A couple of times a week the local grocery store gives The Farmy a bag of expired produce. 
I sit on one bucket surrounded by other empty buckets and set to work chopping and dividing up all the vegetables, potatoes and fruit.
I am immediately surrounded in a rabble of watchers, outright looters and opportunists, 
who inspect the proceedings, 
complain to each other about the portions,
do not wait patiently and fight over any windfalls. LouLou and Author whose name is Good Authority are always in the thick of it. 
Everyone loves their buckets of fresh food except Bobby Blanc who does not like celery – fancy having a fussy calf. I store a few buckets full in the house, so they do not freeze solid overnight, these are Daisy’s milking treats for a couple of days. Until The Matriarch comes out with another delivery.
Later, after getting the idea from my father, I made labneh into little balls, carefully packed them in jars, covered them with olive oil, added rosemary and garlic and lids and popped the jars into the fridge for next Friday. These will not be shared with the looters.
Good morning everyone. We are cooling down today. It is 16F (-8C) right now but will drop to 7F (-14C) overnight. And then colder again the next day. The cold itself is manageable but whether Daisy’s milking pump will work in the cold always foremost in my mind. It is interesting how carrying the pump to and fro from the barn has become normal. Between milkings, it lives on the floor in the dining room along with the pulsator and the hoses, in the warm and out of the way of general traffic. No-one even bats an eyelid anymore.
Have a wonderful day. Find lots of loveliness and kindness.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
51 responses to “Dividing up the loot”
Fantastic recycling of ‘beyond fresh’ produce via your Farmy animals back to the earth. Lovely pictures of everyone!
It’s beginning to get severely cold and very windy here too!
any cold that has the word severe in front of it fills me with dread.. add severe to cold to windy and it is looking grim.. I am sure you are dressing warm! c
Love that they share out the veggies for the farmy. We often get stale bread from the Baker which our chickens love dry or soaked. Stay warm!
I would love to have the bakery goods! That would fill them up on a chilly day.. c
One of the joys of Small Town Life…I have my doubts that my former boss would have allowed such a thing, even though we were a locally-owned grocery store. So sad…
Stay warm – that stuff is headed my way for Tuesday night. With a possiblr 6 inch snowfall tomorrow…
I used to have a restaurant too, we got huge buckets of food for the chickens from there, but they went out of business and i never found another restaurant that understood kerbside pickup!! .. c
My Weim also thinks he should have first dibs on buckets of food sent to me for my composting worms! Have a restful Sunday Celi. 🙂 Laura
Oh your worms must be well fed! I could do with a restful day actually, maybe that is what i will do.. c
You are so fortunate to have this available to you! Around here it is, “Against corporate policy to give away the trimmings and past prime veg.” When asked, “WHY?” The standard answer is that, “They don’t want to be sued if you eat it and get sick.” Ridiculous!
I have had a lovely visit on the Farmy this morning, but I think I should not wait so long between visits. I am certain that I have overstayed my welcome, and filled your notifications box to over full with clicking the like button and my comments. I will try to be better about coming more often. 😉
You could never overstay your welcome.. it is always lovely to see you. I just cannot bear the amount of food that is dumped just because of fear. The supermarkets won’t even give away old buckets for the same reason.. it makes no sense at all. we are lucky that the little grocers are so cool.. c
I am surprised that the piggies aren’t all around you when you divvie up the goodies… lovely post and photos…
The pigs were in their pen, waiting, it would have been bedlam otherwise.. theya re not good at sharing! c
What a score! Happy Sunday on the Farmy:)
I do hope you are having a lovely sunday too! c
Great pictures and funny! That labneh looks very good too 😉
I’ve just cycled to the farmers’ market in the snow. Martin (the farmer) drives all the way from Kent, so going to buy some vegetables is the least I can do. It did look great – all the vegetables had a blanket of snow.
That would have been surreal, snow falling on the market… and cycling out into it must have been literally breathtaking..I love hearing about your bicycle journeys in london.. morning mad c
Our market didn’t arrive yesterday- icy fruit and veg lying about all morning are not good sellers but I bet you could use them up. The bakers here charge for bags of chicken-feed-stale bread.
Please, what are labneh?
Labneh is strained yoghurt, very well drained with a little salt added. yum! c
I noticed the dogs weren’t about when you divvy up the veggies. They must be holding out for something better!
Ton spent the whole time inching his frisbee through the door (he is not allowed to play in the barn) and I missed two fantastic shots of Author reaching up and wacking his face for getting in the way! c
I had to google labneh, how fascinating, Celi! I love your audience,and shared it today with Maddie who loves all things Farmy. It’s a lovely thought, everyone gathering for The Big Feed.
Fresh food at this time of year is a life saver.. I love it when they all get something green to eat.. morning kate.. do you have snow too?.. c
We do. We are all of a pother. How will we ever get to work in the morning? 😀
out you go with your shovel!! c
I used to collect kitchen scraps.. for our pet rabbits and guinea pigs. I imagine you’d need massive buckets for your hungry lot! Have a wonderful day!!
My kids behave the same way when we bring a bag of loot in from the farmers’ market or the local bakery. I DO feed them, really I do! But there is something about the excitement of fresh treats that makes all of us a little wiggly and impatient 🙂
that has to give you pleasure to watch them enjoying their treats………
Okay…I need to know…what is labneh and how does one make it and eat it?
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
Make some yoghurt, strain it for about 24 hours, add a little salt and whip it up! Let it sit for a day or so in a jar until it dries out a tiny bit then roll and into the jars.. Or add chopped onion and chopped olives or dates and dried apricots and eat with crackers. Labneh. Like cream cheese but faster.. c
Oh, thank so very much…now off to the kitchen….
Excellent photos and I love that the grocers work as part of your. immunity which is the only real way to go natural.