Eggs, Greens, Milk - Winter Harvest

Every day, just at dusk, we milk one of our two dairy goats that is still able to produce milk in this cold weather. She does not give much, just about 1/2 gallon (2 liters) per day - enough for us.


Chickens, year after year, surprise me with increased egg production after taking a break during September - December period. Three to six eggs daily is enough for all our cooking and baking. Greens are on the roll in the greenhouse (old abandoned swimming pool covered with a roof + stairs to get down = greenhouse). Cold weather edibles: salads, oriental greens, kale and beet greens, chives and chard with more seed cast for potential May harvest of carrots, daikon, artichoke and turnips, all of which I am learning to grow.

I realize now that "start small" adage is very true. Small trials of all kinds help us to get a little bit further, with smaller losses and smaller errors along the way. Since most of us don't have any ancestral knowledge on how to live green, grow food, or do many other things, the only option left is to learn. That mean accumulating a lot of knowledge without previous experience or wisdom; which translates into a multitude of small trials. So I am planting carrot seed in cold soil every two weeks now; and putting potato eyes into soil-filled tubs for some future abundance... will they grow? Who knows now. By May I will know though. And then I can repeat the miniature learning surveys elsewhere.