It’s January 1, and you know what that means. Join the gym, sign up for French lessons, and add up the calories you harvested in 2012. Last year, at about this time, I added up the calories Kevin and I had harvested in 2011, and came to the sobering realization that, after all that work, [...]

It was a meager month, October: 14 dozen eggs @800 = 11200 10 large cucumbers @50 = 500 4 lbs. hen-of-the-wood mushroom @150 = 600 8 lbs. potatoes @300 – 2400 2 lbs. acorns @1700 = 3400 (more on this later) 40 oysters @10 = 400 50 figs @25 (they were smaller than last month) [...]

It was a good month, September. Our best month so far, thanks chiefly to our first-ever honey harvest, which made up almost half. A few fish, a few eggs, a few beans, and pretty soon you’re talking about real calories. 20 lbs. honey @1400 = 28000 20 lbs. bluefish filets @550 = 11000 2 sea [...]

So, here we are, limping along, almost meeting our goal of getting 20.12% of our calories first-hand in 2012, and Jen, of Milkweed & Teasel, swans in with her tally. Forty percent. Forty percent! Do you have any idea how hard it is to grow, hunt, or gather forty percent of your caloric needs? But [...]

It’s an awkward month, July. The fishing isn’t as good as May and June, the garden hasn’t started producing much yet, and the chickens are on strike because of the heat. It makes for a meager harvest, and a calorie count that comes in significantly below the 30,000 that would constitute 20% of our monthly [...]