Isn’t it ironic…

Don’t cha think?

Ironic that I go into the Dr’s office yesterday because she wants to check my BP and cholesterol figures, as she likes to do every so often, because they trend higher than normal most of the time.

Only this time my cholesterol numbers were down 30 points from last time, to the affect that they are now below the “bad” line.  It’s ironic I think that this would happen when I decided to give up all the “good” fats and only eat the “bad” fats.  After she told me the results I started to chuckle and told her this exact thing.  She didn’t seem exactly happy that I was doing that, but didn’t really say anything. 

Isn’t it ironic?

My BP is trending lower too.  I’m guessing this is all a result of the changes in my diet.  If anything I’m exercising less than ever (unless you count all the outside garden work and such) so the only other factor has to be the diet.

Strange how eating naturally and not by what is recommended on the food pyramid is better for you (well, me at least).

I was mentally prepared for the fight of a lifetime to stay off the cholesterol meds this time around, but it didn’t end up being necessary.  That was kind of nice.

FGLB

Things, they are a growing

Man, weekends are so great. I love that busy, tired, exhausted feeling of doing a ton of physical work and feeling a sense of accomplishment when it’s all finished. We had guests for the weekend too so fun was had and a ton of work got done. You just can’t beat that.

My brother came back from Korea on Saturday and it was great to see him again (even if I did have to drive to Chicago and back to get him) and hear all the hilarious stories about his year abroad. He has a hurt neck right now (bulging disc or something. I can’t remember what it’s called) which on a positive side, causes his appetite to be almost normal so we can almost keep him fed while he’s at our house. Of course, it also offered him an easy excuse to get out all the work around the house.

We were able to paint our upstairs, which you might remember was in the process of being dry walled. The color choices made by the head designer (my wife) came out very nicely, and it’s quite appealing if I do say so myself. There was enough painting help that I was able to avoid the work up there, which was even better. There is still a lot to finish up with the room, but it’s starting to look like a room finally.

I spent a ton of time outside working in the yard. Earlier in the week we had planted a little oak tree my mother in law obtained on Arbor Day. (Free is my favorite!) I planted it slightly under a maple tree for some protection from the sun, but also in the drip line so that excess water would come to it to help it grow. Mother nature had other plans though as a storm on Saturday tore down half the maple tree. Amazingly it tore down the back half of the tree (house side) and all the limbs fell around the baby tree. So the boys and I got busy Saturday morning cutting it up for disposal. (Really it was mostly me, but they had fun playing “bear in a cave” in the fallen limbs.) We’re lucky that our city picks up yard waste if we put it in the yard containers each week. Since this is maple wood I can’t smoke it in my smoker, so I have little use for the wood, which is too bad. But now the tree looks pretty sick. And I guess the little oak tree will get more sun than I originally intended, but I’ll keep an eye on it.

In other outside news, I decided to break out the weed eater. I only do this about every 4-6 weeks to edge the grasses when they get just way out of hand. Most of the time I use my hedge clippers on the edges but sometimes you just need to get it trimmed down low. I also planted five more tomato plants, cut down some peonies, weeded some garden space (but not the one that really, really needs it), cut some lettuce to eat, and planted the pole beans and hung the trellis for them to climb. The corn hasn’t sprouted yet so I’m a little worried it might need to be replanted. But the green beans, potatoes, carrots and such are going gangbusters.

My fava bean’s flowers have all turned black. Is this normal? Anyone know? Two of my just planted blueberry bushes appear to have died. I’m anxiously waiting for our shipment this week of trees and bushes from Edible Landscaping to get them in the ground. This is one time I can say I’m ready before things needed to be planted.

I am also waiting for my pollinator garden to appear. I tossed out a ton of seeds in the front flower bed this spring after the last frost date and they should be coming along soon. Bee balm and lavender and poppies and a ton of other perennials along with some strategically placed sunflowers. I’m hoping that this arrangement will allow them to come back each summer and bring color and attract pollinators with no effort from me. I like no effort gardening.

I was able to clean out the garage. There doesn’t seem to be anything more satisfying when it’s completed than cleaning out the garage. We can’t park a car in there (we could possibly park a scooter in there) but I can now at least from one side to the other in both directions. A nice improvement. Someone down the street was tossing out a little tikes slide so we scavenged that and now we have a water slide for the pool. Very nice.

And I cooked up a few pretty good meals out of the deal.  A good weekend all around.

The boy’s are ahead of the curve. They have a car that runs on alternative fuels. It’s human powered and also grass powered.

FGLB

Gotta respect

I don’t care who you are, you gotta respect JoePa when he does things like this.

Where’s the beef?

It’s hard to do anything to reduce your footprint on the earth if you don’t spend some serious time reflecting on your personal habits.  From cleaning supplies to transportation needs to filling your food needs a serious look at your consumption can lead to a large impact on the world with a few changes.  Lately I’ve been looking at my family’s meat intake.  Over the past year we’ve fully made the switch to locally raised meat products, but my analysis is still showing that we are eating more than we need to.

It’s a hard thing to change, this affinity for meat.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know that I like a good steak as much as the next person (or possibly even more), and I personally have no compunction about eating meat, as long as it’s sourced from a local humane source.  But I do know that you can still eat too much of it, and even when it’s raised humanely, eating meat still has a large impact on the world.  The question is what to do about it.

I live in the Midwest.  In the middle of corn and bean monoculture.  Where raising hogs is big business. This meat country.  Any kind of meat.  Meat is the centerpiece of every meal.  When I was growing up practically every meal contained a meat, some type of potato and another side dish.  That’s just how everyone eats here, and that’s how my mom cooked.  (Probably to deal with some picky kids because my brother and I were very picky growing up, but that’s how it is everywhere)

The question is how do I break out of it?  It’s a tough shell to break out of.  I’ve grown up cooking a certain way, and changing the way I cook is quite difficult.  The few times I’ve cooked without using meat as the main item, or at all, it’s been quite liberating.  In fact, I kind of like the challenge of it.  It’s easy to cook with meat in the meal.  I guess it would be like asking someone who is Asian to cook up a Midwestern meal.  They would find it challenging, but could probably adapt.  I’m essentially doing the same thing.  I’m trying to forget my Midwestern roots and learn more Asian types of dishes where meat isn’t the centerpiece of the meal. 

But these meals I’ve cooked have always felt like something was missing.  Maybe it’s because I’ve got it ingrained in my head that a meal should consist of a meat centerpiece.  When I see my kids eat they don’t really care if the meal has meat in it or not (although they do routinely complain about having stir fry AGAIN) so it appears that this feeling I have must be something that has been learned by me over time.  I don’t notice that I have this feeling when we have a pasta meal without meat, perhaps because I grew up with pasta meals on occasion without meat in them?  I’ve noticed more lately that when we eat a meal it isn’t the meat that I go back for when I get seconds.  Maybe that’s something my body is telling me subconsciously?

I don’t really know where I’m going with this whole thing.  I’m just kind of talking and thinking through my fingers.  Maybe some of you have dealt with these same types of things?  Could you offer any insight?  It seems difficult to take the final step to stop cooking meat with meals mostly because I’m not really sure how to cook without it.  That seems like kind of a lame reason, but it’s mostly true.  It could be as simple as just not cooking it, but still having all the same side dishes.  That seems kind of boring.

I don’t know.  It’s a hard thing for me to figure out.  I guess I’m trying to reduce how much meat we eat, without feeling deprived after we eat, but still keep meat in our diet to ensure we get all the necessary nutrition.  I guess I’m blabbing on here trying to figure out how to reduce it further.  It seems like I’ve taken the easy steps but these next few seem to be a little larger and I’m more unsure about it.  

Weekend update

My mint plants really took off after I brought them home from the garden center so I plucked a few leaves this past weekend to enjoy some mint based dishes.  I made a Mint-Lemon chicken dish which was really pretty tasty.  The recipe says to put it over white rice, which is fine, except the dish doesn’t make enough sauce to really flavor up the rice much.  But we really liked the flavor of the chicken.  I wouldn’t recommend you put it over white rice though.

Also, while I was using the mint I decided that a few Mojitos were in order.  And we really enjoyed those.  I had to tweak the recipe a little to make it work for us, but here is a link to where I started.  Here is where I ended up:

5-6 mint leaves rolled between your fingers and added to a blender.  (I found spearmint to be the most flavorful)

8-10 ozs club soda

4 ozs Rum

Juice from 2 limes

About 1/4 cup simple syrup of sugar and water.  (I didn’t measure this, just dumped it.)

Add a little ice to chill and pulse the blender.

Strain through a strainer and pour over ice.

Enjoy.

These were very good and certainly move to my list of top 5 favorite drinks.  At first I found the rum to be overpowering but by adding more lime juice and mint leaves I was able to mask the taste of it. 

Also, since we were visiting Cuba, Sunday afternoon I cooked up a pot of Cuban black beansfollowing this recipe.  Saying the beans are good would really be unfair to all things that are good.  They are flat out amazing.  I added some smoked sausage about halfway through the cooking to add a little smoky flavor.  I replaced the bell peppers with jalapeños because I don’t really care for bell peppers, and I wanted some heat.  It turned out just right.  A little spicy and a little sweet.  My version turned out damn hot.  I put in 1.5 peppers.  Next time I’ll just use a half and see how that tastes.  Dang.  It does smell so incredible though.  I don’t recommend sautéing the jalapeños.  The fumes will almost kill you.  And the beans needed more water as they dried out quite a bit while cooking.  I cut the recipe in half because it’s almost impossible for me to eat a whole bean recipe by myself (it’s just the little guy and I eating beans in this house) without really being sick of beans when I’m done.  The recipe says to put this over white rice, and there was just enough sauce to make it really flavor up the rice. 

In other news, I made it to the Farmer’s Market in Iowa City this weekend and I’m in love.  That market is soooo much better than the ones I go to here in Cedar Rapids.  Can someone please provide me a justification to drive 30 minutes to the market each Saturday?  If I did that I would only need to hit one market instead of two or three.  Plus, this market has organic producers (the CR markets don’t, or they don’t advertise it if they do) and the IC market is across the street from the Co-op so I could shop there at the same time and be done with my shopping by 9 AM on  Saturday morning.  I don’t currently shop at the co-op because I don’t want to drive down there just for that, but if I’m going to the market too…

I’ve been a busy boy

Lately I’ve had quite a bit of stuff published up at Groovy Green.  Here are a few links.

Book review

Interesting stories.

Local recipe week 2

Eco Friendly hangers. 

Way awesome challenge going on. 

FGLB

Too much to do, too much to say

One big problem I have right now is that I keep wanting to do too much too fast.  I want to plant fruit trees and bushes at my house right now, today, because I know they will take years to come in well enough to start providing for us.  Money for them?  Time to care for them?  Who knows.

I want to plant a large shade tree in the front yard because I want there to be shade on the house and it needs to be done now, because I want the shade now, but most of all, I want the shade in the near future when I can’t afford to use the A/C at my house for the week or two we use it.  The longer I wait to plant the longer it will take to come in.

I want to have a huge garden space now because I want to provide as much of my own food as I can, but gardens are a lot of work when you are first building them.  And I have to mesh aesthetics with functionality to keep from even more scornful looks from my neighbors (and very understanding wife).  Not to getting enough material to generate enough compost.  And it seems like I can never get enough space.  There is plenty of area available on my little lot, I just need to use it better or something. 

I want to build fruit guilds around the few trees I am planting, but when?

For some reason I feel this sense of urgency because I want to do all these things now, but I don’t know where that is coming from.  I need to understand that nature takes time.  My impatience is nothing to nature.  I have to pick out something that I want to focus on each year and get better at that.  I can’t try to do too much or I’ll feel overwhelmed, which is how I feel a lot of the time.

But if I do that then what do I do about other stuff?  There is so much I want to do that I can’t put some of it off indefinitely.  I have to plant trees so that they will start producing in the next 5 years or so, but how much effort will I waste keeping them alive if I don’t build guilds around them for a few years? You know what I mean?  I hate wasting time and effort.  It’s not in my nature.  But then I know that I can’t focus on the guilds and neglect the gardens, because those take more of your immediate time, and will produce more now, and are critical to learning for the future.  And I have to do all this before the weather gets hot because then I wilt and I won’t be able to work outside for the better part of 8 or 9 hours like I did on Saturday.

And there are a couple chunks of city owned land a house down that would be perfect for a little in town orchard.  But how could I possibly add that to my already full plate?  Not to mention in the next few years my kids will be getting involved in some activities.  And I still have to mow the stupid lawn.  God I hate grass.

We try to live a slow life, but lately it sure doesn’t seem like it’s slow.  I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get it all done.  Gaa!!

It’s all about the Benjamin’s…

I had originally planned to write something different tonight, but after reading Sharon’s post today I decided some things I wanted to say couldn’t wait until later.  I’ll wait here while you go over and read Sharon’s story.  (Dum dum dum dum dum dadadadum dum dum dum dum dum dum …are you now humming the Jeopardy theme?    You’re welcome) 

Now that you’re back, what did you think?  I like what Sharon has to say.  I’ve been moving along those same thoughts lately.   My difference is that I think it will be far, far worse than most people think.  Most of the people who work in America now are accustom to their cushy lifestyle.  Life now is nothing like it was in the 20s, so we have a lot further to fall back to a base level before we can make any progress.  I know I’m being a pessimist when I say this, but I really think the impending picture of Peak Oil, mortgage/financial market meltdowns, layoffs and general rabble rousing will make the Depression seem like a cake walk. 

We’ll see.  I could be wrong.  But either way we’ll be prepared.  If things don’t go bad then we’re just more secure than we were before.  If things do fall apart then the plan is to have a place to live.  We finally put our money where our mouths are recently.  We did something really nutty.  All those financial pundits will say we’re nuts, but we don’t really think so.  You see, we stopped saving for our retirement.  Yeah.  I know.  It’s crazy.   It’s insane.  CCCAAALLLL THE CRAZY PEOPLE!

But here’s the thing, we know this is the house we want to be in for the long term.  We know that it’s a reasonable size with a fair amount of land area to grow a fair amount of crops.  We know that it’s in the city and it’s close to things we might need.  And we know that we would feel a lot better if we had it paid off.  So we decided to stop saving in our 401ks and IRAs, for now.  Besides, what’s the point of these accounts anyway?  If things go awful and we need the money Uncle Sam takes 40% before I can get any right?  And if things go awful the stock market won’t be going up right?  So the real reason they exist; to take advantage of tax deferred high income investment growth, won’t be happening.  Why add more to the pot?

Why not use that money to get our morgage paid off faster and that way we’ll own a chunk of space we can call ours and have a place?  If things don’t go bad, like I said, we’re still fine.  But now we have a house free and clear and some serious bank each month to work the retirement savings, if it’s even important to save for retirement in 10 years.  Of course assuming we’re able to stay gainfully employed.  Yes, I did say 10 years.  10 years is a long time away, but assuming no additional payments, with the schedule we’ve set up it should be around 10 years from now when it’s paid off.  I have no idea what the world will be like in 10 years, I just hope we can hold it together long enough to make it that 10 years.  But, 10 years is shorter than 30 so we’re moving forward.  And if we are able to get enough equity in the place that should protect us on the downside as well, even if it’s not paid off.

But what about your tax write off you say?  Mortgage interest is “good interest”.  What?  It’s good to pay someone interest?  Are you hearing yourself talk?  That is nothing more than good advertising.  Next time you do your taxes ask your tax person what the “benefit” of your tax write off is.  You’ll be surprised.  Same thing with student loans.  Get rid of that debt! 

Now, one major reason I think this will work for us is because we’ve always been LBYMers.  When most people in their 20s were out partying and buying new furniture and cars and whatnot we lived with cast offs and limited our partying.  We did buy some new things on credit, one car and one living room set.  The car is still with us, a Honda Civic (almost 10) , and will probably be for many more years.  The furniture set is too.  We know that if we set this direction down we can follow through with it.  That may not be so with you.  You need to look yourself in the mirror and see if you have what it takes.  (I’m lucky that I have an American wife who DOES NOT like to shop)

We also have had the benefit of well paying jobs and have used those opportunities to save diligently for retirement.  I know that with what we’ve already saved, assuming no additional contributions and a decent yearly return, we’ll pass that magical 7 figure mark before we’re 60.  But who knows what the dollar will be worth by then?  That may not be enough money.  Hell, the Dow might be back at 2000 by then.  Who knows.  One thing I do know, the Dow has averaged 11% a year for the past 75+ years, but we’ve never had a world climate like we do now for companies to operate in.  We are in a world where resources are scarce.  Oil, wood, coal, natural gas, tillable land are all being used up or fully utilized.  The corporate business model doesn’t work without an unending supply of resources to suck in the front end, both of people and natural materials.  I think the latter will be in high demand but low supply in the future, which possibly means wage deflation if workers are in low demand/high supply situations.  Keep an eye on that.

This was a long, possibly boring way for me to tell you to read what Sharon wrote and get serious about it.  Be serious about it.  You may not believe all this and that’s fine, but maybe you believe some of it?  Is that enough to make you want to do anything about it? 

Don’t you wonder why gas is approaching $4 a gallon already and the magical “Don’t buy gas today” strikes don’t work?  Why do you think prices for things you are buying at the store are going up every time you go there, but the government is saying there isn’t any inflation?  Do you really think paying interest is a good thing? 

If you’ve got some spare time read this guy and watch his videos.  He talks about things in a very good introductory way, if you are new to this stuff.  It’s time to get with it America.

FGLB

Garden work

I briefly mentioned yesterday that we spent the weekend out in the garden working on getting things planted and moved around and, hopefully, getting it a little more set on what is going to be in it.  Child #2 helped me and we spent time planting corn seeds in our three corn beds.  The plan is to grow a Three Sisters garden in those spots.  We’ll see how well it works out.  I don’t have any doubt that the beans and squash will grow well, but I think I’m going to have to hand pollinate the corn since it’s a fairly small area and it’s not likely that there are enough of them to get them pollinated on their own.  (Corn pollinates by wind in case you are wondering what I’m talking about)

Mixed in with the corn beds are the two potato beds.  There are probably 20 plants growing right now in these beds, out of the 30 or so I planted.  These aren’t enough potatoes to last us very long, in fact they will mostly be eaten fresh, but it’s a start for me to start growing some calorie crops.  I really don’t have the space to grow a huge amount of potatoes, unless I build a lot of potato towers, but this the start to the learning process.  I planted the potatoes right after Easter so they are growing quite nicely already. 

The plan is to rotate the corn and potato beds from year to year to help keep any pests at bay.

In front of the corn and potato beds (when looking from the south) are the newest beds that we worked on this weekend.  In them we have 8 tomato plants, 2 sweet potato plants and rows of cowpeas, lima beans, Boston favorite beans and green beans.  I’m planning on rotating the tomatoes and beans back and forth from year to year, along with one other bed, so that the rotation will be beans, beans, tomatoes in succession.  Hopefully that will get enough nitrogen into the soil for the tomatoes.  I’ll be planting 5 different kinds of beans:  Cowpeas, lima beans, green beans, fava beans, and the Boston favorites (if they are good) in the rotation.  The sweet potatoes are there to grow across the garden space and provide ground cover.  Since they won’t be harvested until after all the other stuff is harvested I won’t have to worry about pulling anything up when I harvest them.  (I got this suggestion from my friend Aaron.  It runs along the same lines as the Three Sisters concept.  It would seem like you could also do this with squash.  Melons and cantaloupe might work if you can harvest them without crushing the other plants.)  There is only a one foot path between where this bed ends and where the corn/potato beds begin.  I’m slightly concerned that the tomato plants when they are fully grown may shade those beds just a little, but since they are facing due south as the sun moves West each day those beds should get plenty of sun.

Also, I’ve had a few casualties so far this spring.  Most of my peas died.  Again.  I just can not grow peas for some reason.  We dug up one of the pea beds this weekend and replanted it with carrots.  This bed was heavily infested with weeds and grass that I didn’t do a good enough job digging out this spring.  So maybe that is why they died.  I like to think it was the cold though, not my fault!  The other pea bed is also being replanted slowly.  A few peas seem to have come up, but the winners there are the peonies that I thought I had completely dug up.  They grew up through the 4 inches of bed material and are growing great.  Oh well, I’ll keep pulling them up until they are gone.  I think I’ll replant this area with some watermelon.  I have one other bed along the fence row and it’s filled with turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, 3 kinds of carrots and some other stuff I can’t remember right now.   

I’ve also got two more beds up by the house which are planted mostly in kitchen types of things.  Lettuce, broccoli, onions, garlic, celery, a few pepper plants that I filled in with.  And there are still plenty of open spots for more warm weather crops.  One other bed runs along a privacy fence.  It’s not completed yet, but at the base of the fence is the planting space and then there will be trellises up the fence so I can grow some pole beans and cucumbers, maybe another tomato plant and anything else that catches my fancy.  My last bed runs along the east side of the house.  It’s a special shady spot I built to see if I can grow greens through the summer.  More on this spot later. 

Writing this up I just realized how large my garden space has grown.  It’s no where near as large as some people’s gardens, but last spring I had 16 sq ft and now I’m up over 300.  Oh man, it might be a tough summer…

Weeding

Child #2 and I spent some time in the garden yesterday.  I was planting tomatoes and corn and such and I knew he would be more than happy to get his hands dirty.  We started our adventures by pulling some weeds.

I was checking on a pork shoulder that was on the smoker when I heard him yell from across the yard “Dad!  Weeds!” and he had two handfuls of plants.  They were my fava beans. 

He had followed directions to the tee though.  He had pulled them up roots and all.  I put them back in the ground, but I don’t think they’re going to pull through.

Hard to be so upset with him when he was so excited to be pulling up “weeds”.