Well lots has been happening here. We had the "big" meeting of course that I wrote about. It's been going pretty well since then. I am in two groups- the one that sources and distributes surpluses and the canning group. Often these go together. Around here we have a lot of "wild" apple trees- remnants of old homesteads or offspring of older trees. Often the fruits go unpicked. So I've compiled a list of some of those-info provided by  others in the towns- and have organized picking groups. We are then canning, juicing and drying the fruit. Much of it is not "storeable"- damaged by insects, etc so it would rot quickly in storage but it makes great cider, apple butter, applesauce and dry fruit. I have a cider press and an apple peeler/corer- found one for a couple of bucks this year at the thrift store, still in its box!  If you core the apples and slice them thin-peeled or unpeeled, and hang to dry near a heat source or in a dehydrator, they make great dried apple slices. To hang them to dry, just run a cord through the rings, or a needle and thread if not intact. We got permission to use the school cafeterias, so we had "canning class" and then a canning session.

Basically, we're storing all the food we can at this point. Hard to believe it's already late September!  My wild grapes produced well and I've got grape jam and  jelly as well as juice.  I've made  combos of juice-apple, apple-raspberry, apple-grape,  apple-blueberry, apple-cherry-good ole apple!  This is the first year I'll have a freezer so I'm really enjoying the possibilities. I had to be careful to stash food away for my houseold as my customers would have bought everything they could this year- I saved all the culls- the berries with the bird/slug bite, etc to can/juice. The same with the tomatoes, peppers, etc. My canner and freezer doesn't care if it's perfect or not!

I'm still working away on cutting wood- I feel those muscles growing!  For me, a full woodshed and a pantry full of food is better than money in the bank. If I've got those, we should be ok this winter I think.

Some of my friends and neighbors have been having a rough time with the job scene. Several who work for non-profits have lost their jobs. We've convinced one of them that she is better off running their outdoor bread oven-baking for the community with wood- and growing and preserving food for her family than trying to find other work. Her partner is still employed so this may work. She is also a good forager- we had her doing "edibles and medicinals" walks before the oil crisis so she is continuing to do this now. I give them eggs for this- others trade other stuff such as carpentry.

The school situation has gotten very murky- in terms of bus transportation, keeping the school heated and other issues. As well, the pre-school is closing that some parents had been sending their kids to. So we decided that rather than have all the parents try to homeschool on their own, we'd join forces. The old one-room school in the village is actually vacant now- our neighbors who own it moved out of state to a bigger piece of land. So we will rent it from them as a school. It can be heated with wood- and is easy to get to. The parents of the kids will join together to teach-supplemented by lessons from those of us who don't have kids in the school. It's kind of ironic as I used to put my son on the school bus which stopped in front of the old school-house for years- hating that he had an hour long ride ahead of him and wishing he could go to school there still. We used to joke that we would kick out the guy who lived there then, haul the old teacher out of retirement(who still lives next door) and reopen the school! And now we will!

It seems that in some ways the dust is settling so to speak. People seem to be getting the idea that the old way is done and we are on a long, strange trip; destination unknown. It isn't easy to plan for this; just what do you take along when you don't know where you're going, but being prepared for anything seems to work! In this area being able to heat the house in winter, have water and food are the biggies. People with large mortages are in trouble however- I think the ones who had a small one who diped into it with all those home equity loans to finance the trip to Disney, etc are kicking themselves hard right now though.

The second-homes have filled up- so we will have many new people up here this winter. We know a few of them but most are really strangers. We'll see how that goes. At least they won't be (I hope) snowmobiling down the roads and across the fields at all hours of the night now. Or ATV'ing. The use of fuel for stuff like this could prompt some serious injury these days it seems.......

Well, got to get to work. Still lots to do out there.

Tags: world without oil
Current Mood: calm