Hello again! An update

Hello all!  I haven’t been on here in forever but I’m starting to feel my writing mojo coming back.  I’m not really sure why I stopped, other than just being super busy.  Some of it is that I’m getting more involved locally and some was just burnout from all the writing.  Anyway, I’m going to get writing again, although I’m sure at a lower production rate.  I’ll feel you in on what I’ve been up to.

The garden has been doing pretty well.  Cool summer this year (which makes it easy to live without air) but not to grow tomatoes.  But potatoes and green beans produced like crazy.  Squashes and pumpkins were growing great too.  We’ve really enjoyed the CSA shares this year.  Having her grow a variety allowed me to grow for preservation for our core canning and freezer items, which has been really helpful.  I must be getting better at this because my efforts seem easier each year.  Some I’m sure is that I’ve become less strenuous about making the gardens look perfect.  I’ve been enjoying the garden plot immensely.  I’m debating what to do with that plot; I know I’ll have at least one but I wonder if I can work two if I set up the one to be mostly corn and squash or something.

The chickens are doing great so I don’t have anything to add about them.

I got a new job recently.  (If you follow me on Facebook you’d know this)  I’m working on flood recovery here in Cedar Rapids.  The website link is Block by Block.  It’s a great job and very rewarding.  It has eaten into some of my off time and caused me to be more tired at night a lot, but it’s all worth it.  Earlier this year I was concerned about trying to be less of an assbag, and it seems like the job was a big part of why I was being an assbag.  Now that I’m happier at work I’m happier at home too.  I guess this makes a bigger difference than I realized.

We had a great time this summer going to Canada for my brother’s wedding.

The weight loss has been going good.  I’m down to 246 which is just over 30 pounds so far this year.  Counting the weight I gained on vacation and re-lost it’s actually around 45 pounds for the whole year.  J

Took a bunch of time off too with my reading because I was busy but I’m starting to ramp that up again, which is great.

Another Boat Tour of Cedar Rapids

This one is much more informative and shows quite a bit more. You can see that the river has receded by a good 2 or 3 ft. At one point they get up to the river’s edge, so the current must not be too bad this day.

Follow this link.

Aerial Video of Cedar Rapids

Aerial still pictures.

Thoughts on the Flooding

You know, flooding, and water, are strange beasts. It’s odd to live in a city while it’s flooding and realize that you are essentially trapped where you are. As the water rises bridges are shut down and you can’t go anywhere. Power goes out because water runs over and through the substations and power plants. Water floods roads and make it hard to even walk anywhere because of the water standing in streets. It’s an odd feeling.

It’s odd to think that water is necessary for life, but also can snuff out life.

Being Peak Oil aware and having an idea to keep emergency items handy to deal with emergencies related to Peak Oil make it easier to deal with emergencies like flooding. As I started thinking about how to get ourselves situated for the flooding we’re experiencing I realized that we were mostly already prepared, because of the Peak Oil preparedness. We’ve got drinking water stored up at the house in case the water treatment plant has to shut down. We’ve got food stored up that we can eat to make it through until things are over. We have lights and flashlights and batteries. Being prepared for PO helped me think what was the most important things to have for the next few days (Katrina helped too). We’ve even filled the tub up for extra water to either drink or flush the toilet with. Water is the most important thing. Food next. (Sharon has a ton of great information on her site to help you get prepared in the future if you aren’t.)

We’ve experienced some water in our basement through this ordeal, but not a whole lot. Last night I set up 3 rain barrels hoping that by capturing the water from the downspouts in the affected areas we might be able to keep the water at bay. It did OK last night but the basement was wet this morning, but a barrel also fell over. So, did it work or not? Did the basement flood because of the rain or the sudden deluge of water from a tipped over barrel? Either way we have another 150+ gallons of water to use if they do in fact get filled up, which they should given our rain this morning and later today.

Earlier today we lost power. It’s back now. But for how long? If it stays off we’ll have a challenging time prepared much more than fruits and vegetables. But, I guess we could probably do OK with those for a few days. I have plans to make an outdoor cooking center that uses wood, if I can ever get to it, and having that would further prepare us, although in a rainy situation it might not be the most useful thing in the world. So, lesson learned, what good is food if it can’t be prepared?

I have to say, given the circumstances I’m quite proud to be living in Iowa. People are helping other people. Everyone is preparing themselves for a solid week of conditions like this. Heck, I worked at the sandbagging operation with a guy who had been sandbagging for 22 hours straight. Not for his own use, so that people who needed them would have them. It’s amazing what is happening.

I don’t expect much more than 20% of the city to end up under water, and I hesitate to compare this to Katrina because the devastation is much, much less, but there wont’ be a situation like that here. We don’t have people staying behind when they are told to evacuate. People are prepared with supplies. The authorities are prepared. The circumstances are different because we’ve had some time to prepare for it verses in New Orleans where the levees suddenly broke, but I think the people make all the difference. Authorities took this seriously. The citizens took it seriously. Everyone did what they needed to do to get ready and, most importantly, when they were told to evacuate they left. I’ve heard of a few that want to ride it out, but they have mostly been forced out by police or their relatives. The radio and TV stations have done a great job keeping everyone aware of evacuation orders, volunteer operations and other things that they can do to help and be prepared.

Clothing Choices In An Iowa Spring

Below is a typical outfit of a 4 year old who dresses himself.  On this particular day it was 45 degrees out when we left the house.  I was able to talk him into adding the long sleeve shirt to his muscle shirt, which I think really completes the outfit.

I have so far been unsuccessful in implementing a minimum short temperature when the kids leave the house in the morning.  Sometimes they wear shorts when it’s mighty cold out.  Experience is the best teacher!

Here is the same child after playing with chalk all morning.

This little guy turns 4 on Friday.  He shares his birthday with D-Day and also the death of President Reagan.

Independence Days update #3

Another update in our Independence Days challenge

1.) Plant something: Sweet potatoes are the only thing I’ve planted. Everything else is in the ground. I’ll need to replant for things that didn’t sprout but that won’t be for a little while yet. I may be renting another garden plot to grow more vining veggies, and if I do that I’ll be busy planting again.

2.) Harvest something: We harvested some lettuce to augment a salad. It wasn’t enough to fill the salad but things are coming on now. We’re running about 10 degrees below normal for this time of the year so growing is a little behind.

3.) Preserve something: Nothing.

4.) Prep something: Prepped the three sweet potato beds, although they were mostly prepped. We built the chicken coop. I would post a picture but it’s too embarrassing. Thank God that chickens don’t have housing codes and code inspectors. Our coop might be deemed unfit for chicken living. They are coming next weekend so this week will be busy finishing their run area and buying supplies.

5.) Cook something new: Didn’t cook anything new. I was looking forward to trying Kohlrabi soon, but the rabbits got it. They seem to like it so much more than my other stuff I might plant it to for them in the future just to distract them. They ate my peppers too. I guess they needed something a little spicy. I didn’t think in a million years they would touch the pepper plants.

6.) Manage your reserves: Most of my reserves are used up. I keep pushing applesauce on anyone who comes over for dinner. I have a ridiculous amount of canning jars ready for the summer.

7.) Local food system: I built two 16 sq ft garden beds at the low income hub I’ve talked about before. We also planted these beds. (I didn’t count these beds in #1 because they aren’t for me) I’m excited at the opportunity to talk to the kids about local foods and talk about healthy foods. I just have to figure out how to make it interesting to them. While working on the bed a bikers was hit by a car, and we didn’t even see it even though it happened right around us. We had 4 police cars show up and we were wondering what the hell was going on. I did also inform a neighbor that the compost at the dump is free if you take a truck to pick it up.

8.) Reduce waste: I took more newspapers from work to use in the gardens above, so they went into the soil instead of the recycling bin. I also procured more lawn refuse to use in the garden so it wasn’t trucked to the compost facility.

9.) Learn a new skill: I’m getting really good at weeding since my compost was full of seeds. I guess I’ll have to do a better job at turning it in the future or something. I think most of the plants coming up at tomatoes, which is interesting, if I didn’t already have so many other tomato plants planted. This is a skill I’d rather not learn or get better at.

Power outages

I’m in Oregon right now, with weather that is quite a bit above normal.  It was in the 90s today.

And they’ve had blackouts.  I’ve always heard about this, and how we’re going to have more and more of these, but we don’t experience these in Iowa.

But today the power has gone out many times.  I guess you’d call that a rolling blackout?  It’s a strange phenomenon.  A new experience for me.

I guess all those warnings I’ve read and heard about the vulnerabilities of our power system, and how it can’t meet demand, are more true than I thought before.

Weekly Independence Day update

I’m going to half assedly participate in Sharon’s Independence Day’s challenge. I say half assedly because I’m already two weeks behind and I’m doing this mostly because I want to keep track of how my gardening and preserving is going this year. I’m really, really, really going to try to keep a poundage total of what I produce here at the homestead and from the garden plot.

The catagories are below (as stolen from Wendy’s nice little round up)

1. Plant something
2. Harvest something
3. Preserve something
4. Prep something
5. Cook something new
6. Manage your reserves
7. Work on local food systems
8. Reduce waste
9. Learn a new skill
10. Store something

Plant Something: I planted a few things this week. I planted 3 peach trees, 2 cherry trees and 2 rhubarb roots. Also planted green beans, dragon tongue beans, 4 kinds of dried beans, corn, all my herbs (borage, chives, cilantro, basil, bee balm, dill, parsley if you are curious), cucumbers, arugala and sunchokes. I think that’s all.

Harvest Something: Nothing ready to harvest yet.

Preserve Something: Nothing to preserve yet.

Prep Something: I prepped 15 garden beds at the garden plot (9X4) for use this year. Also the 5 tree locations. Also ate two more packages of frozen strawberries I found, although that wasn’t a chore, but did “prepare” the freezer for more additions. I also prettified and turned the compost pile to get more compost going. Made plans to buy 2 bushels of corn for the freezer instead of one. Decided never, ever to freeze green beans to eat in the winter. We hate them.

Cook Something New: Hmm, this isn’t really a good time for new recipes because my food options are rather limited. I did put some old meatloaf on a pizza to use it up, and that turned out well. Tried a new bread recipe. Results are inconclusive at this point.

Mange your reserves: Transferred my rice to new containers (only because the bag they came in broke and forced me to do it finally). Ate more food to clear up more space for this summer.

Work on local food systems: I talked to people about gardening. It seems I’ve become a bit of a resource for people at work. Also, there is a group that is starting up a Community Garden program in a lower income area of town, and I contacted them to see how I could get involved.

Reduce Waste: Nothing new. I’ve been stealing my neighbors grass clippings and leaves. That sort of reduces the waste stream, although the city composts them too. I just do it without the diesel truck.

Learn a New Skill: Um, nope.

Store Something: This isn’t on Sharon’s list but is on Wendy’s. I’ll have to figure out what’s up with this one.

Interesting housing analysis

Check out the math in this example of how out of whack the housing markets are/were in California.

Those are interesting figures.  I wonder how specific they are just to the areas of the country that are overvalued or if they would also apply to a normal real estate market.  Let’s replace some of the figures with my own figures and see what happens.

Our house was a fixer upper, but I would put the cost of purchase and rehab at $115,000.

We put $5000 down, used two split mortgages and then refinanced after repairs into one mortgage for 20 years at 5.75%.  Our payment is $836 per month with taxes and insurance included, based on a principal balance of around $86,000.  I’ll add in 2% of the principal balance for maintenance and that puts the house payment at $980.  The monthly tax benefit on this would be $392 (following the same formula application).  Net payment after taxes is $588.

I think it’s only fair to compare apples to apples when looking for a rental place.  This house is about 2 miles from my house and is close to the same type of house, although it has .5 baths more than mine but I know houses in that neighborhood do not have basements and we have hardwood floors, which I value quite a bit.  The rent on this house is $970, which you can tell is considerably more.

Just trying to make this work I found this apartment which is in a very desirable area of town, probably more so than where I live.  Even in that case it’s not all that compelling.  The price per month is $13 less, but it’s also 1 bedroom instead of 3 bedrooms.  And no yard.

I think given this information I can say that renting is only better than owning in certain markets and only when the market in that area has stayed reasonable on the price levels of the houses.  It’s a well documented fact that housing prices in CA were way overblown.  Rents have not gone up nearly as much as housing prices have.  Give the numbers in the example housing prices will need to come down quite a bit to make owning a more compelling option than renting in those markets.  I would suggest that this would probably also apply to the Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami, DC/Jersey/NY and Boston markets.  Those areas seem to be the ones that experienced the quickest price appreciation over the past 10 years or so.

This also reinforces my belief that buying a house that is a fixer is the most advantageous way to buy a house.  You tear them up anyway to make them yours right?  You might as well buy it with that in mind.

PETA comes out against horse racing

and shows yet again who stupid and misinformed they are.  In fact, I would go so far as to say they are not much more than a publicity seeking whore who tries to take advantage of situations for their advantage, even if they don’t know what the hell they are talking about.  (In case you don’t know what’s up follow this link to the PETA release)

Here’s the deal.  Sometimes PETA does amazing things and brings great awareness to a great many issues.  Their stance on CAFOs is great.  It’s the result of tons and tons of investigative reporting, and it’s great.  Their heavy promotion of a vegetarian (or vegan) lifestyle is OK, even if they do misconstrue and apply their data in their own specific way.  All special interests do that.  (I don’t enjoy how militant their people are though.  In fact, I would compare them to the conservative right in their inability to see any side to a situation but their own)  But they have done a lot to further this cause, make it more acceptable and show how our food choices impact the earth.

But most of the time they don’t do their research before they rush forward with their stories, which is really too bad.  This lack of consistent reporting is what makes it easy to write them off when they do publish suspect stories.

Their recent release about horse racing is no different.  PETA wants the jockey and the owners of Eight Belles suspended.  What about the other 2 horses a day that are euthanized in America?  Should those owners be suspended?  You can’t single out a specific instance and ask for special treatment.  You have to single out the whole group.  Imagine if PETA had said that we have to avoid CAFO beef from Tyson but IBP is OK.  Huh?  They are saying that this jockey and this owner are the problems when they are simply by products of this system.  You have to attack the system, like you did with CAFOs.

They further state that these horses suffer horribly at the hands of these owners.  Really?  You think it’s in an owners best interest to treat a horse badly that’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?  Is that logical?  I heard a horse racing analyst on ESPN state that in almost every situation the horses are treated better than the trainers.  They are pampered and treated like royalty.  Hmm, I guess maybe I’d like to sign up for this type of horrible suffering.

Here’s the thing PETA.  Instead of rushing out a poorly worded statement that is uninformed take some time and do some research.  Talk to experts about the real situation and how things really happen behind the scenes. Don’t judge horse racing by the 2 minutes you see on TV.  If you had done that and then released a list of things that need to change with horse racing it would hold a lot more water with me.

Oh, and if you have a spokesperson go on the radio to defend your actions make sure they can think clearly and talk about the issues more than just spewing verbatim from the press release.  It’s disgusting, insulting and ridiculous to have someone represent you like that.  Especially when this person is asked a question that requires actual thought and they just sit there and yammer trying to find an answer, I assume on your press release, for this question.

I do agree with them that the whipping of the horses has to stop.