I didn’t post here during the month of November.  That was on purpose.

For the 2 years before this one I watched as blogs around the world participated in NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. I guess the idea is to post at least one entry every day in November. It gets you in the habit of daily blog posting, drives traffic to your site through cross-linking, and gets you entered to win prizes.

For the last 2 years I had a guilty knee-jerk reaction. “Yeah,” I said, “why don’t I post every day? I must be a really sucky blogger.” Then I felt like I wasn’t doing my job as a blogger very well. Last year I even considered giving NaBloPoMo a try for a year.

But by the beginning of November 2009 enough time had passed that instead of feeling guilty I was just determined. I won’t let some event, some group of folks, make me feel like I am doing something wrong. If I’m not in the mood to blog during November, I won’t. I need a rest from this garden (and I haven’t even finished cleaning it up yet!)  In fact, I pledge to purposefully NOT post anything this November.

And I didn’t.

If you participated in NaBloPoMo this November, last November, in ‘07, or all of the above…I truly hope that it made you feel better about the whole thing. I hope that making sure you had a post ready for every day didn’t stress you out or wear you thin during a busy month. I pray that it improved things for you. Because that seems to be the intent of the program.

For me, I did have a restful November. Now I’m ready to get back at it! I’ll be starting indoor winter lettuce and herbs within the next week or two.

Henry sanding his loft bed for me:

VIDEO LINK

Today’s post is a piece written by Farmer’s Daughter, republished here with her permission.  I have been feeling exactly the same way for a couple years now.

Can I ever go back?

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Farmer’s Daughter

Walking around the fair today, I was repeatedly reminded of my eco-conscience.

I drank bottled water and wished I had thought to bring my reusable stainless steel bottle.  I didn’t want to use the plastic, but it was hot and I was thirsty.  Plus I’m still trying to skip HFCS (that’s another story), so I didn’t want to get a soda in a paper cup.  I was happy at least that recycling was easy.

I spotted all the litter on the ground and wanted to pick it up (but of course I didn’t).  I wondered how much litter and trash would be generated by the end of the fair and where it would go.

I watched the tractor pull and thought about carbon emissions.  I thought about how much energy went into pulling that sled of weights back and forth.  But I was still proud of my brother for pulling about 8,000lbs with his tractor.

I pondered, while skipping the line to the ladies’ room and heading to the portapotty, which is better for the environment? The portapotty uses less water but more chemicals, so I couldn’t decide which was better, but there wasn’t a line there.  I worried about creating a super-bug as I used the hand sanitizer, but didn’t want to skip it either.

I browsed through dresses at a vendor’s tent and commented that they’re probably made in sweatshops.  How else could they be so cheap?

I watched the horse pull and felt bad for the jumpy horses, getting yelled at and slapped on the butt.  My dad has always said that competitive pulling is cruel to the horses and I would tend to agree, but I still like to watch for a little while and check out the pretty animals.

I saw a lot of parents smoking around their kids and wondered what they were thinking.  It’s not BPA people, it’s not debatable or new science.  Cigarettes kill.

I looked at agricultural exhibits, animals, food preservation, crafts, photography, and the baking competition.  This glimpse of a simpler way of life was juxtaposed with the midway’s spinning rides and shouting carnies.  I wish the midway wasn’t there, but felt a sadness knowing that most people wouldn’t go if there weren’t rides and cheap prizes to win.

When I got home, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could ever go back.  Go back to the way things used to be, when I could enjoy an event without the stream of eco-consciousness running through the back of my mind.  Although I didn’t make all of the best eco-choices while I was there, I was keenly aware of what I was choosing to do: throw out paper plates and napkins, recycle water bottles, and take breaths of second-hand smoke simply because I couldn’t get away from it.

I realize of course that I can never go back.  I can never un-learn what I know about the environment and how my everyday actions impact the earth.  With that knowledge comes a responsibility to act, to make good choices.  And I feel like I do make good choices most of the time, but I need to accept that I can’t choose the best option all of the time and I can’t be so hard on myself, or on others.

Please direct all your comments to the original post written by Farmer’s Daughter.

We have a closet where we are keeping some of our canned goods. There was a lot of wasted space on the left and right sides, so I am building shelves to completely utilize this area. I finished one today. Ten shelves, ten inches deep, can now hold about 120 jars of food. The height spacing of the shelves was designed with quart and pint jars in mind. The other side will get a twin cabinet tomorrow.

EDIT: I decided to photoshop together two of the pictures I took to create a composite that shows the whole thing.

Shown at left are sweet pickle slices, dill slices, dill spears, beets, pizza sauce, pasta sauce, tomatoes, salsa, sauerkraut, ketchup, venison and peaches.

The other side will have asparagus, corn, applesauce, stock, soups and more tomato products.

TRIVIA: Did you know that “1 inch” boards are exactly three-quarters of that after they are finished?

Pole bean reseeding

One bunch of pole beans at the community garden weighed down their corn stalk poles so much that they bent over and touched the ground. They got moist enough after some rains that this happened. Very beautiful effect.