Some things

This past summer I got really sick of seeing tomatoes.  But one day I looked over on my counter and I had a whole mess of them.  What the hell am I going to do with these evil things?  I decided to stick them through a blender, uncooked, and can them.  Sort of like homemade tomato puree.  Amazingly, they worked out fine.  I used a can of it the other day with some spices and veggies and made a very hearty meat less pasta sauce.  It needs some fine tuning to get the Italian flavor up, but it was still pretty tasty.  Now however, I’ve got about 15 quarts of tomato puree in the basement.  Explain to me again why people spend so much time cooking down tomatoes in the summer for pasta sauce when they can just do it in the winter when it’s not so hot?

This past weekend I made some bread pudding from some loaves that had carried on past their prime.  Can you say delicious!  Very much.  Why haven’t I every eaten that before?  And it’s even better when you drizzle a whiskey sauce over the top (especially when the whisky is Southern Comfort).

I’ve finally decided that I’m satisfied with the No-Knead bread recipe and I don’t feel like I should keep screwing around with my bread making to try new variations.  I don’t plan to get stale, but for the most part our daily bread is always going to be the No-Knead recipe.  I like the texture very much, it’s easy for me to fit it into our life, and one loaf usually will get us through most of a week, unless we have a bunch of soup or something.

It’s amazing how much spare time you can have in the winter when you spend so much time putting food up in the summer.  I only go to the store for milk and butter for the most part now.  It’s really great.  

Is winter over yet?  I want to be outside and dig in the dirt.

Big Fat Liar

If you’re not a Hillary fan you won’t be surprised to read this story.

I love the title of the story.

An excerpt:

Clinton coldly and knowingly lied to New Hampshire and Iowa. Her promise was not a vague statement. It was a signed pledge with a clear and unequivocal meaning.

She signed it thinking that keeping the other candidates out of Michigan and Florida was to her advantage, but knowing she would break it if that proved beneficial later on. It did, and she did.

New Hampshire voters, you were played for suckers.

I must admit that this story is pretty fishy.  There’s no author to the story, but, I could see some truth to it as well.

Interesting game

Lately my children have taken to battling the forces of evil, with practically anything they can get their hands on.  They make light sabers from tinkertoys, and use their K-nex to make space ships and other swords for dragon slaying.  They even use their LEGOs to make ships and put battleship tokens into the LEGO people’s hands to make light sabers.  But this weekend they went a whole ‘nother step out on the ledge.

This weekend the good guy (named John Edwards) was fighting against the evil forces of Soda and Junk Food.

I think it’s obvious I’ve spent too much time talking politics around them.  🙂 The good thing for them is that in their world the Good Guy always wins.  It’s not like that out here in the real world though.  Too bad.

Books, oh, so many books

Now that I’ve had some time to start digesting some books and get started on my goal of reading some of the classics I thought I would update you all on how I’m doing and what I’ve liked so far.  Even by my standards this has been a lot of reading, but remember that when it warms up outside I’ll be outside so much I won’t have time to read.  And some of these books have been so hard to put down I’ve read them too much.

So far I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath, Winter of our Discontent, The Hobbit, Main Street, Slaughterhouse 5, Crime and Punishment, 1984 and Animal Farm.  That’s my ranking of favorite books so far.  I still have a fair amount of Crime and Punishment left and a few pages of Animal Farm, but I don’t think their rankings have changed.

I was absolutely in love with The Grapes of Wrath, Winter of our Discontent and The Hobbit.  Grapes and The Hobbit were hard to understand at first, but once I got the writing language down I fell completely in love with them.  They are so amazing.  And The Grapes of Wrath is such a powerful story about a families struggle against incredible odds.  Such a great story about struggling through the Depression and the economic forces that control the lives of so many people.  Incredible.  At this point I’m probably going to try to read every Steinbeck novel.  

Crime and Punishment and Slaughterhouse 5, along with Main Street proved entertaining, but definitely did not affect me, in my core, like the other books.  I can attest though that the small town-ness of Main Street is alive and well, and that’s how it is.  I grew up in a town that was twice as big as the story town, but it was like that one.

I flat out did not care for 1984 or Animal Farm.  My list pronounced 1984 as the best novel, which I can’t understand.  I didn’t find it a joy to read like the other ones.  I won’t have any compunction about taking them back to the Used Book store to get what I can for them.

If I had known that I would read these books this fast I definitely could have gotten them from the library.  I expected this to be a good couple months of reading.  It didn’t work out that way.  I plan to keep some of these books as I like them to build up a small library of classic literature for reading pleasure.  I won’t allow myself to get anywhere near the number of books some of you have though.  What should I read now?  I picked up War and Peace and Tortilla Flats (Steinbeck).  I’ve still got Robinson Crusoe, some Stephen King books and my coworker has dug up some of her classic lit books for me to read through.  

It’s been so long

Sorry I’ve been away for so long folks. A sick child, then sick parents, shopping for a new car, home projects and some very interesting books have all conspired to keep away from the blog for far too long. I’m getting back in the flow again though.

Speaking of a sick child, we had to take him to the Dr. It’s the first time a child has been to the doctor other than well child visit for quite some time. Possibly 14 or 15 months, if I remember correctly. Then of course I had to go. It has been at least 18 months for me. It’s all that local, non processed food!

We did buy a new car recently, which I’ll be writing up in the near future for Groovy Green. Shopping for a car when you’re eco conscious is an interesting experience.

Not a huge surprise, but the housing market shit has finally hit the fan. I read a WSJ blurb last week that stated that all the investment banks have reported over $100Billion in losses so far. And that was before the string of announcements this week.  Seems as though the economy is heading for a recession or maybe worse.

The idiot in charge is talking about sending out rebates for us strapped Americans.  Unfortunately I haven’t met too many people who plan to spend it if they get.  Most plan to save it or use it to payoff a debt.  I’m not sure that’s exactly what they have in mind for it, but what can you expect?  I plan to use it to buy some staple foods and then save the rest!  Hey, I’m no worse than the rest.  Of course, I feel really bad about the fact that my kids and grandkids will have to pay for this stupid attempt at a bailout.

That’s all for now.  Hopefully work will slow down some so I can do a little more writing.

Seeds, books, change, purchases and other things

I’m dumping a few miscellaneous items into this post to get them out the way.

If you haven’t read all the comments on the Personal Change post and the Burden of Receiving a Gift post you should. Tons of useful info there about all kinds of things. And, as she so eloquently does, Sharon does a better job of explaining the Riot 4 Austerity than I can do in the Personal Change post.

I ordered seeds for this coming summer. This time I ordered from Seed Savers and Jung’s Seeds. Spent $75. Seems like a lot, but they will last a long time. Some are perennial herbs and will come up each year. I found Jerusalem Artichokes at Jung’s seeds, and ordered a pound of them. So that’s a one time investment. Plus sweet potato and some fingerling taters, among other things. Along with my mixed box of stuff I’m set for a few years. I’ll try my hand at planting runner beans and cowpeas from seeds I saved. We’ll see how that goes. I also decided that this year I am going to start everything inside and transplant it outside. I’m hoping this will give me bigger yields, higher success rates and a higher turnover of my small plots. Jeavons advocates this as part of his Biointensive method, and I figured if it works for him I might as well try it too.

I’ve decided that I’m going to guerilla garden a vacant lot at the end of my road, as long as the neighbor next door to the lot doesn’t mind. It’s a lot that the city “owns” and they won’t sell or rent it to me. So, I’m going to plant it anyway. We’ll see what happens. I don’t want to sink a lot into it so I figure I’ll plant some things that I don’t care that much about anyway. I got some free sunflower seeds and I have plenty of green bean plants. I’ll do some squash and possibly corn. And I’ll definitely cut up some taters and put them in over there too and see what happens. No matter what I do, I have to make sure the plants are something that rabbits won’t want because I won’t be able to fence it off from them. One reason taters and squash will matter. Rabbits don’t seem to give a hoot about them.

I put the quotes around “owns” above because it ticks me off the way the people that run the city think. I own that lot as a citizen of this city, and there’s no reason I should be allowed to use it. They’re concerned about their easement through it for a storm sewer. Fine. Then mark that part off but let us use the rest. It’s a very large lot and it doesn’t all need to be tied up because of an easement along one side that is incredibly small. It’s an eye sore, poorly taken care of and it’s something that we could use to create neighborhood involvement. But no, they’d rather have it sit there doing nothing. If I get away with this plan this year we’ll keep building on it and mixing in flowers and such so that it becomes something nice to look at. Perhaps I could install a trellis with morning glories over the top and put in a bench for people to sit in for a spell. Who knows. It wouldn’t cost a lot and might make the people in the neighborhood come out of their houses more often. That’s the thought anyway. But we’ll start small and see where it goes.

I finished The Hobbit and Main Street. Very good. Look for more info in the future on them. I purchased some used copies of a few others. 1984, Grapes of Wrath, Animal Farm, Slaughterhouse 5, Crime and Punishment and The Summer of Discontent. I’m starting on those as part of my New Year’s goals. That’s a good start I think. I’ve decided I’m passionately in love with used book stores. They are so awesome. But I must fight the evil of the dark side. I will not let it beat me.

I’m warning you, this is a bad one

I have a slightly funny picture to share. But it’s not in very good taste. Well, depending on your preferences. If you are offended by sophmore level humor don’t scroll down.

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I’m warning you…

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he he he

🙂

The burden of receiving a gift

Recently my work place gave me a gift card to Target for some extra effort work I did.

(This is neither here not there, but the extra effort wasn’t that much.  I think they set the bar too low, but I still appreciate it.) 

Anyway, it’s for $200, and I’m going crazy trying to figure out what to do with it.  I’m obviously watching my consumption, like always, but this is “free” money.  It was given to me.  And what should I get with it?  That’s the first idea that pops into my head.  

I could buy a CD, but I’m not much of a music person.  In fact, the last time I bought a CD was probably 2 years ago after I watched Walk the Line.  I thought about a handheld stick blender, but my wife raised a valid point of how much I use our current blender.  A food processor then.  I’ll surely use that, and a lot.  But, I’m not so sure.  My friend doesn’t seem to have a problem letting me borrower hers (probably because of the items that come back with it as a thanks), and borrowing is better than buying something, even if the money is free.  My wife put in a claim for some weights for when she works out, but I think we can find those used somewhere else, not new from a store.

So what then?  What’s left?  Should it just be used for boring everyday items that I need to buy from the store anyway?  Should a gift like this cause me so much stress?  My co-worker gone one also, and her opinion is that a little should be used for a splurge that you wouldn’t normally allow yourself, but the rest should be for every day items.  Maybe that’s the route to go.  Either way, the company will get their money.  If it’s not used in a reasonable amount of time Target will take it and that will be all there is. 

Who would think that a gift would drive me so crazy?

A couple plugs

Beo has an interesting post up about how some people can afford all the crazy luxury items they’ve been buying.  It makes sense to me, and finally answers that question for me.

I’m going to plug a story of mine at GG too.   I want people to move over and vote in a poll I linked to.   While you’re voting, vote for the new GG layout and let us know what you think.  There’s a poll in the right hand side bar.

Personal change and a hard look at myself

I’ve decided that’s it’s about time I start tracking my consumption habits ala the Riot for Austerity initiative. The Riot for Austerity is an online community of people who are all striving for a 90% reduction in their emissions over the average American to help stave off our global warming crisis. Follow the link over to the site for more info and details if you are interested in participating. They can explain it all far better than I can.

There are 7 areas of measurement which I will describe below and detail our figures in these areas. Most of my figures are estimates based on the best idea of our usage I can scrounge up.

1.) Gasoline-The Average American uses 500 gallons of gas per year per person (166.67 per month for a 4 person family). Our goal is then to get our figure down to 50 gallons per person per year. So this family unit is allowed to use 200 gallons in a year, or 16.67 gallons per month.

For the month of December we used 100 gallons of gas. Using half your yearly allotment in one month is certainly not a good way to start this program. December did however include a trip to Arkansas, which puts our usage higher than normal. Our normal usage is one fillup of each car per month, so we might still possibly be able to make the goal in the end. We’ll see.

Our usage was 600% higher than the amount required, but 40% below the national average.

2.) Electricity-The average American uses 11,000 KWH per year (916 per month). The Riot goal is 1,100 per year, or 91.6 KWH per month.

Last month we used 862 KWH, so I don’t think we’ll be much below a normal American. However, our house is completely electric. I’ve been battling this usage for years now and I seem to be stuck. I can’t get it to decrease below the 800 level. I’m switching over to renewable power through the power company when they open up tomorrow, so per the rules, I get to reduce my number to 1/4 of the normal figures, in the future months.

Our usage was 941% higher than necessary but 5.8% below the national average.

3.) Heating and Cooking Energy-Natural Gas-Average American uses 1000 therms per year (83.3 per month). Riot goal is 100 therms per year(8.33 per month).

My cooking energy is included in my electric bill above. Additionally, we use corn to heat our house, which isn’t in the Riot computations, so I did some quick math to determine what our usage is. Try to follow me here:

We use approximately 1 bushel of corn per day to heat our house. That means we use 11.760M BTUs of heating energy per month (as corn has 392K BTUs per bushel and assuming 30 days in a month). I averaged three types of wood and determined that a cord of wood has 21.56 BTUs. Converting our corn energy to wood energy means we use .54 cords of wood per month. I treated corn like unsustainably harvested wood which means that 1 cord of wood is equal to 20 therms of natural gas. Our Riot figure is 10.8 therms.

Our usage was 29% higher than necessary and we are 88% below the national average.

4.) Garbage-The national average is 4.5 lbs per day. The Riot amount is .45 lbs per day.

I missed trash day so I’m not sure what my garbage usage is. I take a punt on this until next month when I can accumulate some figures. We usually have 1 to 1.5 bags of trash per week so we’ll see what that ends up being.

5.) Water-The national average is 100 gallons per person per day. The Riot goal is 10 gallons per person per day.

Our usage is 40.5 gallons of water per person per day.

That puts our usage at 400% of what is necessary and 60% below the national average.

6.) Consumer goods-The national average is $10K per house per year. The Riot goal is $1K.

According to our credit card bill we used $1,004 last month for things that seem to fit in this category. Since we may have used a different payment means I am adding 10% to this figure to ensure I’ve captured everything. That means we’re at $1,104. I’m shocked by this figure. I thought we were pretty tight with our money, so I needed to break this down in to groupings to figure out what happened.

Merchandise/Retail (Wal-Mart/Target/Drug Store/Netflix/Book Store, etc) expenditures were $529.97.

Restaurant meals (I consider a consumer activity more than food because food costs are such a little part of the cost of the item) were $213.48. Part of this figure is from our travel during this time. We’ll see what happens next month.

Home Improvement (I don’t agree that taking care of one’s home should be counted. If you don’t take care of your home you won’t have one, but, it’s not excluded in the rules) was at $289.28.

Additionally we spent $53.58 at the post office and $26.11 on car repair.

So, where does that leave us? We are at 132% of the national average and 1320% of the monthly Riot goal. I think it’s fair to say that there is some work to be done in this area. The most interesting thing is that I always thought we were spending less than most people because we certainly don’t have all the nice “stuff” that others have, but I guess we’re worse than the average person! Gah! What the hell did we spend it all on?

(In case you’re worried, we put all our activity on our credit card and pay it off each month. Our method of budgeting it to watch the balance on the credit card each month. If it is lower than the target we carry on. If it’s higher we cut back. It’s always paid off each month. This is much easier than trying to do it by hand)

7.) Food-You have to read the rules on this one to understand it. They are a little detailed.

So where are we? Hell if I know. I know this; all of our milk, cheese (unless I get something fancy), butter, oil, meat, eggs and veggies are local. I just ran out of onions so they are no longer local. Carrots and celery aren’t local either. Most of the time if I can’t get a fruit or veggie locally we don’t eat it.

Rice is bulk. Flour is small bags of organic flour (the local flour costs a fortune) and bulk flour (organic still). Beans are half local and half organic dried, but usually in packages of 4 lbs or more, and most I’ve had for a while. Lentils are organic but not bulk. Spices are not local, bulk or necessarily organic. Neither is yeast or salt.

My best guesstimate is that we are at least 70% local, probably higher. We’re also probably 15% wet goods and 15% bulk items.

For example; yesterday’s meal plans.

For breakfast I had malt-o-meal with marshmallows. Lunch was a quesadilla with cheese, sweet potato and pinto beans in it. Snack was an apple with peanut butter. Dinner was cheese pizza. Malt-o-meal and marshmallows are wet goods, as is the tortilla in the quesadilla and pizza sauce. The cheese, sweet potato, pinto beans, ham piece, jalepenos, apple and peanut butter are local. The flour, yeast, salt, spices in the quesadilla, and spices on the pizza are bulk items. I don’t know what the exact percentages of all of this is, but I’m comfortable with the makeup of this all.

I hope you enjoyed this exercise. I’ll be posting once a month with these figures so we can track our progress.