Last Saturday I drove the kids out to a farm about 10 miles away from home to buy milk. That doesn’t seem very “green” of course, but I wanted to buy milk and eggs from a local farm. I looked at the chickens, whose packages said they were pastured there, but they were really big chickens. Not one of them was less than 5.10 pounds.
I may be off base, I know. But I think chickens are generally not that big unless they’re victims of some not-so-kind practices. So although the price was good, I decided to skip the chicken until I can do some looking into it.
Can you imagine writing a check now for a summer’s worth of groceries? I am about to do just that for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that I used to belong to. She is letting me get started late because I completely forgot about signing up in advance. I get eight deliveries of farm-fresh and organic vegetables from a farm right here in Iowa.
They also sell chickens and they’re no more than four pounds each. Do you see what I mean? Again, maybe it's the breed and I'm all wet. Their chickens are more expensive, but I know they are pastured and they eat organic feed. So again, in July, I’ll be writing an huge check for a winter’s worth of chicken that will need to be cut up because there is no way I’m paying for someone else to cut up a chicken. It’s disgusting, but I know how to do it.
It’s like grinding my own hamburger. I’m absolutely revolted by it. But I’ve done it before and will do it again should the opportunity arise.
Like last night’s cherries, I love gifts of produce. I love giving away my rhubarb to people who actually like it and are glad to have it.
These are just some of the ways I’m Thinking Green. I also took my own bag to the farm on Saturday. I shoved steak, hamburger, milk and ice cream into my insulated bag and it’s a good thing. By the time we dipped into the ice cream, it was getting soupy around the edges!
Another thing I did last weekend that was sort of green: I bought pizzas from the pizzeria at the grocery store. They are the bake-at-home pizzas and they come in a tin, shrinkwrapped and placed into a cardboard box. Packaging much?
I bought three (should have bought 10, they were only $5 apiece) and told the teenager behind the counter to keep the boxes. He seemed surprised. I told him the pizzas were en route to their destiny and the boxes would only hit my recycling bin 20 minutes later. So he kept them and I put my pizzas in the freezer.
What have you done lately with local stuff?
5 comments:
Sounds like you had a nice day at the farm, despite the suspiciously large chickens. I like the idea of local foods, and one of our grocery stores is good about offering locally grown produce in season. It's been a while since I've gone out to the farmer's market for meat and eggs. I really should do that.
I do avoid over-packaged food, and I save clamshell containers for starting seeds. Those are starting to pile up though, now that seed season is over.
That sounds like way to get your summer's groceries.
I'd be suspicious of the large chickens too. You're smart to check into it.
I thought I'd pop back and explain about the yarrow. I mention yarrow in a sentence above the yarrow which may have been confusing. The grass with white plumes is a perennial grass. The yarrow flower heads below the shot with the grass is yarrow which does have feathery leaves. There are so many different varieties of yarrow though it's hard to tell by the leaves but they have the tight blooms. If you google with yarrow there are a lot of sites with the different types.
Well, local...lets see. Not much really. I have had green onions from my garden, had fried green tomatoes that were frozen from last year, had cherries and strawberries from the orchard I used to work at.
Oh my gosh...I was wondering if it would just be me with Thinking Green now with Bobbie gone..No pressure.. This post gives me a lot to think about. Maybe the chickens are allowed to become a bit older and that is why they are bigger...I will ask a friend who raises chickens.. not to eat but for eggs.....Michelle
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