Perhaps my "eat local" goals that I posted the other day were a little over the top. The idea of a challenge made me a little crazy. I figured I could list my daily menu and find alternatives for everything. Enthusiastic? Obsessive? Realistic? A little of this and that and not so much of the other.

The reality of what I'm getting from this challenge is a better sense of my community. This is a big deal for me, because by default, I tend towards living a rather hermitic life. I like silence and privacy. I'm not a big fan of social gatherings except with trusted friends and family. I don't have children, so I don't have an automatic entry into the life of my suburban neighborhood. For me, venturing out and participating is my local challenge. And I'm finding there's alot of inherent reinforcement in the local food community.

The lady who bakes the whole wheat challah bread at my local farmer's market is the same lady who sells me the bread. We talk about what she's planning on making next week. At the raw cheese booth, the other breadmaker and I politely and laughingly bicker over who gets the last block of sharp cheddar (he got it last week!). There's a reassuring sense of community that I'm finding in this quest for local food that is feeding something deeper than my hunger.

So my goal becomes more refined. Eating locally is my challenge to become a part of my community. Talking to strangers. Exchanging ideas face to face. Trying something new. My goal is not to replace every item in my kitchen nor to establish an elaborate new food lifestyle. It's just me finding my own place.

Homemade blueberry scones (recipe from Barbara at Tigers & Strawberries). Made with blueberries that I bought at the Peninsula Farmer's Market this morning. The berries are from Blue Jaye Farm which is located about 13 miles away from my house.

Random photos of my blocks for the blanket we're knitting in John Glick's memory...

Top: handspun wool from a dudleyspinner roving
Middle: hand-dyed lamb's pride worsted
Bottom: natural wool/silk(?) blend (This cream colored yarn was given to me about 15 years ago by this very nice lady who learned that I was a knitter. She gave me various leftover skeins of yarn and she had a wonderful eye for yarn. This yarn had no ball band, but is just beautiful. Creamy and soft, but with lovely stitch definition - I've always wondered what kind it was...)

Here is a close-up on the ribbing of the little pair of Koigu socks that I'm making for one of my nieces.

I'm knitting the socks toe-up with a PGR heel. The ribbing pattern came out of one of my miscellaneous stitch pattern books. It's a slip stitch pattern that's alot like the one I used with my unfinished pair of LL socks (the blue/green pair).

I think the pattern is:
row one: K2, P2
row two: sl2 with yarn in front, P2
(in the round)

Freecycle.org
I just learned about this new community today. Freecycle is a program where people post items that they want to give away and other people post items that they need. No trades, no money. Just give something away or get something for free. The idea is to keep unwanted items out of landfills.

I donate lots of clothes and household items to local charities like the Salvation Army, but sometimes I have something that I don't want to dump in the garbage, doesn't seem right for the salvation army and it's not something that I want to bother shipping (so I don't list it on ebay). For example I have a bunch of silk screen supplies that I've posted as an "offer". This seems like a great solution. I found three large groups in my area and I'll be interested to see how it works out.

(note: I found out about freecycle.org from the National Downshifting Week site. This was a week event held in the UK - I haven't yet explored whether anything like this has been organized in the US. I was busy exploring the freecycle postings! All of this stuff, the "eat local", recycling, etc. has been on my mind for the last couple of years. It's all coming together and I'm no longer just worrying or thinking about it, but actually starting to act. A little at a time. Eventually, I hope to be able to seriously down-scale my life so that I have more options and won't be so reliant on *the man*!)

1. What’s your definition of local for this challenge?

For the purposes of this challenge, I'm going to define local as any product grown or produced in Ohio. Ideally, if it's a product that is made from a recipe, the ingredients will be from Ohio. As other's have pointed out, local organic would be my first choice, then local non-organic - as often the local non-organic has a lower net cost to the environment than organic products shipped via truck from far away. Plus, I'd still be supporting small Ohio farms.

2. What exemptions will you claim?

I'll probably be finding more potential exemptions as I go along and as I identify them, I'll try to research local alternatives.

Some of the things that I've already identified:

• Asparagus (now that it's out of season my choice is to get the stuff that is shipped in to my grocery store or replace it with something else - it's been a mainstay of my diet. Maybe I'll just cut down on the amount that I eat.)


• Olive oil


• Butter (I've been using Danish butter - I should be able to find a substitute pretty easily for this. Update: My local grocery store carries products (milk and butter) from Hartzler Family Dairy, a small Ohio dairy.)


• Tortilla Shells - this has been the only bread that I've been eating. I may try to make these myself.


• Oatmeal - I have a big canister of Quaker Oats. I'm going to have to do some research to see if I can get this from a local producer. Maybe from an Amish market.


• Sugar - I use sugar in my coffee and brown sugar on my oatmeal. I'll have to see if I can accept honey as a substitute sweetner or if there are any other options (this amounts to about 2 tablespoons per day)


• Some spices and most seasonings. I don't use many spices and the herb I use most often is basil and that's growing outside in my backyard.


• Salt - My salt may actually be local (pdf). Morton has a huge processing and mining operation up in Fairport Harbor, Ohio. I've never visited, but from what I understand there are big salt caves that have been excavated out under Lake Erie. My guess is that the salt may be mined here in Ohio, shipped to a processing or packing plant and then shipped back. It would be interesting to find out if there are any smaller companies that sell the local salt.


• Beef products for the dogs - They primarily eat local chicken and produce, but I supplement with beef products. More research is required on availability of products for them.


• Rice - I've been adding rice to my dogs food every couple of days. It's from Trader Joes and isn't local.


• Drinks - I drink alot of flavored seltzer water. It may be bottled locally, but I'm not sure. More research on this one!


• Yogurt. Yes, I could make my own, but I'm kind of in love with my non-fat blackberry yoplait. One of my projects for the month may be to try my hand at making my own yogurt...we'll see!

3. What is your personal goal for the month?

If I can swap out about 50% of my non-local products with local products, then I will have made significant progress. The ultimate plan is to maintain and raise the percentage for the rest of my life.

Perhaps throughout the month of "awareness", those more experienced with eatling locally, can provide some information on how to maintain their local shopping criteria during the winter months.

Liz over at Pocket Farm wrote a post about the August Eat Local Challenge and now I can't stop thinking about it. The reasons and rules are posted over at life begins at 30.

Over the past several years, I've been making tiny lifestyle changes, trying to eliminate products that have a negative impact on the environment from my life.

My interest in starting to more seriously pursue this was reinforced when I read the book, The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan. The chapter on potatos describes the dramatic effects that farming potatos has on the environment as well as how the needs of huge restaurant chains like McDonald's drive production farming to focus on the mass production of only one species of potato.

I came away from this book with the feeling that the least I could do was plant some heirloom vegetables or support local growers who maintain small farms and grow a variety of plant species.

Ruth Ozeki's novels were also influential. She's not always subtle, but she's often very funny and you can't miss her point as you read through her books. Both My Year of Meats and All Over Creation were fun reads while reinforcing the direction that I wanted to take in the things that I feed myself and my family (of dogs).

Funny, how novels have influenced me. As I thought back on how my mindset started to change, I remembered that one of my favorite characters is a woman who inherits a farm after her husband dies and she decides to keep it and farm it herself. The character's name is Lusa and she's in Barbara Kingsolver's book, Prodigal Summer.

But it's not just inspiration from fictional characters. The more aware I've become of the forces of greed that drive corporate culture, the more I want to maintain as much self-sufficiency as I can. Call me paranoid, but I think the current culture in the US has been designed to breed a consumer who is extremely dependent on the corporate infrastructure that is destroying our environment. I want to wean myself off of that dependency as much as possible.

So the August Eat Local Challenge is a great motivational event for me. I've been dieting, so I've been eating more fruits and vegetables for the past few months. Eating locally actually makes this easier. Part of my success has been because I refuse to eat anything unless it's absolutely delicious. Locally grown vegetables and fruits taste better naturally. I had a plum today that should have been illegal it was so wonderfully warm and flavorful!

I've been thinking about this quite a bit over the last year. Over the next month, I'm going to try to put together some coherent information on the resources, stories and lifestyles that I've been learning about.

Until then, I made some buttons! Anyone who cares about this at all is welcome to copy the button graphic and post it on their blog. If you make the button a link - link it back to the August Challenge rules on Jen's blog.

And how cool is this? I took all of the photos that I used for the buttons at my local farmer's market this morning!

Here are some smaller buttons - more suitable for narrow sidebars:

Mamacate on Perfection

It's been awhile! First of all, please visit Annie's site and if you're interested contribute an 8" knit square to the afghan project that she's put together to honor the memory of Kerstin's dear brother-in-law, John. He was killed in a tragic car accident last Thursday and died at a way-to-young age. My heart was broken at this news as Kerstin and her family are very dear to me.

The only other news around my house seems to be "all dogs, all the time". I started teaching a "Family Dog" class at the end of May. The class covers all of the basics: sit, down, stay, come and loose leash walking. I use positive training methods with the "clicker" and would highly recommend this method to anyone who is thinking of training their dog. There's really no reason to hurt or annoy your dog to try to get it to behave! The training techniques that I use are based on the same philosophy used to train the marine mammals at Sea World - and they really work. (this is a soapbox subject for me - so I'll try to not get all riled up!)

I started a journal to log the work that I do with my dogs - and to document all of the new information that I've been learning and re-evaluating as I incorporate it into classes and into my own training. I'm sort of obsessed with dogs, but I'm really obsessed with learning theory and behavior modification. The journal is here, but you'll probably find it boring! Who knows though, there may be some good information in there somewhere for someone else who's interested.

I've been knitting, but haven't taken any pictures of it. I started a pair of Koigu socks for my niece. They are really pretty - blues, purples, pinks and greens. I'm going to take a picture after I finish the second sock.

I'm also knitting a Gansey sampler sweater from the Knitting Ganseys book written by Beth Brown-Reisel. I was looking for a project that was small but interesting. I'm glad that I decided to work on this because I learned about a new cast-on (to me). It's called the channel island cast-on and it creates a very pretty edge. I promise pictures in the near future.

And since I just can't post without including a picture. Here we have Katy. I was purposely trying to capture her while she was doing a very pretty, straight sit. This is not her specialty! Her sit normally looks more like this!

For those who are following along, the Charlie Brown tomato plant is doing quite nicely. It's growing tall! No tomatos on it though. The farmer's market plant (in the picture above) has quite a few green tomatos.

Have a nice Fourth to everyone who celebrates it. I'll be in Canada for the day!