Money is kind of tight these days. I just spent a couple hundred dollars on cover crop seed for the farm in Silk Hope, and another hundred or so on farm tools. Add to that the need to save up a bunch of money to pay the impact fees for the new house on the land, the impending need for a car, putting out a book and buying a bunch of other miscellaneous crap (including beekeeping equipment and plants for the garden). So when it came time to rejoin Robb’s CSA, I hesitated.

Knowing that I couldn’t come up with the full share price – but still wanting to participate – I asked Robb about the possibility of working off part of the share price. She considered it, and last Monday I ended up spending a few hours at her farm.

I pulled weeds, helped roll out row covers and cut up seed potatoes. I also took a bunch of pictures of a hawk that was watching me work. I don’t know if it was hoping I would stir up a mouse or what. It wasn’t interested in the fire ants biting my hand that’s for sure.

My tool of choice was the wire weeder, a light and quick weed killer that slices off the main plant from the roots. It also allows for precise cultivation between plants.

As I said, I put in at most two hours out the farm. From my research tonight, it looks like the going rate for CSA labor is between $4 and $6 per hour. I’ll shoot for the average and ask for $5 an hour. A few hours a week should get some of the share paid off. Even without compensation, the ability to get out of the city, hang out with hawks, hear turkeys and chickens and horses make their noises all around, and put your hands in the dirt…that has to be worth something.

Well, the first delivery came yesterday -

That’s what it is worth.  Yeah!

Most food that is found in the trash needs to be dug out from underneath the “real” trash. Things like wax boxes, plastic pallet wrapping, random papers and empty grocery bags; wire, coffee filters, soda cans. The good stuff is sometimes all neatly stashed in a spent broccoli box or packed in an empty onion sack, but this is rarely the case. Usually you have to dig. The biggest turnoff to digging is that you have to physically get inside the container and throw things around like a crazy person.

And yes, these big steel boxes stink. This can deter some people and make them think that it is the food itself that is the problem. The problem is actually that these dumpsters never (or rarely) get washed or steam cleaned, so the crap that sticks to the walls as the containers are dumped rots while “fresh” trash is piled in. Since the dumpsters are emptied a few times a week, encountering something that is really foul is pretty rare.

All that to say that I think that March 1st will be the official start of waste stream month, four full weeks of eating completely free. I’ll be in the trash more often than usual, and, since Lynn and Selena are willing to participate over at Trashy Gourmet, the results of the experiment might be different from last time around. I have been practicing coming up with some recipes, but I think that the staple for the month will be Everything and Anything Soup. Currently bubbling on the stove is a pot of yellow squash, celery, kale, tomato, broccoli, spring onions and bok choy taken from the latest round of scavenging.

Add to that a couple toasted bagels and some “expired” goat butter and were good for a lunch/dinner cycle for a few days. And don’t forget the dessert…

I’m picking March 1st because it will give me some time for my hand to recover from cutting it on the edge of a dumpster as I was about to jump in.

It doesn’t hurt as bad as it did. I just need to remember to wear gloves…

Sometimes when I find food in the dumpster I get really irritated. That usually happens after I get really excited.

Tonight I came upon an entire case of unblemished cauliflower – eleven heads of gleaming white goodness still in the box – thrown away in the trash at a store that shall go nameless. I was on my bike, so I could only carry eight heads in my basket. This was my first stop and already I was full… I had to pass up the potatoes, squash, cabbage, onions, garlic, mushrooms and tomatoes. I couldn’t find any good reason why the cauliflower was thrown away. A rare, but not unheard of find.

The cauliflower will make a great soup and also provide a reason to dust off the pressure canner in order to preserve most of the goodness for later eating.

The next stop was the bagel/donut chain that has the awesome policy of bagging their coffee grounds with their end-of-the-day food. Finding a good bag can take a bit of digging, but I found a great stash of bagels. I was in a hurry and didn’t notice the salt bagels until I got home. Salt bagels are the grossest thing ever made. This is weird coming from me since my favorite bagel is the Everything, which has a lot of salt on it.

I packed two grocery bags full of bagels, put one in my backpack and strapped one to the top of the cauliflower in my bike basket.

Nestled among the salt bagels were a few garlic, a few cranberry, a few Everything, a few whole grain…a sampling of all the greats. This is a taste of the daily waste in my city, enough to feed myself and several others for a week. With a couple more bikes with baskets, a small group could find enough food in a few hours to feed themselves for a month and not spend a cent on fuel.

This brings to mind another round of Waste Stream Week, or maybe we could go for Waste Stream Month. How about I get a few other bloggers to do this with me this time? Who wants in?

A newly formed beekeepers association is starting up in New Hanover and adjacent counties. The first meeting is Tuesday February 19th, 7:00pm at the Arboretum (County Extension).

In addition, there will be an eight week beekeepers school starting on March 15th. Here is the info:

For information on other beekeeping classes in North Carolina, check out the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association.