A Local Pizza!

I am so excited! Today my son and I made our own pizza for the first time. Maybe that doesn't sound so marvelous to you, but we made our own crust for the first time, too. Maybe you're still not impressed. Well, did I mention that the flour that made our pizza crust was grown on a farm only 15 miles from our house?!!! That is the coolest thing I have ever heard of...the only thing that will be cooler will be when I start making my own cheese. I have to wait for the rennet and the cheesecloth to come in the mail. This is the website of the farm where I got my flour.


http://www.paulsgrains.com/

I am planning a trip out there this summer when the wheat is up. There are several local farms that I want to visit when the weather is nicer. Another place I want to go is PicketFence Creamery. I buy all my milk there-their website is:

http://www.picketfencecreamery.net/

They have sample days, where you can try all their products. Plus, they sell local meat, produce, and other products in their store. You can even see the cows wandering around when it is not milking time. They are about an hour's drive, I think. Of course, they don't use horomones or antibiotics with the cows, unless they get sick, and all the cows are pasture-raised. That is becoming more and more important to me. Where my food comes from, that is...knowing what has been done to it, what is put into it, who grows it, etc... That is why I ordered all my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange this year. They are:

http://www.seedsavers.org/

The seed isn't hybridized and it doesn't have chemicals in it. They are mostly the seeds that have been handed down through generations , some brought from other countries, some developed right here in the United States. But they all will bear resusable seed, that you, the consumer, can save yourself, and replant next year, without having to buy more seeds from them. That is a big difference from most seed companies, where all they care about is making money off of you. So anyways, my seeds came today, and I am very excited about that. I already have been saving toilet paper tubes for months. I am going to put the tubes in a tray
filled with seed starting mix. Each seedling will grow in its own little tube, ready to transfer into the ground come May. Then the tube biodegrades in the soil, without me having to try to dig out seedlings and not destroy them. Of course some seeds I will still direct sow, because that is much easier, but I really wanted to try growing my own heirloom tomatoes this year. Those you can't get in the greenhouses around here, so I have to try and start from seed. And then if I have extra seedlings, all the better, I can give them away.

More on the seeds later, I am sure that will be an exciting process, getting them all ready to sit in my window. I am sure my guy loves this time of year. He regards my passion for gardening with a sort of bemused tolerance. I think deep down, he believes me to be a crazy environmentalist in high heels. Maybe it's true. No reason you can't love the earth and look good.