Katrina! Yes, it’s mighty colorful at least, eh? I thought I should up the color factor from last year as most of what I canned was red or brown-ish. So I got lots more colorful tomatoes this year at least…

Pamela! Are you saying that my challenge has been met, that I have convinced someone to DIY in my very first Eat Local Challenge post??? Yay! I will say it is good to realize one’s personal limits re: canning; less beating yourself up that way. We got our chest freezers from Sears and they are GREAT, cheap, and not energy pigs.

Dakota, I am sorry…sounds like it was a crummy year for growing things up your way. Well, heck, those farmers’ markets are great ways to get lots, especially at this time of year when they’re really gleaning their tomato plants.

Kathy, why thank you. A bit of near-nightly madness, banging pots and making the kitchen sticky is what it really represents.

Eva, THAT’s impressive too. My favorite out-of-the-ordinary book is by Ball, the Complete Book of Home Preserving, about 400 recipes of rather unusual things. It has made me so happy, starting with the roasted garlic jelly.

I hope to have almost as much canned as you do next year. This year maybe we have 80 pts and quarts.

It IS tricky, Liz, doing an audit! Tell James these shelves were double-stacked with jars when we moved in. What you’re not seeing is how they’re supported on the sides: we did a bit of magic there. It looks very jiggy but this is old-growth wood, so I swear it’s not moving. Good points about the darned beans in the grocery bins. Supposedly yesterday the USDA passed a point of origin meat law for this country and even that got a lot of flack so we are a long way off to learning where our dried goods come from. Our feed comes from Armada Grains, an old mill north of Detroit: its location near the Thumb means it has access to lots of beans as well as corn, oats, millet, wheat and (ick) processed animal byproducts. But one of the things I intend to do in this challenge is show what one can eat without using a lot of hard-to-find grains. Right now I am making posole/hominy, so…stay tuned I guess. Realize, though, I am super jealous of your fish share…

Funny… I had the same question as Alecto re: grains. Our flour is milled in Maine, but the wheat comes from Canada, and while dry beans are easily grown here (and we grow all of our own as you know), the ones at our co-op are from China. No labeling required on the bins, you know. Boo. I’m envious of your co-op.

Hey, where is your animal feed grown? For a while I was getting feed from a small Maine company, but they went out of business (they couldn’t grow, grind, deliver *and* raise animals). Even then, the percentage of ME-grown grains in their blends was pretty small. Except oats.

As you know, it’s tricky once you start auditing everything. I figure we’re more like 60% Maine grown (could be more, but I prefer to err on the side of caution). Kudos to you at 95%!

The “problem” areas I see are in the pantry staples area, such as: bread flour, sugar, rice, olive oil and cooking oil. My region doesn’t produce hard flour, rice, or sugar, and I would find it very, very hard to voluntarily go without olive oil. I feel okay using spices and tea from distant lands, using the rationalization that these goods were traded from just as far away back in the sailing ship days. But yes, it’s a rationalization. And the convenience of pre-made pasta is hard to give up.

I’m going to estimate that right now we’re directly producing, gleaning, or buying locally, something like 65% of our food. If you count homemade baked goods as our own production (with non-local, purchased flour), then it would probably bump up to 75-80%. It’s a good start, I think.

Alecto, rice is a no-go but that is okay with us; wheat berries work if we want the rice-shaped fix. We fortunately have grain grown in Michigan and I get all my flour, corn, wacky grains and lentils from this one outfit that acts kind of like a co-op. So yeah we make our own pasta and eat a lot of polenta and potatoes for the challenge.

I’m impressed by people who undertake the eat local challenge. I’ve managed to do it with all fresh produce, but I still find myself tied to the grocery store for staples like pasta and grain. I’ll be eagerly reading this month (not that I don’t usually…)