Independence Days Challenge Week 1
Mid-summer harvest, pesto-palooza, and gearing up to step up.
I read Sharon Astyk’s book, Independence Days, about a decade ago when I was working from home. It profoundly changed the way I thought about sustainability, particularly when it came to obtaining and storing food. Over the years, I started working away from home, and life got busier. Or, I should say, it was busy in different ways. Out of necessity, I let go of some of my “eat local,” and “maintain food stores” routines. When news of the novel coronavirus epidemic in China reached my consciousness in February, I decided it would be a good time to revisit Independence Days. And I realized that, while my routines had changed, I had never lost the habits of mind I learned from Independence Days. It was pretty easy to scale back up to doing much of what I did before in a pretty short time, and I am so grateful that I already knew how to do it. Sourcing food differently and increasing my storage has been very helpful these last few months. It has kept me out of the supermarkets and made me feel less anxious. I signed up for a CSA farm share and a local, sustainably-harvested fish share (CSF), got in touch with farmers about local meat, and planted a garden.
When Sharon announced that she would be reviving the Independence Days Challenge on her Facebook page, I knew I had to participate, both for accountability and to celebrate my small achievements each week. Sharon is planning to post on Fridays. I think Sundays will work better for me (I’m a little late this week).
I’m copying Sharon’s guidelines for participating in the challenge at the bottom of this post, for anyone who would like to participate on your own social media. As Sharon said, it’s one of those “more fun if more people do it” things.
My Week
Plant or Harvest Something
I didn’t get anything new planted this week. I did harvest new potatoes, and thin the carrots. Of course we ate the thinnings, including their tops (see “Eating the Food,” below). I also harvested snow peas, cherry tomatoes, chard, kale, lettuce, zucchini, and mint.
Preserve Something
I made and froze chard pesto. (Details in this post.)
Waste Not
My neighbor had her eucalyptus tree cut down, and I gratefully accepted the wood for backyard bonfires, which have been a nice way for my teens to have safe distanced gatherings with close friends. I have it stacked in my garage which now smells amazing.
Want Not
I paid my taxes, on time (just)! I continued teaching summer school online for extra income.
Eating the Food
I made carrot top pesto! (Details in this post.) I was skeptical, but everyone liked it, and I will make it again.
Step Up
I started a Facebook brainstorming session in our local sustainability group about how we can enhance support systems in our community while following safe distancing guidelines. Honestly, we didn’t come up with much beyond donations of goods to various organizations, donations of blood (which feels safe to me given all the precautions the Red Cross is taking), and writing cards and notes to seniors who are isolated, especially those in nursing homes. The conversation is continuing. I also learned about and joined a local group in support of diversity and equity.
Skill Up
I joined the Ninja Writers Club to help me learn how to blog.
Winter is Coming
I didn’t really do much in this regard, but ideas are percolating in the background.
That’s it! I am enjoying the sense of focus that this challenge brings as I start a new week, and I look forward to some sense of accomplishment as I end it.
Some thoughts from Sharon Astyk, author of Independence Days and creator of the challenge:
I’m restarting the Independence Days Challenge, and I’m going to do it here, on FB, on my public page, so that anyone who wants to can join and participate. I will try and update every Friday, and I invite you to either publish your own updates on your page and tag me here, or to put them in comments. (BTW, I don’t use Twitter, but if anyone here wants to put stuff up on twitter with links, I’m happy to work with you.)
For those of you who weren’t around 10 years ago, I started the Independence Days Challenge back when it felt sometimes like I wasn’t accomplishing things that I wanted to. I wanted to stop apologizing for how little I got done towards my goals of sustainability, reduced resource consumption and self-provisioning, and just honestly acknowledge what I did do, but I found it really hard to do that. We all have constraints, whether physical, domestic, work or economic, and instead of feeling inadequate, we need to feel proud of what we are accomplishing. It is particularly hard when so few of us are rewarded for domestic labor, or invisible things we do to make life better for others. Or when you have a bunch of little people undoing your work as fast as you do it.
I’ve tweaked the categories somewhat to focus on pandemic and economic preparedness. I will take suggestions for additional categories, but the goal is to say what I’ve done in any given week to move me forward, and I encourage all of you to do the same. The only rule is NO APOLOGIZING for what you didn’t do — this is about appreciating that we are all taking steps. So tomorrow, think about what you’ve done this week, and also maybe about your goals for next week.
Plant or Harvest something: Not everyone can garden, but many people can, and many others can forage for local greens or fruit, or be involved in gleaning.
Preserve something: Again, I find preserving is most productive if I try and do a little every day that there is anything, from the first dried raspberry leaves and jarred rhubarb to the last squashes at the end of the season. This category also covers preserving and protecting local resources, community resources, things that would otherwise be destroyed. So it counts when you make jam and counts when you work to keep your local drug counseling service in business despite budget cuts.
Waste not: Reducing food waste, composting everything or feeding it to animals, reducing your use of disposables and creation of garbage, reusing things that would otherwise go to waste, making sure your preserved and stored foods are kept in good shape — all of these count. Also dumpster diving, salvaging and repairing items.
Want Not: Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term. Making yourself more economically secure. Paying down debt, finding new sources of income, reducing expenditures and costs, increasing savings. Also reorganizing so that you waste less or use less or spend less.
Eating the food: It is a running joke among gardeners that it is harder to eat the food than it is to grow it sometimes. Making full and good use of what you have, making sure that you are getting everything you can from your food, trying new recipes and new cooking ideas, eating out of your storage! Also, using up food pantry bounty and other food you don’t get to choose. Creative use of leftovers, and helping feed others — everything from little free pantries to sharing with neighbors. We all want to know what you are cooking this week.
Caregiving and enhancing community support systems and mutual aid. This can be formal organizations that already exist or working with your neighbors, or caring for your own family members. This includes fundraising, volunteer work, helping out your neighbors, advocacy for better supports and services, political activism, anything you do to make your community a better place. Whenever you step up to protect and care for those who can’t do it for themselves, you are doing incredibly important work. Of course, this includes homeschool, helping out senior and disabled family members, helping out people with kids, etc…
Skill up: What did you learn this week that will help you in the future — could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a barn, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as teaching calculus to your kids. Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it — this is important stuff. It doesn’t matter if you’ll ever make money at it (although that’s good too) if it helps you get along, grow, make our new reality better, you should be proud.
Winter is Coming: Finally, whatever you do to make your home and immediate surroundings better for a long and hard upcoming year or few years. What does your home or your life or your job need to make it viable? How are you going to continue to make your home and religious and cultural and family life worth living? What do you need to improve things for yourselves and your neighbors? What are you doing to get ready if things don’t get better, but instead get worse? You don’t have to believe we’re all doomed to hedge your bets on this one.
Hope you’ll join me! You are welcome to share, repost, whatever you like. This is one of those “more fun if more people do it” things.
