it through our pitcher water filter (for good measure) and also to make it easier to pour out of than the pots. 

Worse case scenario if we ran out of water for a more extended period of time? Well, we would have used the water filling station for potable water. Cooking would have been limited to things that needed minimal rinsing. And, if bathing were an issue, I have access at the gym in another town and a ton of body wipes that I have on-hand for use after bike races. 

We do have a year-round natural spring a few miles away with drinkable water if things get super dire. Between that and the water filter (and a more turbo hiking-style water filter) and at least we would have drinkable water. And, that's only if the grocery stores ran dry.

It's not a bad idea to run through the mental exercise of this sort. Because you never know when and/if the SHTF. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal soon, as local businesses had to shut down during this holiday weekend. And, after the water clears, I'm hoping that those impacted by the water running through their properties dry out quickly.

Top 10 Homesteading Goals for 2026

I'm looking forward to some 2026 homesteading goals!

Last year, my son and I put up some permanent deer fencing that's tall enough to keep them out. We've struggled with other solutions over the last 6 years as the deer around here are pretty tenacious and have managed to thwart our previous attempts at keeping them out of the garden with other kind of fencing. That and the elk and the black bears. But, that's another very looong story! But now that it's up, here's what I've got planned...

1. Actually get planting "on time". It's hard to gauge when the snow is finally going to be done around here, but I've got hoops over several of the beds and winter hardy row covers that I'll be using to get the season off right. I amended all the raised beds with seasoned horse manure from the neighbors last year, so it should be even more composted this year.

2. Set up our greenhouse. I bought a greenhouse last year, but between the deer fencing and digging up several beds to plant blueberry and raspberry bushes, I never got around to getting the greenhouse set up. I'll need to dig up a bunch of lawn if I want to plant in there, so this will be my big garden project for 2026. I haven't been successful growing peppers in our climate, so they'll go in there. Tomatoes do alright, but not great so I'm hoping to have a bigger crop this year. If there's space, I'll think about getting sweet potato slips and throw those in there since we eat a lot of sweet potatoes.

3. Use the laundry line. We have one of those old school laundry post and line setups out back with a ton of space for drying, well, pretty much everything. I set up new lines last year, I just need to be better about hauling the laundry in and out from the washing machine. It's amazing how much we save on our electric bill when I'm diligent about it.

4. Set up a few rain barrels. Our roof is metal with no gutters. We get way too much snow for gutters, so it will be a little challenging finding a good place to capture rainwater. There's one spot in the front yard in the driveway that consistently has runoff, but it's not a great place for a rain barrel or for getting it to the garden. I know there are other options out there, so I'll be researching some of those expanding tent-like versions for rainwater capture.  

5. More canning and preserving. I was so busy with the bakery farmstand last year, I missed the opportunity to do some canning that I'd like to get under control this year. I'll be starting with Victorian Rhubarb BBQ sauce and pickled asparagus, but first I need to make some jams from the fruit I froze from last summer. Everything just went into the freezer because I didn't have time to do it at the peak of the season (or it was just too hot to can inside). I also want to dry more herbs this year.

6. Possibly getting chickens or rabbits? I go through this every year. Perhaps 2026 is the year we go this route. I did raise quail from eggs a few years ago (more on that in a future post). 

7. Partner with other homesteaders. I have a friend that has a large homestead with goats, chickens and horses. We've been talking for years about doing another project together. She's my egg supplier for the bakery farmstand, but maybe there's goat cheese in our future!

8. Make more, instead of buying pre-made. This applies not only to the food we are eating, but to the other products we use (like dishwasher detergent and laundry soap). I'd like to reduce the amount of pre-packaged food coming into the house, but that requires turning "ingredients" into something my kids will consume. I'm the primary cook/baker in the house (which I like), but I need to be more on top of this.

9. Go in on a pig or beef share. Since I've co-opted my bakery fridge into a freezer, I have space to store more meat. And, because Ellensburg (a few miles east of us) has quite a number of ranches, I should take advantage of getting locally raised meat.

10. Add another raised bed. (And clean up some other plots.) I've dug up the sod for a raised bed, but I just need to build another 8'x4' frame for it and fill it. That part always seems daunting, so I keep putting it off! 

Looking back at my Homesteading Goals for 2012, it's funny how not much has changed! (I even borrowed the photo I took from back then when I did our last pig share.) The location has changed from Seattle to Central WA, so the challenges are different. But the goals remain the same!

Growing Microgreens in a Lettuce Container

When the Christmas tree comes down, the Aerogarden goes up!

A couple years ago, I bought an Aerogarden to grow food inside during the cold winter months and, mostly, to cheer myself up during the bleak January and February months when the snow outside starts getting tiresome and the desire to see pavement again takes over. And, let's face it, the Aerogarden lights act as sort of a light therapy even though they are a weird, alien hue.

This year, I'll be adding something new to the mix. I'm going to try growing microgreens in an old lettuce container. I looked into growing microgreens for sale last spring when I was running my farmstand. Long-story short... trying to keep vegetables from wilting at the farmstand and/or keeping them in a cooler just resulted in a lot of vegetables I had to throw away. So I just stuck with baked goods. 

Anyhoo, I bought some microgreens seeds to play around with but never used (I've got another packet hiding around here somewhere). What better time but the present! My plan is to use one of those plastic lettuce containers with the lid as a little greenhouse to get things started. I may even bust out my seed warming mat for good luck. I'll use a seed starting mix and keep it moist until it sprouts, and then harvest when they are about 2 inches tall.

For those of you who saw my posts on the indoor mushroom growing thing a few winters ago, let's hope it goes better. What happened with the shiitakes, you ask? Well, I quickly learned no one in our house likes shiitakes. A crime, I know! But I, personally, just couldn't force myself to eat that many and didn't want to go through the trouble to dehydrate them for later use when no one likes them. So they ended up growing something... unnatural. Well, probably natural in the fungus world, but not something I wanted to eat. Not that I wanted to eat them in the first place. But, I did produce a ton.

Which is to say - I'm hoping to not experience some extra weird growths with the microgreens! I'll do a follow-up post once I've run this experiment. And, I'll post on how my Aerogarden is doing, what I like to grow and what successfully grows. Because, if history repeats itself, I'll have a bumper crop there as well.

Affiliate links
Here are the Aerogarden and other stuffs I'm using:

Aerogarden Bounty Basic - Indoor Garden with LED Grow Light

Aerogarden Mixed Lettuce Seed Pods
Aerogarden Pesto Basil Seed Pod Kit (the basil grows like crazy)

Vivosun Durable Waterproof Seedling Heat Mat - These work like a charm (I have 5 of them for my seed starting rack)

Digging out of the snow - when to call for help

We got 14 inches of snow the other night. They had predicted 1" - 3" so I wasn't fully prepared for the level of digging required. Normally, if I know there's going to be a ton of snow, I'll start parking my car closer to the street. But, oh no, not Friday night. I figured it was safe to pull closer in towards the house.

Saturday morning, we woke up to a surprise. Well, around here, a foot of snow isn't too surprising. Usually my son can help but he had to go to work, so the focus was digging out the car he drives and getting him down the hill using the first pass the city snowplow made. 

So, while he did that (apparently, I was in the way), I worked on shoveling the deck, the stairs, the walkways and, finally, my own car. Fortunately, the snow was light and fluffy so it could have been a lot worse. About midway through, when I realized that I still had a looooong way to get the driveway cleared to the road, I decided to, basically, just get everything ready to be plowed by someone else. No sense in breaking my back hand shoveling when I could hire someone to come and do a job that would only take 10 - 15 minutes using the right equipment. Plus, the city plow was due to come by and create the street side berm of ice and snow that is notoriously difficult to move.

If Henry were around, we probably could have made short work of it. And, even if we both shoveled for another hour or so, it wouldn't resolve the issue that we'd be pretty much berming ourselves into 2 narrow parking spots. So, when the hired big guns arrived later that night at 5 pm (basically a truck with a plow attached to the front), I instructed them to push all the snow to both sides of our double lot, creating a massive parking pad. This way, if we get more snowstorms, we're not trying to shovel above our piles, like has happened in the past.

I don't own an expensive diesel chomping snow-annihilator like some of my neighbors. I have a super environmentally friendly, battery powered snowblower that works on powdery snow, less than 3 inches deep. And, honestly, it really only works well on flat pavement, not on sloped gravel. It's actually less physical effort to hand shovel than use this thing. This is where I get punished for being an environmentalist. But, it's one of the trade-offs for living in the mountains. The city has been good about clearing and sanding the roads. As long as you can get to the roads. (The street berm is another story.)

Which leads us to the final point... why don't I just park in the street and then move the cars around when the city snow plows? Because doing the vehicle shuffle is far more stressful - you never know when the plow is going to come by, and I'd rather suffer with shoveling to have access to my driveway up to my house by putting in the effort. I just chalk up the 1 - 2 times a year I need to call for help as a cost of living here. It can get rather pricey (this year's was pretty high compared to previous ones), but considering it was expedited and they had been plowing since 5 am (with another 10 houses to go), I'm not complaining one bit. 

P.S. I really was tempted to title this blog post, "Getting Plowed - 14 inches of the good stuff", but I figure I already get enough Web traffic looking for weird content than I need.

Affiliate links

Once I get my act together, I'll be putting out our Heat Trak melting mats, once I can find the power unit (no one seems to know where it ran off to). But these are the ones I use and they work amazingly well to keep down the shoveling! Oh, and BTW, I bought these over several years as they aren't cheap but they work better than the inexpensive ones.

Heat Trak Heated Melting Mats Walkway Edition
Heat Trak Heated Melting Mats Stairs Edition
Heat Trak Heated Melting Mats Door Edition

Where have I been - again?

Hallo! I can't believe it's been over 3 years since I last posted. Time really flies when you get distracted doing other things. For those of you who don't follow me on social media (primarily Facebook - and not that I've posted much on there either), here's a bit of a rundown on what's been going on in my life:

1. I started up a cottage bakery and farm stand, selling mostly bread and cookies and some other bakery doo-dads that I felt like making (like the Kouign Amann pictured to the right). I did this in fits and starts for a couple years. It was very popular, but I found it to be challenging to physically meet the demand in my home kitchen, especially during the summer months when it got too hot. So... I've sunset that business in the past few months.

2. I'm still homesteading, preserving, growing and canning as much as I am able to and when I have the gumption to. I'm hoping to blog about some of the improvements my son and I have made to our garden space.

3. Both my kids still live at home. It's been a blessing having them here with me and I appreciate their company and help. I'll be posting about the benefits of having adult kids living at home (22 and 23), both from a financial perspective and others as well as the social criticisms. More on that later.  

4. A few years ago, I started the first draft of a book, Rusty Quail Farm: Losing My Mind in the Mountains, about my adventures out here in the mountains of the Central Cascades. It covered how challenging it is to grow food in this environment, particularly in light of the weather and animals. My publisher told me that that kind of book just doesn't compete anymore with the like of video content and wasn't what they were publishing these days. I feel a bit like I missed the boat, but to be honest, I have a lot more content to add since I started the draft and I might just self-publish. I think it's pretty freaking hilarious so maybe I'll jump back on that bandwagon.

Honestly, I haven't been blogging much because I really felt like there's not much reach with blogging anymore. Obviously, things have changed since I started back in 2007 and YouTube and social media have altered the landscape of how people get information. 

But, that said, even though I don't post anymore, I was surprised to see that my blog still gets over 70,000 hits a month. And, that's just on my old, crusty content. So, perhaps there's an appetite for my nonsense mental meanderings after all. 

Stay tuned...

Christmas Shroom Growing Challenge!

Since we're already under several inches of snow, with more to come this week, fall/winter gardening is pretty much not happening, even for the kind of crops I used to grow in Seattle.

I've been thinking of growing mushrooms again, and the 15% off sale today from Territorial Seeds is giving me a kick in the pants to do it. Shiitake mushrooms are about $25/lb in our area (especially for organic ones) so I usually don't splurge on them and get crimini instead, which I really love. But shiitake just has a really great flavor and texture!

Anyone want to join in on a Christmas Shroom Growing Challenge? I'll be posting my shroomin' progress and harvest weigh ins. I want to see how other people have success with all the varietals out there, so feel free to get something besides shiitake! I'll probably order two kits and, if there's surplus, I'll put them in the dehydrator and save them for when the kits run their course.

Use the code TSC10 to get an additional 10% off! (No affiliations)

https://territorialseed.com/.../products/mushroom-shiitake

Affiliate links
These are the storage bins and other stuffs I'm using to grow the mushrooms:

Sterilite 16 Quart Basic Clear Storage Box with White Lid
Organic Perlite for Indoor Plants

Pasco Flea Market and first of the season asparagus!

The first time we went to the Pasco Flea Market in the Tri Cities was last July, on our way back from a biking vacation. We ended up touring through the market with our gravel bikes, so it was a little difficult to navigate the busy stalls and really get a chance to look through everything. So, when the opportunity to go back this past weekend arose, we jumped at the chance, dreaming of giant gorditas and all the other tasty flavors we experienced last summer. And, for me, the opportunity to pick up some early season fresh picked local asparagus was enough to embark on the trip! Mostly because I don't like to eat asparagus unless it's in season and local and when it is, I eat A LOT of it. And, since I recently found out my son loves asparagus too, I was hoping they would have some.

One thing we didn't exactly remember was how far away Pasco is from Roslyn. For some reason, we thought it was just past Yakima, so about an hour or so away. Not quite. It's 2.5 hours one-way. But, we decided we'd make a day of it and check out the sights along the way. One weird roadside stop was the Teapot Dome Historical Site in Zillah, WA. Most of our stops involved restrooms and this one was no different except the fact that it's a pretty scenic little stop with some history involving a scandal, which I won't go into here. But, needless to say, any highway rest stop with a photo-worthy shot not involving the toilets is a good one. 

The Tri Cities area is well known for its asparagus and many of you have probably heard of the Walla Walla, Washington asparagus crops. I have friends who grew up in Pasco that picked asparagus as kids, alongside many family members. So, it was with great excitement as we walked into the market and first off saw the one vendor selling asparagus! I dutiful declared that we absolutely had to stop by on the way back out.

As we wended our way through the many stalls, we made a note of which food vendors we were going to hit up after we toured the entirety of the market. After picking up a few items, we ended up stopping for elote tamales, gorditas gigantes, churros, horchata and nances, which are small yellow fruit that look like a cherry, have the texture of an olive and with a sweet flavor almost reminiscent of coconut and I'm not sure what else.

When we finally rolled out of the flea market, we stopped to buy some asparagus that looked like it had just been picked. I thought I bought a lot, but somehow we managed to eat all of it by the end of the weekend. I'm really wishing I had gotten way more than we did, but I was afraid it would be too much. Boy was I wrong. Fresh asparagus is just so much more amazing and crisp than asparagus that was picked weeks before and shipped to languish at the grocery store.

Saturday night, we simply grilled some asparagus with olive oil, salt and pepper and served it with grilled hangar steaks that we had gotten in Seattle the day before. And coupled it all with some amazing rye bread I picked up at the German store in Burien. Sunday night, I ended up making some pasta with a nutmeg cream sauce, topped with roasted asparagus. It was a super simple, easy-to-make meal, but was one of the best vegetarian ones I've had in a while! I'm looking forward to the upcoming season of asparagus, especially since my friend now has ducks and I have access to fresh duck eggs. Fried duck eggs and grilled or roasted asparagus with shaved parmesan is another one of my spring time favorites!

Do you have a favorite asparagus dish you look forward to eating each spring?  

Where have I been?

Wow! I can't believe it's been over two years since I've posted here, but I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone too much. I've only posted a couple times on Facebook in the intervening time and I've been mostly laying low during this whole pandemic business. 

Biking in the Teanaway

What have I been up to? Well, I didn't do much in the way of homesteading last year for a couple reasons. First, the deer here have been overly snacky on anything I grow and I haven't gotten around to creating barriers to the deer that will still make it easy for me to manage growing anything. Last year, the bed covers I created just meant it was a barrier to both the deer and me to getting at the garden. I'm hoping to change that this spring.

Second, I picked up a new hobby since moving out here that takes up a lot of my time and, frankly, my energy. I've been doing a tremendous amount of gravel biking in the area during the warm months and a similar amount of bike training indoors during the cold months. I really wanted to test and see how much I could gain in power focusing on it and so that didn't leave much energy for large garden projects. 

This year I want to have more balance. Still gravel biking, but also homesteading. And that's why I'm posting again. History has shown that I tend to pop on to my blog and post just as fast as I pop back off. So, I can't really promise anything. But if people are interested in reading what goofy things I'm up to, I'm happy to write them up! 

We're having an incredibly slow start to the growing season here, more so than usual. This winter we had a tremendous amount of snow fall in January and not much after that. Of course, now that I'm gunning to start growing we are expecting a snow storm again. Such is mountain life. So, I'm using the time to assess any damage from our record breaking snow, clean up the garden, start prepping beds and do some planning. And I've got a few other crazy things up my sleeve.

I was thinking of just posting on my Facebook page, but every time I want to explain what I'm doing, the posts get too long and I don't want to cut it short or torture people on social media with overly lengthy posts!

Anyway, if anyone is still out there reading, let me know!

Growing an All You Can Eat Salad Bar

So much extra space on my double lot!

I moved us out to Roslyn last year for a variety of reasons, the biggest one was to be more self-sufficient and independent of financial constraints. Living in Seattle was doable with two tech incomes but after my late husband passed away and I was laid off, spending $3,000 a month on a mortgage felt obscene.

My two kids and I didn't need a house that big and I'd rather live in a smaller house on more usable land. Living in such an expensive area with horrible traffic and homelessness was becoming less appealing. And, since both my kids were homeschooling and I (up until the lay off) was telecommuting, I couldn't justify staying in Seattle any longer.

Since we've moved, my daughter started attending the local alternative high school and my son started his first job working in a local restaurant and graduates high school this spring. I walked away from the tech world and have been doing some part-time work in town for the bookstore/coffee shop. Both my son and I walk to work - I think I've filled up my gas tank three times since we moved here. The change in all of us has been quite huge given the strain that we've lived under for so many years, dealing with the specter of cancer. I don't believe we would have thrived as much if we continued living in Seattle.

Berry and asparagus patch

Moving to a mountain town has given us a vastly different environment with months on end of snow, but it is melting out and it feels like spring is coming fast! Along that vein I've brushed off the seed catalogs and we've started building and planning out what is to become what I hope to be a garden that will feed us through the spring, summer and fall and, with careful planning, freezing and canning, through the winter as well. Eventually I'd like chickens again, but we'll see about that.

This last week we started building out the beds and I purchased my favorite varietals of thornless raspberries and blackberries and some blueberries. I also picked up some purple asparagus and a number of different potato seed. My seed stock is complete and my biggest challenges at this point are:

1. Learning the new environment, microclimates in my yard and growing season (it's super short)
2. Dealing with different pests (bug, bird and mammalian)
3. Figuring out what grows well here and what doesn't (I'll have some experimental garden sections going)
4. Building out the rest of the garden
5. Determining how much coal in your garden beds is a bad thing (we live in an old coal mining town)

I'll keep trying to post on what we're doing and building. I'm hoping to address the coronavirus aspect of things in a near future post, especially given the fact we live in a state with things shutting down quickly. I'm dusting off my Adapting in Place hat and will share what we're doing along those lines as well.

It's hard to see what's going on in the pictures - I'll be posting more close up ones so you can tell what I'm doing a little better. I generally post more stuff on Facebook and Instagram than I do here, but I'll try to be more consistent.

Starting a community composting and recycling company

Don't just sit there like a bump on a log, Mark Twain, 1863 
I mentioned in a previous post, Going Zero Waste, that, since moving to a different town, I've been frustrated by the lack of recycling and municipal composting options. For starters, there's no curbside recycling pickup. This is manageable because the transfer station for recycling drop off is relatively close to my house. The downside is that the recycling options are fairly abysmal - meaning, there's no paper, glass or plastic recycling (except soda bottles).

Time to Study!

Additionally, there's no curbside yard waste or food waste pickup. There is free yard waste recycling at the transfer station. However, you have to have the right kind of vehicle to successfully drop off the kind of yard waste most households tend to generate. In other words, my tiny Fiat, Luigi, can't help out here. And, there is no food waste composting allowed.

What's a poor environmentalist to do under such circumstances? Well, if you're a Crunchy Chicken, you start your own community Food Waste Composting and Recycling company! We're very much in the early days, but I'll be chronicling what we're up to.

How did this start?
One of my neighbors, Brian, saw my post on feeding my downed apples to my friend's pigs and reached out to me to discuss what work he was doing in the community with harvesting fruit for local food banks and what to do with food waste. We spent a lot of time discussing the above mentioned issues and, over the last month, have started planning and framing out a business plan. We're also meeting with quite a number of members of the community who are very interested and want to participate in some capacity, either by using our services, or helping us with their ideas.

The plan
Right now, we're looking into several different sites. One for a drop-off demonstration food waste composting site and the second for a much larger composting operation. We're also researching our options for providing recycling pickup to residents.

At this point, we're initially planning on offering curbside food waste pickup to residents of Roslyn for a monthly fee, with the option of receiving back finished compost. There's also the option for food waste drop-off at the demonstration site for those outside our service area. In the future, the plan is to sell compost at the local farmers market as well as at a local retailer.

"Fruit Waste to Farms"

We'll also be working with local farmers starting this spring to develop a program for connecting chicken and pig farmers with downed fruit this summer. There are so many fruit trees in this town and the amount of downed fruit generated is rather shocking.

I'd much rather have food get consumed by animals first, with composting food scraps second. I'm calling it our "Fruit Waste to Farms" program and would love to have participants in the program who are donating their fruit receive eggs or meat as part of the service. 

Finally, we'd like to offer glass recycling pickup while we are at it. I'm working with my contacts in Solid Waste for becoming a glass recycling supplier, but that plan is further out. Ideally, we'd also like to provide recycling pickup options while we're picking up in the neighborhood. And, eventually, pickup by bicycle or a used cooking oil biofuel truck is on the horizon.

What's next?
Like I said, we're still very much in the planning stage and getting our ideas and services lined up. We're hoping to be offering services starting in February of 2020. There's a lot of work to be done, but I'll be keeping you posted on the nitty gritty here.

If you want to follow our Facebook page, you can do so here at SwiftCycle Composting Company.

Grieving through the holidays

Hank's guitars standing watch

Last year we didn't celebrate any holidays after my late husband passed away. It was just too difficult. So, for Halloween we turned off all the lights and watched a movie in the basement, avoiding the hundreds of trick-or-treaters we normally see in our neighborhood. Thanksgiving was a family get-together but, instead of traditional fare, we did a huge taco bar and otherwise sat around and visited. It was the perfect alternative.

We didn't put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, which was our tradition. Nobody could bear the thought of going through the 28+ years of Christmas ornaments we had collected together. Instead, I semi-decorated a large tropical palm tree with non-Christmasy lights and called it good. It felt festive without the emotional drain. And for Christmas, well, the kids got gifts throughout December rather than a Christmas morning extravaganza. It would be too heartrendingly obvious that someone was missing.

I wanted things to be different this year. New house, new community. We celebrated the 20+ kids that came to our house for Halloween and, for Thanksgiving, had family and new neighbors over for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Again, it was perfect. My daughter remarked the day after that she had a really great time but couldn't shake the feeling that it didn't feel like Thanksgiving. Then it dawned on her that it didn't feel like Thanksgiving because something was missing, her Dad was missing.

Yesterday, I put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, as was our family tradition. I didn't realize how incredibly hard that was going to be. We've had this fake tree since 2007, the year my late husband was diagnosed with cancer. The year I started this blog. He was too sick to help carry a real tree that year, so we bought a floor model artificial Christmas tree and have used it sporadically since then, depending on how sick he was.

Stein Haus Pub!

He was the one that always put on the lights and the garland and the kids and I would put on the ornaments. This year I did it mostly myself, with my son putting on the ornaments they had gotten over the years. I'm not going to lie, it was much more emotionally difficult than I was expecting. Afterwards, my daughter and I went out to buy a few new ornaments for the tree, as is our tradition. We bought some to represent our new home and community and then spent a few hours talking at our new favorite coffee shop, to help process.

Christmas hadn't been "normal" around our house for years. My late husband was in the hospital from Thanksgiving to New Years in 2016, on one of his many horrific brushes with death. That was the one and only time my daughter visited him during his hospital stays. One which she regrets - it was just too hard to see him so sick, so depressed and in a unit where people went in, but generally didn't come back out. And, it was Christmas. He should have been at home.

In 2017, he was home but enduring another round of illness from his stem cell transplant and, shortly after, went blind as the stem cells attacked his eyes. He really never recovered from that post-transplant graft in 2016. After that, we all just muddled along, enduring the massive ups-and-downs from his cancer, the treatments, the effects on his body and waiting for the inevitable.

You really don't recognize how much stress you're under while you're in it. What I call "Cancer PTSD" is real and we're all slowly coming out of that, but it will take years. You never know when grief, mourning and loss will hit you as it did while I was putting the garland on the tree. Holidays will always be hard. My kids will always be grieving the fact their father is gone. I'm hoping that, at least, moving forward with our family traditions and starting new ones will help us all heal.

Community service and litter pick up

Now that I'm getting settled into my new neighborhood, I've taken on a few challenges to not only connect with my community but to give back what I can based on my own background, skills and interests. I'll discuss all that I'm doing over the next few posts.

Sunday garbage walk

One thing we've been doing over the last several months is a bimonthly Sunday morning garbage pickup walk. Since we live in a town that is heavily visited by tourists, hosts a lot of events and has several profile bars and saloons in the area, we tend to get a lot of late night littering. It's pretty unfortunate, but a lot more manageable than the trash piles in Seattle after a Saturday night.

So, every other Sunday (or thereabouts) when we head out on our walk with the dogs, we pick up all the garbage we run across. Dan mostly does all the picking up (rather than me) because he has an inordinate amount of energy and a much less finicky back than I do.

Up all night to get lucky

This last weekend, we picked up two large garbage bags full of mostly beer cans, bottles and miscellaneous other junk (apparently mini bottles of fireball are a crowd pleaser). We empty the garbage in city garbage cans as we pass by, refilling as we go along. Dan started bringing disposable gloves to keep the ick factor down.

Case in point was the pair of underwear we found in the alley behind the main street restaurants. Someone either had a lucky or very unlucky Saturday night!

It's actually quite amazing what a huge difference spending an hour picking up garbage in a small town can make. Dan used to do the same thing in the Ballard area of Seattle, but it hardly made a dent. Which is why doing it here is so satisfying especially since it takes so little effort.

He gets all the credit for this! I'm really just along for the ride, pointing out what I spot and providing some encouragement (although I'm the one who needs it when faced by angry dogs in alleyways). But I do get the satisfaction of helping keep our small town looking well cared by pitching in and helping as a supplement to what the city does to keep it clean!

Seasonal Living: Finishing the pigs

Apple snack!

A lot of what I try to incorporate into my life can be described as "seasonal living" and by that I mean that I try to take advantage of what's available each season not only from a local food perspective but from a cultural calendar as well. Heading into mid fall is a time of wrapping up production of fruit trees for the year and, for many people, it means processing and finishing up animals for slaughter.

This year I've tried to couple the two. I have friends (Eve and Nick) who live in Ellensburg and used to be my next door neighbors in Seattle. They are one of the reasons I moved out to the area because they planted the seed in my head of living on this side of the mountains when they moved to Cle Elum in 2016. Now that they live in Ellensburg, they have a mini farm complete with chickens, goats, a steer and four pigs (Idaho Pastures). 

Apples and pumpkins

I don't remember how we got on the topic of picking up all of our downed apples (both from my two trees and Dan's) and the neighbor's pears to finish their pigs, but they've made a number of trips to Roslyn to collect fallen apples and pears and, most recently, I saved all the pumpkin guts and pumpkins from our Halloween carvings. I don't have composting set up yet and it kills me to throw any of this in the garbage, so it's been a great exchange. The pigs are more than happy to eat the apples and pumpkins and the yard gets cleared of ankle snapping apples. It's a huge win! 

Doe eating apples

The only critters unhappy about the situation are the deer who have made it a habit of routinely (like 4 times a days), jumping the fence into my yard to eat fallen apples. Friday night they jumped the fence while we were sitting by the fire, playing music and making a considerable amount of noise. It was a little unnerving, but they just stood there and stared at us for a few minutes before jumping back over the fence and going elsewhere. At least the black bears aren't as brazen.

My friends will probably make one more trip to clear the ground at Dan's place and mine before the pigs are processed. They are not sure if they will be raising pigs again next year but, if they do, I hope we can help by supplying them with more apples and any other extra garden produce we can't eat or preserve. In the meantime, the local deer, bear and elk populations will help with clearing the rest of the yard.

Natural flooring - no chemicals needed! Part 2

In Part 1 of my posts on natural flooring, I discussed what we unearthed underneath the carpeting on the main level of my new house. Glorious Douglas Fir floors (read the linked post to find out what I ended up doing with them)!  I was not so lucky upstairs.

Original carpeting (and staging)

Underneath the carpeting and the carpet pad in the bedroom, bonus room and bathroom upstairs was plywood. It's entirely possible that there was some fir floor lurking underneath there but, without pulling it all up, we wouldn't have know the condition of the flooring and figured it was best left to the plywood. So, what kind of flooring would I replace the carpet with?

More carpeting? No, I'm not a fan of carpet. But, that wasn't the only reason I pulled out the carpet in my bedroom upstairs in the first place. The house had been used as a VRBO rental for a number of years and the carpet and pad not only had the distinct smell of dog pee, but the visual evidence as well. We cleaned the plywood as best we could and let it air out in the late August heat in preparation for replacing the flooring.

Cork samples

When I went to Greenhome Solutions to buy Tung oil and citrus solvent for finishing the downstairs rooms (see Part 1), I started checking out their cork options and loved that they carried long "boards" of cork (3' x 1'), rather than the squares I had seen.

I had been looking into a variety of other "wood" flooring options, some of them not so eco-friendly, but after spending some time in Greenhome, I made the decision to use only as natural and non-offgassing products in my house as possible. My Non-Toxic Avenger neurons went all tingly and I was absolutely determined to not make any compromises with what I was choosing. I was totally pumped!

Bonus room

After little contemplation, I went with the Wicanders Floating Cork Flooring, primarily because I loved its looks and its street cred. It's made in Portugal and is Greenguard Gold Certified. I bought a wool underlayment as well. The price wasn't that dramatically different than other flooring either, so why not choose warm, soft cork that is super sustainable?

Installation was a little challenging. It really took two people to install - one holding up the previous board and the other tapping in the next board. It certainly wasn't nearly as easy as other click-lock type flooring systems. I'm not going to understate it - there was a ton of frustration putting it in. But, we managed to install the entire upstairs bedroom and bonus room plus the bathroom.

Tiny bath

The bathroom was more challenging due to the space limitations. Dan worked on that one himself (he is a professional, after all), so I was more than happy to let him deal with all the cutting to fit around the toilet, doorways and other quirks that I wouldn't know how to deal with.

I'm super pleased with how the flooring turned out. Honestly, we almost gave up after the first couple of hours, but we managed to figure out how to install it, working as a team. Yay team! The cork gives the room a wonderful warmth to the floor, which is super important now that temperatures are in the 20s/30s. It is so soft to walk on, yet still durable enough to take a beating from dog nails and general wear and tear. It's naturally mold and mildew resistant and anti-microbial.

How is cork sustainable?

Chillin' in my corky crib

Cork is a plant material derived from the bark of the cork oak tree and is generally produced in Portugal. Cork, actually the bark, harvesting is an environmentally friendly process that's done without cutting down or destroying a single tree.

The cork oak tree must be at least 20 - 25 years old before the first cut is made to its bark and, after that, the cork can only be extracted once every 9 years. These trees live upwards of 250 years, continually regenerating bark. Cork flooring itself is actually a recycled by-product of cork bottle stoppers.

If you're in the market for flooring, I highly recommend cork!

I'll be finishing out Part 3 of this series next week when I write about how we tackled the hallway downstairs. You know, the one where the laminate was glued directly on to the Douglas Fir flooring (sacrilege!).