A Nice Barter Arrangement

With the beginning of cold weather, I've been reaching for canning jars of homemade chicken stock a lot lately.  So much so that I'm completely out, not only of chicken stock, but of any stock whatsoever.  I don't like being without this building block of good soup, which is so fortifying at this time of year.  I have a few carcasses from roasted chickens saved in our freezer, but I know they're not going to make as much stock as I'd like to be putting up right now.  Buying commercial stock, even the organic brand that I used to buy, just isn't on my radar these days.  As anyone who's made their own knows, store-bought stock just doesn't hold a candle to homemade.

So I started looking through the market lists of the grass-based farms in my area.  Even though I'm fully aware of how much work goes into raising healthy, ethical food, I'm still often initially surprised by the prices of animal products from these businesses.  My next thoughts are always the same: the prices are fair, given what I know about labor and materials costs for this type of production, and given the methods they employ which show a proper respect for the environment; and to boot, none of these farmers are getting rich on the prices they're charging for the foods they offer.  Still, when I saw the price of the chicken backs and bones from other animals that I would need for making stock, I decided to try a different tack.

I asked my Farming Friend whether she might be interested in bartering finished stock for the bones to make it, a 50-50 split.  I know she likes to cook with stock, but she's a very busy woman, and I figured she wouldn't mind having someone else do the work.  As it turned out, the offer was especially attractive to her, because she doesn't have time to do the canning.  She has typically frozen her stock, but that ends up using too much of her freezer space, which is at a premium for the meats that she sells.  So I told her I'd be happy to make and can as much stock as she has bones for over the winter months.  It's a win for me because I get free bones and I can do this work when the demands of the garden and livestock are minimal.  As a bonus, the heat generated by the roasting, simmering, and canning processes will be most welcome in the house at this time of year.  She has agreed to return the canning jars and the re-usable lids and rings that I use.  And she'll send lamb and goat bones my way any time she has them on the same barter basis.

I'm always so tickled when things like this work out - a benefit for both parties.  I trust her to produce good, clean food.  She trusts me produce tasty and safely canned stock.  I call that win-win any day, and I'd like there to be more bartering in my life.  It's something I sometimes feel shy about proposing to people, even though no one has ever seemed offended by the idea of barter. 

I'd be curious to hear about any barter arrangements you have.  If you barter, were you the one to propose the exchange?  Have you ever been turned down on an offer to barter?  Any tips on how to successfully arrange bartering agreements?

Favors & Rewards, Or, Why It's Good to Know Your Food Network

Free salmon

So farming friend called me up Wednesday night and inquired about the state of my chest freezer. Was there, perhaps, room in there for 50 pounds of salmon filets? See, she runs a monthly on-farm market during the winter season when the local farmer's markets don't operate. She invites a few choice vendors to show up and sell their goods, but also will sell the products of a few other local vendors. One of those products is wild caught Alaskan sockeye salmon. The couple that sells this delectable treat maintains a fishing license and a fishing boat in Alaska, and that's how they spend their summers. The quality is outstanding, and as carbon footprints go for fish, this is pretty light on the earth.

So farming friend needed another couple cases of the filets to be ready for her on-farm market this weekend. But she has a day job, and no one was going to be at her farm yesterday to take delivery. So she asked me and the salmon lady if it could be dropped by our place in the course of her delivery rounds. No problem for me: I was around and having dinner with farming friend that night, so my freezer space wouldn't be tied up long. No problem for salmon lady as we live closer to the day's other stops than farming friend does.

I spent between 5 and 10 minutes chatting with salmon lady and helping her pack 50 pounds of salmon into our freezer and then some into a cooler with ice packs. That evening I put the fish back in the boxes and took it with me when I went to dinner at farming friend's house. It was nothing. But salmon lady was so appreciative - as if I were doing her a big favor - that she offered me a free fillet. Now, I'm already on record as never saying no to handouts. You can believe I didn't turning down ethically fished wild Alaskan salmon that sells for $12.75 per pound. Needless to say, I was thrilled.

Just for Ali, a bonus picture of the cats with free mushroom bags

But the bounty didn't end there. When I got to farming friend's house for dinner, the first topic of conversation after getting the salmon in her freezer was all the mushroom bags she'd gotten from local mushroom producers. Like battery egg facilities that kill "retirement age" laying hens, (who are still capable of years of egg-laying) because their production is no longer optimal, mushroom farmers keep mushroom substrate only through the first few and most abundant flushes of mushroom production. Of course, there's no cruelty involved in either packing bags of inoculated sawdust as close together as possible, nor in getting rid of them as soon as they pass a peak of production. Nonetheless, farming friend had been given several large bags of sawdust inoculated with oyster mushroom spores. And she wanted to know if I wanted a couple of them. What did I say? (Altogether now; say it with me:) "Sure! Thank you!"

I don't want to create the impression that people chuck free food at me on a daily basis, but similar things have happened more than a few times since I've gotten to know my local farmers and producers on a personal basis. Free eggs, free bones to make stock, free pork jowls, the loan of useful and expensive tools, and now enough free salmon for four modest portions and a decent chance at a small crop of oyster mushrooms. Obviously, I also just like to know where my food comes from, even when I pay a fair price for it. But there really are multiple advantages to getting to know your farmers.

Of course, I try to be open handed too. I've arranged to loan our beater pickup truck this weekend to a young Agricultural Extension agent who needs to haul some horse manure for her own garden. And our broadfork will be loaned out this spring too. Farming friend got her vermicomposting system going with some red wiggler worms from our bins, and I plan to take containers of worms to the last meeting of my soils class next week to get some fellow students started on vermicomposting as well. It seems to me that farmers and other sustainability minded folks are far more open to bartering, and interested in making just a little more effort to share resources, and ensuring that nothing goes to waste. That's a good group of people to know and be a part of.

Local, Raw, and Bartered

This was my breakfast this morning: yogurt and honey. What makes this simple meal so special to me is that both ingredients are local, sustainably produced, raw, and I bartered for them.

I bartered for a quart of the raw milk yogurt just a few days ago. The texture of the yogurt when I opened the container was slightly lumpy, and the creamy fat had risen to the top. The taste reminded me of the superb yogurt I'd bought at a farmer's market in Europe. It bears absolutely no resemblance to store-bought yogurt. I stirred up the yogurt until it was smooth again and served myself some.

Now I confess that "local" in this case is a bit of a stretch by my standards. This yogurt comes from a farm almost 80 miles (128 km) away. That's very local by US standards, but incredibly distant by average global standards. I don't know of any closer dairy that raises their cows on grass, sells raw-milk products, and avoids hormones and antibiotics. And I would know, because I'm well connected to the sustainable farming network in my area. For the moment, 80 miles is the best I can do for sustainable cow's milk dairy. I don't do the driving myself either. The yogurt arrived at my house by way of the farmer who uses my home as a customer pick-up site for pre-ordered, grass-fed meats, dairy, and eggs every other week. So the food is delivered to my home, and I can barter my bread for it. And yes, I do feel pretty smug about that, in case you were wondering.

The raw honey is produced much, much closer to home, and I know the beekeeper personally. This is the lightest of her three honeys from last year's harvest. I'm almost out of it, but it sure is good. Just eight miles (13 km) away, she has an apple and pear orchard that she sprays only with baking soda, and she keeps hens along with a few hives of bees. Again, I bartered some homemade baked goods for a jar of this pure, raw honey.

Breakfast was absolutely delicious in its own right. Knowing that the constituent parts were produced completely sustainably, and acquired reasonably sustainably, and that I bartered for them, and that they are really healthy for me only makes this simplest of meals that much more satisfying.

I don't manage to prepare many meals in this fashion. But when I do pull it off, I'm inspired to keep trying more and more to live my life this way.

Swapping Success!

Last week I got an email from someone via GardenWeb who wanted to trade some of his Jerusalem artichokes for my daffodils. As luck would have it, I was just in the middle of digging the bulbs for separation and transplant. And I'd been thinking about planting Jerusalem artichokes, also called sunchokes, for some time. I'm glad for the trade, because I remember my aunt remarking how expensive the planting stock was when she ordered them. But they're not too handsome, are they?

The Jerusalem artichoke is a North American native, with all the usual advantages conferred on native species. This close relative of the sunflower is noted for being pest-free, very hardy, and tolerant of both poor soils and a wide range of rainfall. It's difficult to eradicate the plant on purpose once you plant it, let alone accidentally from mere aggressive harvesting. The plant will renew itself from its edible underground tubers, which are said to (vaguely) resemble the artichoke in flavor. I'm told the only sure way of getting rid of the plant is to turn pigs loose on it. Pigs will dig for food, and keep digging till there ain't no more food.

I'd like to hear from anyone out there who has grown and eaten this plant. One book on wild plants that I read claims that Jerusalem artichokes have an alarmingly low calorie count, and that it causes flatulence. Given the plant's properties, it seems like a good emergency food for hard times. But if the calorie count is really that low (70 calories/pound), it seems barely worth the effort of harvesting and preparing. Anyone care to offer a conflicting report?

Anyway, I now have my planting stock. Three cheers for seed swapping and all good barters! If you garden and you haven't yet looking into trading seeds through GardenWeb, you should check it out. I've done half a dozen trades and I've never been burned. I've now got one more fall chore to do before winter sets in. The only question is where to put these ineradicable plants.

Please share your sunchoke recipes in the comments!

Garden Seeds - Swapping with Other Gardeners

Gardening is a good frugal strategy if it's something you enjoy doing. I take great pleasure in gardening, most of the time. When it's hot and muggy and buggy, it's less of a joy. But nothing beats harvesting food you've grown with your own hands.

Seed saving is a great strategy to save money in an already frugal endeavor. There are so many particulars to saving seed from the huge variety of cultivated plants, that I can offer very few how to's. There are entire books devoted just to saving seeds from the plants we eat, and other forms of propagation as well. Sometimes it's obvious when a seed is ready to be harvested if you simply observe the plant closely. Culinary sage, poppies, beans, kale, parsnips and many other plants form seed heads or pods that dry out and release their seeds freely when they're ready. With other plants it's trickier.

Saving seed not only saves you money, but it also acts as a selection process for your own climate zone or even microclimate. You'll only get seeds from plants that have done well right where you grew them, or where they volunteered. Thus, those seeds have an excellent chance of working for you again the next year. If you live just on the edge of where a plant is able to grow, you may even develop your own cultivars by repeatedly saving seed from the plants that have done well for you from year to year.

Yesterday, I harvested seed from some parsnips I left to overwinter and from my beloved kale lacinato. Both of these plants produced seed abundantly for me. And parsnip seed has a very short shelf life. That means I have more seed than I need. A good website I've found to share seeds freely with other gardeners is Gardenweb.com. It's free to register and become a member. Once you do that you can set up an exchange page with lists of seeds or plants you either have to share or are hoping to trade for. No money changes hands for these trades, which are done by mail. Of course, there's always a slight risk that you'll get burned when proposing or accepting a trade. No one can guarantee that the other person will come through with the seeds they agree to send you. But gardeners by and large are honest folk. I've traded about five times through Gardenweb, and have never been burned.

Check out the Gardenweb site, whether you're an old green thumb or a novice gardener. There's tons of information and expertise there, in addition to thousands of potential seed trading partners.

Frugality Creep

Frugality became an important issue for me about a year and a half ago when my husband and I took on two mortgages (one for 50 acres of farmland, the other for the home we live in) totaling about $400k. Suddenly I felt the need to start saving money everywhere I could. I read blogs and books about getting out of debt, doing it yourself, voluntary simplicity, and modern homesteading. At this point the smaller of the two mortgages is completely paid off; we own that farmland free and clear. But we still owe the bank for the roof over our heads.

I'm still looking for ways to save money. But I've incorporated many more ideas and techniques than I ever imagined I would when I first started thinking hard about ways to save money. All the suggestions and recommendations you get from frugality websites and books can be overwhelming at times, no matter how willing you are to change. We're creatures of habit, and change is easiest to take - or to make - in small doses.

I started first with simple household things, like hanging up every single load of laundry to dry inside, installing compact fluorescent lightbulbs, and turning off the hottub. We stopped eating out and cooked all our meals at home. But after all the easy and obvious changes were made, I was still looking for more ways to save money.

I took Amy Daczyczyn's advice and tackled a new skill at the beginning of 2007: baking bread. I didn't expect world class bread, but I was hoping to beat what's available in the stores near us. Truth is, after a few so-so results, I learned fast. I found it easier and more enjoyable than I expected to. So now I not only make all of the bread we eat, I barter it too. That's not a situation I would have predicted when I started looking for ways to save money. I thought that I'd make some of the bread we eat, but continue to buy some from the store.

We gardened on a small scale last year, and cleared another enormous garden bed this spring. Given how quickly food prices are going up, I'm glad I had this planned out already and that the seeds and seedlings are already in the ground. The garden plot takes up a very significant chunk of our backyard, and reduces the amount of grass we have to cut: savings in groceries, gasoline, and time spent on a boring chore. I imagine that we'll buy very little produce for the remainder of the year. Depending on the yields I get, I may even sell some produce to local restaurants or at a roadside stand, after I've canned what I think we'll use over the winter. Again, this expanded food production wasn't something I had envisioned when my attitude began to change.

Another unforeseen change is that we now have four Red Star laying hens. We built a mobile pen and a mobile coop for them, mostly out of materials salvaged from dumpsters on building sites. We started dumpster diving for wood and other items without any specific building projects in mind. But I built sawhorses for ourselves and for friends as a Christmas gift with 2x4's pulled out of various dumpsters. The hens now get moved every morning in the rotational grazing system popularized by Joel Salatin. We move them around the perimeter of the garden and in the fall we'll probably put them in the garden itself where they'll help fertilize and work the cover crop into the soil. The four hens we got were scheduled for "retirement" (the stock pot) earlier this year at two years of age. Our girls apparently never got that memo, because they still pump out eggs at the rate of one egg per hen per day. The eggs are huge, fresh, nutritious, and so abundant that I can sell a dozen now and then. The girls eat dandelions, purslane, prickly lettuce, and other weeds quite happily, along with our table scraps, and they return that to us in eggs! The grazing system we use means even less of the lawn gets cut on a regular basis. Really, it's hardly a lawn any more. It's now our "pasture in training." The kicker is that I bartered for these four hens and a bale of hay with just two of my organic loaves of bread.

My ambitions are not yet satisfied in terms of self-sufficiency or frugality. I've started building a solar cooker now that the days are getting hot again. I'd also like to start a vermiculture trench (earthworm "farming") to improve our composting system and enrich our garden soil on the cheap. I liked both of these ideas when I first read about them, but there were many other more immediate changes to be attended to. Now that keeping hens, hanging up laundry, and baking bread have become routine for me, I can tackle a little bit more change. That's what I call "frugality creep." Incremental changes over time seem to work best for me. If I had tried to make too many radical changes too quickly, I would have failed. I look forward to seeing where the creep has taken me by this time next year.

If you're new to frugality, balance the need to make serious money-saving changes with an awareness of what's feasible for you and your family right now. Make the common sense changes immediately, especially those things that are once and done, like switching to CF lightbulbs. Then start with the daily, weekly, or monthly tasks that save money without needing skills you don't have, such as hanging laundry and making sure the tires of your car are properly inflated at least once per month. After those are part of your routine, follow your own interests for acquiring a skill that helps you save money. In my case baking was the obvious first skill. For you it might be sewing or auto maintenance. Try to pick a skill that interests you, that you are otherwise paying someone else to perform, and also one that won't require you to invest in expensive tools (borrowing them is okay). Stick with it a while even if you see only mediocre results at first. These skills are worth money for a reason: they're difficult to acquire. From there you'll likely see your own frugality creep.