Cherry Picking plus some Raspberries

A blog in pictures of our Cherry Picking and Raspberry hunting adventure! Plus a video at the end. Enjoy.

Round-Up?

Jacob and I have really been giving thought and much discussion about GMO's (genetically modified organisms) and there role in our food shed. Most americans, myself included had NO idea that our food has been altered. GMO corn is bread to withstand being sprayed with round-up. Yes that's right, the herbicide that kills ALL broad leaf weeds. I think I have some in my garage in fact (better get rid of that, an organic urban farmer does not have round-up in there garage. In any case the corn is sprayed with round up to reduce the weeds growing in between the rows of corn. Not only is corn sprayed but many plants. I am going to try my best to get ahold of this documentary in titled "The World according to Monsanto." Monsanto is one of the leading seed producers in the world.

Imagine one company owning all the seeds in the world. No need for guns or bombs, starvation works just fine in controlling the world. I know I'm getting kinda dark so I'll leave it there. But here is a video clip from the documentary I mentioned. It is worth some thought.

Water Footprint

Inspired by a blog I read entitled Crunchy Chicken. Her most recent post discusses your water footprint. Intrigued I decided to see how we compare. First off I dug out our most recent water bill. For the month of 5/12 through 6/11 exactly 30 days we used 586 cubic feet of water. This includes watering our garden, lawn, and inside water usage. In Crunchy Chickens blog she states that the average american uses about 100 gallons of water per day. My first thought was YEAH! we only used 586 in a month! But that would be wrong, cubic feet is not the same as gallons. So I googled cubic feet to gallons, and google provided me with this: 1 cubic foot = 7.48051 gallons. Ok so I took my 586 cubic feet of water used in a month and divided it by the 30 days to get my daily average of cubic feet of water used. 586 / 30 = 19.533 but now according to google I have to multiply those lovely 19.533 cubic feet of water by 7.48051 to get gallons. So 19.533 x 7.48051 = 146 gallons per day. But that number should be divided by the 2 people who live here. So 146 gallons / 2 people = 73 gallons per person! WOO HOO below the average american of 100 gallons per day! That is exciting.

Now Jacob and I did this comparison about a week ago and were shocked to see what we have done. So Now let's figure out how wasteful we were last year at this exact time.

Ready for this....

2845 cubic feet of water used same number of days, same month in 2007! OMG!!! That is some green lawn we had! I wonder if thats why our lawn is brown?

Lets figure the gallons!!!

2845 / 30 = 94.8 cubic feet per day x 7.48051 to get gallons = 709 gallons per day / 2 people = 354.5 gallons per day per person!

That is a savings of 281.5 gallons per day per person from last year!




What have we done?

1. Water lawn 1" of water per week, that is usually about 40 minutes to an hour. ONLY once per week. Yes your lawn will turn brown, but it is going dormant it's not dead it will green up when it starts raining and cooling down. (Water your plants normally)

2. Flush your toilets less (yes it's kinda eww gross) but the as the rhyme goes "if it's yellow let it mellow if it's brown flush it down!"

3. Is that shirt really dirty? Wear again, it reduces the laundry by half! I'm not talking undies and sweaty socks but shirts, jeans, shorts and skirts do they really have to be one wear only?

4. Back to the toilets: Add 16 oz. or bigger glass if you have it, with rocks, water or a mixture of them, here is a picture of our toilet with 2 glass jars filled with small rocks and water. Thus reducing the volume of water with each flush of the toilet.

5. Build a rain barrel, ours are already constructed and in place. But we will be doing some at my parents house and we'll post the how-to when we do that.

6. Remember to turn off the water when: you brush your teeth, wash the dishes (don't have the rinse water on constantly), shaving in the shower or out. Be conscience of the water around you, it like gasoline is in limited supply.

For more information visit Water Footprint.

Chickens

We've decided to become backyard chicken owners. With our garden and sizable back yard space we figured it is time to take a hand in "growing" our own eggs. Organic, Free-range, happy chickens! It has been in the discussions for some time now. Weighing the pros and cons of raising a backyard flock. Happily we are going to go for it! Our first decision, what breed? Doing the homework... and not getting sucked into "which one's are pretty" we've decided on Buff Orpingtons.


They are a dual purpose breed, by that I mean meat and eggs. They do well in cold weather due to there size and have calm and friendly personalties. I really enjoyed this gals description and pictures of her (as Jacob puts it) BO's.

Buff Orpingtons at Backyard chickens.

The other contender was a Rhode Island Red, but we opted for the blondes. Kai being the only blonde in the house was out numbered. That is about to change!

We ordered our girls through My Pet Chicken.

The coop for these girls is under construction and we will be posting it in stages.

Our day at Green Bluff strawberry u-pick

Yesterday was so productive! But there is still so much left to do that it doesn't seem that way. But I am only going to touch on the strawberry picking we did. Jacob and I including Mom and Dad went up to Green Bluff yesterday to a u-pick strawberry field.

Us riding the tractor wagon down to the field.

Mom and Dad on the wagon! 

We got our boxes and crates and off we went! The instructor told us that the back field was just opened up if we wanted to hike way back there. Of course WAY back there was relative, it wasn't far but most people chose to stay on the lower acres of fields. Jacob and I took off in search for riper strawberries.

Jacob in the field, in the distance you can see the buildings we left and the lower strawberry fields it wasn't really that far.

Me in search of the perfect little gem. I honestly felt like I was stealing little ruby's! 

After we got our loot it was time for a pit stop and ice cream. The Harvest House, which is like the main building. They have the best ice cream! Jacob had Huckleberry, I had Vanilla, Mom had Chocolate, and Dad had Cookies and Cream. Us relaxing and using the ice cream cone as a microphone, we were singing with the band!  

After all the fun was had we journeyed  home, we forgot to have Mom and Dad take a picture of us with our loot of gems, so we set the timer and did it ourselves. Us with our strawberries. Which cost 1.09 / lb. a total of  $26 and some change. We picked 23 lbs. of strawberries. It is time to learn how to make jam!