Independence Days Challenge 1/2020

Hello April 2020!

I guess I should start out by mentioning I survived the breast cancer. I didn't even realize I left it hanging here on such a sour note. I feel like I pretty much lost most of 2019 to a very rough medical ordeal, but I came out of the fog with no evidence of disease (and a new set of boobs). I am still progressing on Terrain Vague No. 1 and I have many ideas for blog posts to get to soon, but I wanted to jump in with a quick challenge.

So, now we are here: April 2020. And, unless you have just checked out completely, you are aware of the pandemic. I mean The Pandemic™. In some ways, with the uncertainty and the connection directly to our health, you are experiencing a much greater version of my crap cancer year last year (without the awful pain, of course). It’s not fun, it'll cause your life to miss some beats, but we are strong.

The other day I was talking with Kristine and we were reminiscing about our old homesteading days. We both used to blog about our experiences of trying to raise babies, keep up with homesteading acreage, pursuit careers, tend gardens and learn skills to make us more self-sufficient. We were both pretty passionate about it, but it was a constant learning curve! Then, life meandered onward and a decade passed us by. Our babies grew, we both followed careers, we tended much smaller gardens, planned less, blogged less. It came to both our surprises when we realized we had no extra TP in our houses when the crisis hit.

Back in our younger blogging days, we both participated in a challenge created by the intellectual Sharon Astyk called The Independence Days Challenge (IDC). Here is a link to her original challenge and why she created it: 2008 IDC.
She brought it back with new and improved categories in 2012: Here

The main goal of IDC was to prepare yourself and your family for more dire straits by preparing and planning slowly. It was to create a sense of self-reliance, so that worry  and need would not be a crutch when and if bad things happened. It is not quite as extreme as preppers or survivalists, but it does require forethought and planning. Her philosophy was that every small action adds up to a bigger collective of actions to help us be more independent from the system. It is designed to make panic buying an absolute unnecessary act. And, oddly enough, despite it's name, the IDC created a huge community of like-minded (mostly) women. 

With the current events and all of the rush to buy out stores, I couldn’t help but think about my old IDC days. I still prep a bit out of habit, but on a much lesser level. My kids are teens, I am now divorced and I moved back to the city some years ago. Even my diet has changed to whole foods plant based. In fact, almost all of my needs have changed to less.

I wanted to start doing a weekly IDC again. I want to see a record of my actions that will help me prepare for challenging times. I want to feel a sense of independency and know I am ready for the worst (or best!), I want to start living a bit more intentionally again. Actually see in writing my accomplishments and how they help make life a bit more stable. 

So, here is goes, IDC week 1:

1. Plant something: It is spring here in the north south USA and I have been planting a lot. The garden beds are full of cooler weather crops like red cabbage, cauliflower, onions, potatoes, garlic, broccoli, and kale. I planted from seed radishes, spinach, more kale, lettuce and beets. I have seedlings in the greenhouse of peppers (several types), tomatoes (several types) and eggplants (mostly Asian varieties). I also started more cabbage from seed. I’ve also planted bulbs and root stock of several flowers: peony, clematis, lilies, and ferns. I planted two climbing rose bushes.

2. Harvest something: The only thing I have harvested was some dandelion leaves from a lovely plant I yanked for a bulb I wanted to plant. I also harvested some of the roots of the dandelions I sacrificed. I found a large collection of turkey tail and took a tiny amount (it was too beautiful to destroy).

3. Preserve something: I do keep a bag of veggie scraps in the freezer to make broth. I think that is all I have preserved lately. Oh, I guess I did start drying the dandelion root and turkey tail mushrooms I picked last weekend to make tea.

4. Waste Not: Planning meals around veg in the refrigerator or around the house. I still have a cache of pumpkins from fall to start using up. Veg scraps go either in the freezer for broth or to the compost pile. Coffee grinds go to the compost pile. I am using up older canned goods after doing a rotation of the pantry staples. I used old wooden windows destined for the landfill to make the greenhouse. I planted seeds in old mushroom containers.

5. Want Not: I ordered more seeds. I built a greenhouse from old windows  at TVNo1 (blog post coming soon on that project)! My son and I are working on a wildlife pond (also at TVNo1). I did not buy anything extra to stock during this crisis except a pack of lentils because that was all that was left at the store on the day I went. Fortunately, my pantry was already well stocked. I did keep an old habit of buying a bit extra to store away here and there, so I have many cans of beans, dried goods and jars of produce I put up last year (mainly from my own peaches and tomatoes I grew). I did buy an extra bag of dog food. I did not buy TP or hand sanitizer because I had some already. I also bought Kristine's excellent book Herbalism at Home and another book called The Wildlife Pond Book.

6. Eat the Food: I made stir-fry, black beans and rice, and tonight we are having kale and potato stew. Last weekend I made a Big Salad that included the dandelion greens I picked at TVNo1.

7. Support Local Food Systems/Community: An anonymous ministry group brought all the houses on my block a box of restaurant produce. I wasn’t home so the neighbor got me one. I live in an underserved area because I bought an old, abandoned Victorian era house to fix up some years ago in that neighborhood. I am not in need of vegetables, but I received one anyway. I ended up passing on half of it to others, but decided to keep a little to use. We ended up with broccoli, kale, mustard greens and tomatoes. So far, I have a use for all except the tomatoes (I am sure they will end up in a future IDC under preserve something). Because we have orders to #Stayhome right now, I have been doing just that as much as possible (I still work now). I wash my hands regularly and use sanitizer. It is the best I can do for the situation we are in at the moment.

8. Skill Up: Watching a lot of YouTube in allotment gardening in UK. I learn a lot from them on how to utilize space on a small lot. I also watch vegan cooking channels and videos on small wildlife pond building. I have been reading library books on carnivorous plant rearing and greenhouse gardening. Of course, I have read every government resource on Corvid-19.

Please feel free to join in here or somewhere on your own format!

Old photo from my old community garden plot. It's sadly gone for development now.