I spend time, naturally, each Monday examining my life. Where am I? Where do I want to go? I have an introspective nature and Monday seems to be the day that calls for new beginnings. Over the last few days, I read a lot.  Much of this tends to be via internet vs. a book. I am struggling with balance there as I feel that books are still important. Luckily I do stay focused on learning new things while surfing the net. A few blogs helped me to question my life in it’s current state.

Y at AGreenspell wrote about her current biking adventures, challenges and successes. EcoYogini has a new yoga/eco challenge for June. After reading both of these  beautiful ladies’ words, I became depressed. I am nowhere near to their level of greening my life. It is almost completely impossible for me to bike to the place I teach yoga due to distance and timing in getting M from school. I have to drive an hour for a decent co-op or natural food market, and making these food choices for my family are important to me. I live in a rural area. The only groceries close to me are Kroger and Walmart, which I am trying to avoid entirely for a variety of reasons. So, I started to think about these challenges and the things I am doing to offset them.

I love this time of year ~ fresh produce from our garden and farmers markets makes my soul come alive. I adore my kitchen with the beautiful morning sun cascading through the new window. For the last three years, I’ve been telling myself that I will learn to can fruits and vegetables. This year is absolutely the year. We always have too many tomatoes, peppers, onions than we know what to do with. Every year, I make salsa, bruschetta, jalapeno poppers, cabbage rolls, but excess abounds. Canning will be the one way I can eliminate unnecessary driving. We will have fresh produce that we grew ourselves, without chemicals and additives.

In my mind, its a lost art. 100 years ago, every family had a garden and nearly every woman knew how to can. I remember watching my grandmother make use of every ounce of food they harvested. J & I are trying to grow everything we can in the little space we own. This year, we plan to do a second harvest midway through the growing season for more root vegetables that will store easily. Hopefully, we’ll also build a small greenhouse for use early in the season next year. I am committed and doing the best I can considering the things I actually have control over.

I feel empowered and excited. We started a strawberry patch about 3 years ago. This is the first year it really took off. I had strawberries that I knew we’d never eat. My grandma died 17 years ago this week, and I said to J, “I really wish I would’ve gotten her recipe before she passed.”  Two days later, I talked to my mom she had the recipe.  The next day, I was making strawberry preserves.  Yummy!  It brings back memories of my grandma.  I used to stay with her for weeks at a time.  For breakfast, she’d make me coffee ~ yes coffee for me, as a kid ~ and toast with her homemade strawberry jam.  J & I ate some for dessert after our wonderful meal from the garden last night.

I am beyond proud of myself and it turned out just like gramma’s!

For dinner we had steamed broccoli freshly picked from our neighbor’s garden,

along with a salad from fresh lettuce picked from our own garden,

plus Risotto with onions, red pepper and sun-dried tomatoes and fried potatoes.  This year, I am also growing a variety of herbs.

The larger raised bed garden is M’s, with flowers and an assortment of plants.  The containers hold basil, chives, cilantro, lemon verbena, sage and thyme.

My next step is to buy a book about canning. For each vegetable, there is a different technique. I am excited and hopeful that it cuts down on my gasoline consumption throughout the year. This weekend, I found a store that sells dry goods in bulk. It took me an hour to get there, but if I only do this every few months, I won’t feel so badly. I got rice (short and long grain), black-eyed peas (for salsa) and mung beans (which I plan to sprout). Anyone else have trouble eating the amount of sprouts that come in a container before they go bad?  Hopefully sprouting my own in smaller quantities will help.

Moving right along. . . Thanks to R at it’s all yoga, baby, I’ve decided to take on another challenge starting tomorrow.  Titled 21.5.800, the challenge is this:  for 21 days, I’ll practice yoga 5 days per week and write 800 words per day.  The challenge was created by Bindu Wiles and almost 200 people have signed up. I am a mixture of excited and scared. Check out this link to learn more. Yoga and writing make sense to me. They compliment each other naturally. I typically do both each day, but too free to set a schedule around it. I’m more of an in-the-moment kinda girl. This will be good for me. Expect to hear more as time elapses, or take the challenge yourself!

Happy Monday!

Peace, love and light . . .