Organic salad mix.
Today is day 26 of the July Food Stamp Challenge, and it’s amazing how little I seem to be shopping for food. Part of this is due to having multiple $10-off-$50 Safeway coupons, which necessitate large shopping trips, (I’ve done two this month) and also due to everyone’s garden bounty that comes my way.
Just yesterday, I took my kids to visit my sister Sara who lives and works on a small organic farm about an hour outside of Portland. As farm manager, she has planted a large vegetable garden, built a huge fenced-in chicken coop, started up a C.S.A and played lots of guitar and banjo. We did not go to rob her of her produce, but we did leave with our arms laden down with bounty. Cherries, eggs, zucchini, salad mix, (from some bolted lettuce and nasturtiums) and our bellies full of peas, tomatoes, wheat berries and veggie burritos.
My sons spent hours playing with the chickens, catching tree frogs, exploring the farm and running around learning to identify coyote poop. (It’s black and filled with cherry pits.) But why tell, when I can show?
Chickens lay what?
Chickens lay eggs, many different types! My favorites are the greenish ones.
My son, the "Tractor Dude!"
Picking cherries!
The end of a good day.
Yup, it was a good day.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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Those are some tame chickens!
What lovely photos!
It’s not that the chickens are so tame, but that the chicken catchers are just that skilled…
I’ve always lived in the city and have always bought grocery store food. The last couple of years, I’ve been getting some things at the farmer’s markets, and I’ve recently been buying farm fresh eggs. It all tastes like food did when I was a kid, more than 50 years ago. YUM!
Check out more on the farm at http://www.boatfarmers.com
Your sister’s life sounds awesome: like a 21st-century hippie.
That’s coyote scat.
Love the video. The food sounds delicious.
there was a running joke when I was a kid growing up that whenever you went anywhere public (say the library, stores, houses of worship, etc) during the summer that you always locked your car doors and made sure the windows were all the way up. We not knowing the reason for this ignored it once and ended up with seven bushels of zucchini in the car. It was only seven, poor sobs new to the area as we were, because it was a subcompact car….
Where do you get your Safeway coupons…in the mail? We have Randalls here and I wonder if they offer the same deal.
Normally the coupons are one per month, but I am getting them in the mail weekly, as my local Safeway was demolished to build a new one and Safeway wants my continued business.
Katy
When my kids went to day camp at our local “Nature Center” one week was Scat Week. They dissected scat and ate scat like snacks. go figure. They never forgot it. It seems like you are having mostly vegetarian meals. Is that so? Kudos for trying this program this month. I don’t think I could do it. Ann
I’m enjoying this series of posts – but I wonder, could you do the food stamp challenge in the winter – without all the freebies?
Winter would certainly be a different challenge, but doable I think. I tend to score free food year round.
Katy
Would seriously love to have your’s sis’s job. I’m sure it doesn’t pay that great, but I would still love it.
Katy,
Those are pretty chickens. Where was the coyote scat? My exterminator was talking about poop. I asked him if he went to scat school, just kidding him. He said, actually, he did. I know chicken poop when I see it or step in it. That is a really cool place your sister has. Lucky you–sister who is a farmer. Where was the coyote scat?
The scat was in the surrounding wooded area. And until recently I had a sister who farmed in Canada, which was of no use to me.
Katy
How did you eat the wheat berries? Just experimenting with those. We like ’em with fresh fruit & yogurt for breakfast.
I guess you must not have a large family, if a “large” shopping trip is $50? I have 9 children. ‘Nuf said.
Sounds like you were visiting me….poor unsuspecting friends to come for a visit and leave with a cooler full of food, lol. Nothing makes me happier than introducing farm fresh eggs to a person.
That looks awesome! What fun! I wish we could have been there with you. Emma does too.
I joined a CSA last year. It is the best decision I have made as an adult. I love knowing where food comes from, but most of all I love how it tastes.