More than 6,000 pounds of food in 2010!

Now, when people ask me how much food we produce, I can tell them -- more than 6,000 pounds in 2010. I've never been able to answer that question in the past, so a year ago I told the family that we had to start weighing and writing down everything we picked, collected, butchered, and milked.

A few things are not on the list. We completely forgot to weigh a few things -- like carrots. Sometimes we would pick and eat something so small that it didn't seem worth weighing -- like green onions. Then after picking and eating about 30 green onions, I realized that we really should have been weighing them. They would have added up. And even though there are more than 50 pounds of corn in our freezer, we didn't feel right adding it to the list because it was a gift from a neighbor. We did spend about five hours, however, shucking, blanching, cutting, and bagging it before putting it into the freezer. And some things really have me scratching my head -- like eggs. If 40 layers only laid 277 dozen, that's only about 83 eggs per chicken, so either our chickens are terrible layers, or they hid a bunch of them, or we didn't count a lot of them!

The list only includes food grown for human consumption. We did not count milk that was fed to goat kids, barn cats, and pigs. Nor did we count hay, acorns, hickory nuts, overgrown squash, and rotten tomatoes that were fed to animals.

Chocolate ice cream with caramel sauce on meringue

One thing not reflected in this list is what we did with all that milk. We made almost all of our own dairy products, including queso blanco, cheddar, gouda, feta, parmesan, mozzarella, ricotta, brie, gjetost, cajeta, yogurt, buttermilk, dulce de leche, ice cream, and chevre.

Although I am proud of everything we did, I'm also disappointed that we dropped the ball on some things, like the okra and tomatoes. We should have -- could have -- harvested a lot more, but we didn't get it harvested at the peak of ripeness, which is disappointing. It seems ridiculous that sometimes the hardest part of gardening is harvesting. Although we enjoyed fried okra a few times over the summer, we never got any breaded and frozen for winter use. We also never got the shitake mushroom spawns into logs, so the shitake project is delayed.

As much as I'd love to have some fried okra right now, as well as some shitake mushrooms, I know we should just pat ourselves on the back and promise to try harder this year.

Collecting maple sap

Apples 48.5 pounds
Blackberries 3.75 pounds
Cherries 6.5 pounds
Chicken 43 pounds
Cucumbers 19.8 pounds
Eggs  415.5 pounds (277 doz.)
Green beans 34.8 pounds
Lamb and mutton 207 pounds
Lettuce 8.75 pounds
Maple syrup 31.5 pounds (10.5 quarts)
Milk 2,755 pounds (366 gallons)
Mulberries 2.4 pounds
Mushrooms 3.725 pounds
Mustard greens 8.5 pounds
Okra 8 pounds
Onions 22 pounds
Peaches 2.75 pounds

Jalapeño peppers

Pears 79 pounds
Peppers 38 pounds
Pork 1,662 pounds
Potatoes 75 pounds
Raspberries 15.9 pounds
Sprouts 4.25 pounds
Squash 77 pounds
Tomatoes 165 pounds
Turkeys 306 pounds
Turnips 3.5 pounds
Turnip greens 1.1 pound