A mostly local dinner

Catching up on some pictures from August:

solar-dried herbs

Our 32nd anniversary dinner on the balcony! (this was pre-stink bugs)

This giant cherry tomato plant was a volunteer that threatened to take over the entire kitchen garden!! Below it you can see some small cucumber plants.

Now these are from September:

Here are the new chickens with the Buff Orpingtons investigating the new garbage deposited in the compost pile at left.

The new chickens are Barred Rock, Black Australorp and (I think) Golden Pencilled Wyandotte.

Buttermilk, whole milk, half & half, butter and yogurt

Today we got our first delivery from South Mountain Creamery, a dairy located in Frederick County, Maryland, about a 30 minute drive from here.  It’s exciting to have a source of local dairy products.  In evaluating our meals and how local they are, the dairy products were always a negative since they came from the local supermarket and were probably shipped hundreds of miles.  These products are more expensive than what we pay at the store, but if you figure in the hidden costs of fuel, questionable nutrition/use of chemicals, possible mistreatment of animals, all of which are not an issue with this local dairy (they say we can visit them any time!), we may as well pay more.

Seems like back to the old days, when we were growing up, and milk was delivered to the door.  Also, the bottles are reusable, of course!! Now we are on our way to becoming true locavores!!