Monday, April 29, 2013

A Satisfying Breakfast

Here's what we had for breakfast yesterday morning:

Eggs, hash brown like stuff, maple flavored breakfast sausage and milk.

The eggs came from our chickens.  The special fixings for the hash brown stuff (bacon grease, henbit, wild onion, wild garlic) came from the front yard and the hog we had butchered.  We made the breakfast sausage from the deer we shot a few months ago.  And the milk came from our goats.

Even though there were still items that we could have produced here, like the potatoes and various herbs used in the seasoning, it's still a great feeling to know that a lot of the food we eat comes from our own homestead.

It's almost like an addiction.  Trying to grow/harvest/make everything you can from your own homestead and using your own hands.  I know that we'll never be 100% self-sufficient for various reasons (personal & logistical), but every little step brings us closer to a more fulfilling and satisfying life.

It starts with a little unassuming cherry tomato plant stuck in an old pot on your front porch and the next thing you know you've got a feeder pig in the hatchback.

What started you down the "gott'a do it myself" path?

8 comments:

  1. And the "creepy meats" will soon end up on the plate too! It must be so satisfying to get to this point, CR.

    I'm happy with what veg and fruit I can get from my own little slice of heaven but am sadly too dependent on the stores.

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  2. I keep forgetting about henbit. Heaven knows I have an abundance! And that is a 'perfect' fried egg, IMHO. Mmmmmm. That's an interesting question - what got me started. I think it was a combination of learning what was being put in my food, the end result of processed 'food', and wanting to be completely independent. Now, I wouldn't go back for anything in the world.

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  3. I love meals like that! They make your heart swell with pride ☺ I was tickled to have my own green onions and eggs in tuna salad today, it was awesome!!!!!
    I started doing this after finding out what's really in the food we buy and I wanted to break away from "having" to buy produce for an outrageous amount of mulah. The produce isle and me don't get along too well, I get disgusted and cranky!

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  4. Carolyn,

    Your breakfast looks and sounds delicious.

    We started growing our own vegetables and fruit because we realized how much money we saved in the long run. It was also healthier without all the preservatives found in prepackaged foods. Also our number one reason we like to grow and make our own foods, we feel better after eating better.

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  5. My grandparents got me started, :) I grew up spending a lot of time on their farm. It was a small dairy farm when I was a child. Besides the cows for milk (which they sold as well as using raw for the family), there were always chickens, pigs and some beef cattle. Grandma grew most all of the vegetables we ate, and many of the fruits as well. Raspberry patch, apple trees, strawberry bed, wild plums to harvest...it was a wonderful way to grow up, and I'll always be so thankful for their influence.

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  6. It has been too long for me to remember......I have been gardening for over 50 years! I know moving to the country in 1976 started me on the path to trying to raise everything I put on the table.

    We do that too.....look down at our plates and comment on how most things are raised here on the farm.....I sort of count the purchased hog too since it was raised by a local man but I guess that is cheating.

    Breakfast looks good!

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  7. That is my kind of breakfast, yum!! :)
    We had egg salad club sandwiches the other day, homemade bread, eggs from our chickens, pickle relish from the garden, lettuce from my girlfriend's garden and locally grown bacon from the Farmer's Market. It is fun to see how much "real" food we put on our plates now. I think getting involved with the Farmer's Market several years ago is what really got me serious about growing and eating real food.

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  8. I had the same kind of meal the other night, homegrown chicken, asparagus and salad, very satifying. I didn't know you could eat henbit! We have it all around us and the honey bees love it. It's one of our first forage plants that bloom for the bees in the spring.

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