I am happy to report that I have turned a corner with my cold, or whatever it was that gave me a headache and made me tired. Woke up badly but felt good from 2 pm onwards today.

Breakfast

The fourth Sunday of every month is the breakfast at the Little Lake Grange. I am a grange member, but not very active as such. Most of my work is trying to revive the grange by partnering with WELL on events, like the Harvest Festival yesterday. Anyhow, we traditionally go to the grange breakfast and didn't change that habit even with Locavorism on our agenda.

Oct 22 Breakfast

The juice was grape from yesterday, which is an improvement for the Locavore-minded over the usual orange or grapefruit choices. The bowl has plain yogurt, Nancy's brand from Eugene. It is organic, but Clover of Petaluma would have been closer. All the fruit is local, with the apple and fig coming from Stella's yard about 100 ft away from the plate. The pear is from around Upper Lake in Lake County. I can't attest to the granola origin but assume it is a member of the vast, global, industrial food system, even while being organic.

The same crew that was in the kitchen from last night's dinner was there this morning. I hope they got a good bit of rest afterwards.

Lunch

We had a brunch-like hour for our breakfast, so didn't feel hungry again until 2 pm. Got famished while doing harvest and planting activities and was fortunate to find leftovers.

Oct 22 Lunch

The juice is an apple-pear-grape combo, which is the best I'd say. The chicken and wild rice soup was incarnated for dinner on Oct 20 and described as: "The chicken was more leftovers, the rice is that wild stuff grown in Potter Valley, also in the mix are onions, garlic and ripe tomatillos from our yard, parsley from Covelo, and seaweed."

We keep bees and this involves checking on their health periodically. Neighbor Ron got a hive that lacked a queen and recently had to put one in, so we were hopeful the hive would accepted her majesty. We were lucky enough to pull out a frame and see her right away.

Ron with Bees

We don't typically use any protection but none of us have been stung so far. The key is smoking them a bit. When they get a whiff of smoke they think there's a fire and start sipping honey in case they will need to abandon the hive. This makes them lethargic and have more important considerations on their little minds than what we may be up to, including major manipulations of their home.

Behind Ron is Ingmar, an exchange student from Germany who is 17 but has been keeping bees since he was 10. I am his senior project mentor and the topic is how to keep bees. I have been keeping bees for a couple of months. Don't tell the principal this. Oh, wait, Ingmar lives with the principal!

Here's what a queen bee looks like in case you are intrigued.

Queen Bee

Big momma is the long-bodied bee near the edge of the frame in the middle of the picture. She is pure golden colored...hubba-hubba!

Before working on the bees I grabbed a snack while at Ron and Angelas.

Oct 22 Snack

The stew is simply lamb from Little Lake Valley, tomatoes from the garden and neighborhood apples. It is on quinoa, which is imported from afar. Juice is grape from yesterday's pressing, which was merlot from Redwood Valley.

Dinner

For the past 22 days I have been deeply concerned about what I am going to feed my family for dinner. Since I am a kept man and my wife is the one who brings home the bacon, the onus falls on moi to sort out the grub. Frankly, it gets old sometimes. One thing I miss about my Pre-locavore days was the freedom to just give up and go out to a restaurant when I am tired and it is getting late and the kids are starting to raid the fridge and whine.

So dinner tonight was very special because it was nearly totally conceived and executed by Kristin (I chopped a few onions).

Oct 22 Dinner

Apple-pear-grape juice again, with a bonus--the grape juice is fizzing a little. Adds a nice tang. The soup is butternut squash with onion, garlic and cream added. It is topped with walnuts and a dollup of sour cream and a piece of canned pear is floating around too. The break is from Bruce Breads, which is a bakery between Willits and Ukiah. The cucumber is the last from our garden, and that's a yellow tomato from the garden too. We aren't sure where the butternut squash was grown, but it was left at the Harvest Festival yesterday after cooking in one of the solar ovens. The walnuts are from St. Helena, the cream and sour cream and butter are from Petaluma. All fruit and veggies from our yard.