Independence Days #7 (again)

I know I posted week #7 last week, but it was really week #6 so now I am caught up with the proper week.

Currently this morning in our house, Mr. Greenjeans started the smoker going for this week's fish catch (the fish soaked in marinade/brine for 3 days). Ni-Chan is grinding wheat into flour for me to make bread - her headphones are plugged into her computer listening to a podcast of a lecture for on-line college classes, and next to her Chibi is grating Fels-Naphtha soap bars to make laundry soap. I've just come in from hanging clothes on the line and watering the garden.

Plant Something: I've planted some flowers in pots for our back porch. Picked up a few more plants: 2 eggplant so I put some in the garden, strawberries in the yard

Harvest Something: Our big harvest this week was 20 or 30 lbs of mountain caught fish: Kokanee Salmon and Trout - the biggest fish we've ever caught in our lives.

Nothing out of the garden yet - the peas have a few little pea pods going and the corn has sprouted.

Preserve Something: Today we preserved fish by smoking. They will actually go into the freezer smoked otherwise they wouldn't last more than a week or so.

Prep something/ manage reserves I had to spend 2 days in the city at work and went to Costco while there. I have mixed feelings about Costco, a good sale price at the grocery store often nets better prices but there is something handy for food storage about the bulk. To put away: tuna fish, bread yeast, canned peaches and pears, soy sauce, mayonnaise, pecans, coffee, green tea, powdered milk, rechargeable lantern,

Purchased to eat now (including treats to the family) odwalla juice, sandwich bread, artichoke spinach dip, strawberries, dog food, cat food

Cook Something (new) We'd never used the smoker before so that was a new cooking adventure for us.

Work on local food systems Put a lot of time into the 1/2 acre neighborhood garden we started last week.

Learn something new
I learned from Lisa's Zahn Zoneto use the whole wheat flour in the sponge where the yeast is proofed to help break down or soften the whole wheat bran.

I learned that the bread flour we hand grind really needs to go through twice - it just makes for a nicer flour.

Learned to use irrigation water to water a large garden instead of just sprinkling.

Learned from Becca's blog, The Potager Garden that one can plant the ends of the long green onions (the root ends that normally go in the compost bin) from the grocery store and they will grow more long green onions!

Note to self: don't wash whites to go on the line at the same time the fish have just started smoking.