Spring potato planting

I finally planted my potato patch yesterday! This is always a huge moment that signals spring (and garden weather!) is really here at Five Cats Farm. Potatoes are my favorite crop and we usually grow and store several varieties. I'm growing Yukon Gold, Viking Purple, Mountain Rose, and Huckleberry Gold this year. Last year, we had a major crop failure and so I only had about 20 pounds of potatoes in the garage, which was a major heartbreak, as they didn't last long. Gazing out at my beautiful dirt patch today, I'm dreaming of yummy baby potatoes baked, grilled, and mashed!!!!

You can also see where I asked my husband to start staining the fence, because I didn't want anyone walking on my potato patch once the ground was prepared! We'll get around to the rest later this summer...

Potatoes are nightshades (like tomatoes) and have to be rotated. I have ours on a 4 year rotation and I'm delighted to tell you that this year they return to the optimal spot in our garden - one which produced an incredible yield once before. I will gently murder any volunteer tomatoes or potatoes that try to come up elsewhere in the garden, to prevent blight on my new plants. (Late blight overwinters in living tissues in the ground.)  I'm also really committed to cutting all the pretty flowers off as soon as they appear, so the plants focus their energy down into my tubers.  Hopefully we'll have enough potatoes this year to rejuvenate my seed crop. (Last year's failure means I'm starting from scratch again.)

This energy of new beginnings is much needed, as we lost two of our pretty kitties this past month. Magick passed in January at 18 1/2 years old, and Carolina followed last weekend, which was one week past her 19th birthday. It's been pretty sad and empty feeling, so having some light and hopeful beginnings feels really refreshing. We're down to 4 kitty cats, so we'll be keeping an eye out for the right fluffy one to come join us here at FIVE Cats Farm. ;)

Do you grow potatoes? Tell me about your varieties in the comments!

RIP Magick and Carolina

The Magic of Waiting

Ah, February. In my zone 8 garden, February can be such a mixed bag. Last year was really warm, and I felt really behind as I quickly and frantically began planting. This year, however, I'm watching snow blow again for the third time in 2 weeks. So I have lots of time to ponder my garden plans and also incubate my other dreams and general vision for our space. I find myself caught up in the "Magic of Waiting."

Most wonderful ideas need to be brewed slowly and with tinkering. The time spent in meditation on the desired outcome creates a metaphysical weight that helps propel it into action when the time is right.

This is what I tell myself as I impatiently stare out the window at the snow, anyhow.

Some things you can do while we're waiting for spring:

Draw up garden plans including your crop rotations
Research new plants that you've been considering adding to your garden (We're putting in 2 elderberry)
Order seeds and starts
Create seed tape for tiny seeds like lettuce (all you need is a roll of toilet paper and a mixture of flour & water as "glue")
Start slow-growing crops like onions indoors
Start a garden journal, if you don't already have one
Preserve jars of beautiful marmalade (citrus is in season!)
Read all those garden books by your favorite authors (mine are Steve Solomon and Carol Deppe)
Drink lots of coffee and tea
Pretend you like the magical time of waiting.

What are you doing while winter is coming to a close? Let us know in the comments!

Tully would like the author to remember he is waiting for his treats... without a lot of patience!!

The Power of New - part one

It's a new year! I spent yesterday, like many other people all over the country, meal planning and prepping for the start of a new clean eating plan. (I dislike the term "diet.") Why is it so popular to harness the energy of the new year to start new healthy habits? I like to think it's a free jump start, like hitching your wagon to the universe's team that's already setting out into the new. The energy carries us a little further, perhaps, than if we had picked any old Wednesday to set out. 

There's a danger here, though. When the new lets us down (spoiler alert! the new will likely be very much like the old) we must find the power within ourselves to keep going. We must remember why we set out into the new, full of hope. If we falter, we must keep going. We must remember, as Courtney Carver so pointedly reminds us in her book Soulful Simplicity, "sometimes you have to do the things you don't want to do so you can do the things you want to do." Oh how I wish I didn't need to give myself that tough love, but it's true. I want to be healthy and have less pain. This means I need to lose weight and not eat so much junk food. When my desire to be healthy starts to outweigh my love of junk food, I will start to reach my goal. The key is figuring out how to make it pleasurable and sustainable. (When you figure that out, let me know?)

This is true of any new habit we are working on, not just food. Flossing every day, exercising, meditating, whatever healthy goal we are working toward has the same need.  We must want to result enough to put in the work. And we must be gentle with ourselves and find a way to make it at least a little fun. So that we want to keep going. Forever. 

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How are you using the energy of the new year? Let me know in the comments! 

Meet Tully, our newest addition. He's an absolute grouch, but every once in a while I can get him to be silly...

A Holiday Compass

Thinking about trying to keep the holidays simple, I wanted to share my "compass" tool that I use for myself.. The "compass" refers to the grounding effect of the sacred number 4, the 4 directions, and reminds me that this is a compass to finding where I want my holiday to go and grow toward.

Here's how it works. Before the holiday craziness takes over (too late? that's OK, do it anyway!), take out a sheet of paper and number 1-4, 4 times. Fill out the following... (I've shared my answers this year with you...)

What are the most important feelings I want to create this holiday season?
1 Grace
2 Relaxation
3 Joy
4 Coziness

What are the most important events that I want to participate in this holiday season?
1 Visiting family
2 Friendsgiving dinner at our home
3 Attending the Nutcracker
4 Spending lots and lots of time in front of the fireplace with a cat on my lap

What are the most important traditions I want to preserve this holiday season?
1 Charitable Giving
2 Winter Solstice candlelight prayers and meditation
3 Christmas Eve chili supper and movie night
4 New Years Day introspection/ journaling/ intention setting

What are a few things I can let go of to help make room for the things I care about? 
1 The need to be perfect at all of this
2 Buying too much and for too many
3 Black Friday spending
4 Guilt for eating too many treats

I recommend keeping this list somewhere you can refer to it often during this busy season. Perhaps even make a couple of copies and keep one in the car, one on your nightstand, one taped to the bathroom mirror... etc. It can help you stay centered on what you want to focus on, and remind you that so much of the drama surrounding the holidays is just noise. You are in charge of your holiday, you can choose simplicity.

Do you like this compass tool? What are you focusing on this holiday season? Let me know in the comments!

The portrait of our first Maine Coon, Kinnug, was expertly painted by Kelsey Anne Piesch.
The kitty pictured above is our current floof, Arowen. 

Keeping a Pantry

In our lives, we can often point to significant events that have shaped us and our lifestyle. An amazing book, a powerful speaker, an experience in nature - these are all things that can have a strong impact. Would you believe that a force in my recent history has been living in a house with a closet in which to store food?!

If that doesn't sound so amazing to you, perhaps read this article.

I know that part of the peace I experience when gazing at the rows of cans and jars is completely rational, but there's a emotional component as well. Perhaps it's a simple as the fact that I grew up poor and I am calmed by the concept of "more than enough." Perhaps it's the lingering connection of knowing I grew a lot of this food, and it keeps me tied to the Earth and the garden. Or, perhaps it's just that I like to organize things and the tidy rows of jars are soothing. Regardless, my pantry is peace of mind for me and every time I go in it, I feel good.

Do you have space for a pantry? Below are articles on how to find, build, or repurpose space for food storage:

Creating a pantry in a rental
I have a similar style, with like items grouped in baskets that hide clutter.

Creating the perfect pantry
I love the pull-out pantry in this article!

Whether or not you're into the idea of prepping for a disaster (natural or financial), you can learn a lot about food storage from preppers. (And if you don't have at least a week's worth of food and water stored at your house, please get on that!)

52 weeks of prepping
The author of The Prepper's Blueprint has generously left up her 52 week guide for free. Every week you buy a couple of items and do a few simple tasks to help prepare your household for a disaster.

How to plan a 3 month food supply
This is way too much math for me, but extremely useful and I'm sure some of you will enjoy the process of all those calculations.

7 Mistakes of food storage
Good food for thought about how to avoid some common mistakes here

Look for more info about my pantry and how I manage it in upcoming posts! I'll add links here as the series grows.

Sophie wants to be sure you have enough food and water stored for your pets too! 

Seize the Moment

A day in the life...

Today I went to work at 7am and arrived home at 7pm. After I gave the kitties their dinner, I put pasta on to boil. As the water was boiling, I preheated the oven, then washed and prepared a few trays of sliced tomatoes. I sprinkled them with olive oil and the thyme that was drying in the pantry. After I plated my supper, I popped the tomatoes into the oven to roast at low temperature for an hour.  Before I go to bed, I'll quickly transfer them to the dehydrator, where they'll remain overnight. In the morning I'll put them into jars and place them in the freezer, right before I leave for work.

Urban homesteading as a hobby looks like this. Five minutes here, ten minutes there, multitasking and creating moments where we can squeeze in a task. It becomes habit, and lifestyle... So much, in fact, that actual full days are rare where I get to really relax and savor each task. I treasure those days, but I still have to live the rest of my life.

If I didn't do these little things in the small moments, I wouldn't get nearly as much done. Homesteading is just like any hobby: to succeed and accomplish alongside a full time job, means creating a mentality and a lifestyle where it's the default way to spend any free time. When I was dancing, I would do calf raises and foot exercises as I made dinner, practice balancing on releve in long lines at the store, and listen to performance music over and over as I drove to and from work. This is the same.

I try not to  think about this as maximizing, multi-tasking, optimizing, or any other left-brained word. I just constantly ask myself, "Can I be doing something for the garden or pantry right now?" This is a gentler way to adopt a lifestyle, a way that is more inclusive and curious. It also shifts the energy to a slower, more relaxed vibe- even while doing several things at once!

The kitties approve, as long as dinner is served at the appropriate hour. After all, kitties come first.

How do you squeeze in things you want to do for your garden? Please share your ideas in the comments!

Thoughts on the Approach of Winter

I've been busy canning tomatoes and pears today! Does anyone else sneak into their pantry just to look at all the pretty jars? I took a picture for you... the rosemary that you see hanging is drying for my winter meals!

I was out in the garden this morning, planting garlic and harvesting the beans that were drying down. A cold front blew in while I was working, and I could feel the temperature drop about 10 degrees as I was digging and scurrying. And fall embraced me. And winter stirred in her slumber. My heart beat just a little faster, and the scent on the wind was more than just the coming rain. 

This is our ancient and primal response to the seasons changing. Thousands of years of preparing for the uncertain winter has left its mark in our DNA. When we allow ourselves to slow down and feel this natural rhythm, we connect to our ancestors and to every human who has ever walked the Earth. There's an exaltation to being alive when you remember how precarious and precious our existence on this planet actually is.

The miracle of food in this age, in America, is an absolute marvel. I spend a lot of time thinking about what the modern lifestyle (buying food at a grocery store, most of it highly processed) does to us. Not what it does just to our waistlines and our physical health, but to our spirit. I feel that when we disconnect and disengage from our food production, we are turning off something intrinsic and vital to the experience of being human. So then, the urban homesteading trend is an important and necessary revitalization of the individual, the community, and of the human race (or at least those of us in industrialized nations).

Let's spend this winter being grateful for the modern age and all its convenience, but also grateful that we can choose to do a few things the old-fashioned way. For our betterment, enjoyment, and spiritual nourishment, let us be grateful.