Aww, that made me smile!

I've been very busy teaching this week - first I taught four workshops out at the local community college - Monday was Reduce/Reuse/Recycle, Tuesday was Starting Seeds, Wednesday was Energy Efficiency, and Thursday was Green Transportion. 

At the end, the director of the Green Institute, the one who had hired me to do the workshops, asked me to also do a mini-session on Preserving Food and Soapmaking (in preparation for the classes I'll be teaching for community ed in the fall.) I said Sure, I'd love too.  She said that "It is nice to see someone who is so passionate and is willing to share it!"

And that made me smile.

And then tonight, Friday, I had my monthly Simply Living In The City class, and today's class was on breadmaking.  I demonstrated no-knead bread, traditional bread, and brown rice bread, and then we tested it, and then we chatted.  It was great fun.

Afterwards, one of the people from the class sent me a message.  She said "We had a great time tonight. Thank you so much for sharing your passion."

And that made me smile. 

I AM passionate about simply living, but I think that I'm more passionate about teaching.  Teaching really brings me joy.  I've been happiest in my career for the longest when I was teaching people how to do something.  And not because I'm all that and a bag of chips because I'm not.  I'm just me, and I just do things because they make me happy, but it also makes me happy to teach others about doing those things. 

And when I'm happy, I smile. :)

Preserving The Harvest: What I've done so far this year

I had very lofty goals for 2011 and I haven't fulfilled those goals, but I have preserved a fair amount. Here is what I have done so far:

Canned
12 pints of tomato sauce
35 pints of corn
21 quarts of peaches
12 pints of strawberry jam
12 half pints of peach jam
7 pints of veggie relish
7 pints of banana pepper mustard
12 pints of salsa
60 pints of applesauce
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Still planned for canning:
7 pints of ketchup


Freezing
2 gallons of green bags
1 gallon of basil leaves
1 quart bags of dried:
-rosemary
-basil
-lavender
-chives
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Still planned for freezing:
6 quarts of apple pie filling

Drying
- apple slices
- apple leather
- basil
- oregano
- parsley
- lemon balm
- spearmint
- peppermint
- lemon verbena
- lavender
- sage
- tarragon

I haven't done any pickling yet, and I may or may not get to it. I also recently got a Food Saver, but haven't used it either. My canners and my dehydrator, however, have seen LOTS of action this year.

I grew all the herbs, onions (for the relish), the peppers (for the relish), the tomatoes (for the sauce and the relish), and the green beans. I bought the strawberries, the peaches, the apples, and peaches. I had to buy most of the zucchinis for the relish because my squash got squash bugs BAD this year. I also grew peas, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, swiss chard, broccoli earlier in the season, but we ate all of that fresh.

I also taught a class about Preserving The Harvest. I'll put more info over here very soon, but I have finally got Simply Living In The City off the ground! I'm kind of proud of myself! It was a really fun class and I enjoyed teaching people about it and talking with people that are interested in preserving and just talking to other people who enjoy a similar "simple" way of life.