Chile Chews

Breathing Life Back into Chile Chews

2012-02-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

After a long absence, I've decided to revive this blog. I have things to say and this is a good place to say them. Hopefully my old readers will notice I'm back and perhaps a few new readers will discover me.

One thing that has influenced this decision is watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy with my sweetie this past week. After watching hours and hours of people behaving and living with integrity, honor, loyalty, friendship, and the willingess to fight evil no matter what the cost to them personally, coming back to the banality and overall lack of true meaning and importance in modern life is somewhat disappointing and spirit-crushing. I seek to revive a sense of purpose in my daily life and hope to inspire and encourage you to as well.

The Last Letter

2011-10-17T05:20:00.001-07:00

Dear Reader,

After almost four and a half years, I think it is time for us to part ways. Yes, I am saying what you think I’m saying: I want to break up with you.

Oh, don’t cry! We have had our fun together, exploring new ways to save energy and water, harvesting and preserving all kinds of tasty food, riding our bikes along the sunny streets, bitching and moaning about this and that, but really, honey, it’s time for me to go.

No, it’s not you!

It’s me.

I need my space. I want the privacy to live my life without you knowing everything I do. I want the freedom to think outrageous thoughts without feeling obligated to share them with you. We both know there are times when I don’t pay attention to you for days on end; sometimes I don’t even think about you when I’m gone. This makes me feel bad in a way, but also secretly I've felt a certain relief when I've had these little breaks.

Don’t worry, you’ll find someone new. Someone exciting and different who challenges what you think you know and encourages you to broaden your horizons. And, you can always come back here to visit the memories we made together. I wouldn’t take that away from you as I hope they mean as much to you as they do to me.

If you really want to keep in touch, you can leave me a comment with your email address. I won’t publish it for all the other readers to see – can’t have you all making each other jealous – but I will make a note of it for myself. I won’t promise to write; after all, I do need some time to myself. I will continue to hang out with a few of you over at the “fat blog” and if any of the rest of you really, really miss me, you can wander over for a visit.

It’s been a blast, dear Reader. Enjoy your life, never stop learning, and keep your mind and heart open.

Love,
Chile

Don't Want to Wear a Bike Helmet?

2011-10-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

Then you sure as shit better not ride in Africa! This is what helmets are for, boys and girls: those unexpected ambushes and crashes. You can't predict when you might have an accident so be smart and wear your helmet every time you ride, whether it's through the wilds of Africa, the jungles of the city, and even just the usually quiet streets of your town.

Pantry Challenge: Second Food Purchase

2011-10-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

I did very well this week in not spending any money on food. As you can see from my food log, this doesn't mean we weren't eating wonderfully tasty meals. In fact, making baba ganouj yesterday morning inspired a Lebanese dinner menu.

It started out with the baba ganouj (eggplant dip) served with toasted whole wheat Lavash with a cucumber-tomato salad on the side served over baby lettuce. The tomato and mint for the salad came from our garden, although the tomato was not quite fully ripe.

The main part of the meal, which I forgot to photograph, was Lemon-Garlic Potatoes and a Lebanese Vegetable Stew with Chickpeas. The garlic in the potatoes was overwhelmed by the lemon flavor, probably because I substituted a piece of my pickled lemon rind in place of fresh lemon rind since I didn't have a fresh lemon. The lemon juice came from the freezer. The stew was quite tasty and I'll bet will be even better as leftovers after the flavors have really had a chance to blend.

Today we went to the weekly farmers market because I wanted more potatoes and sweet potatoes. When we got there, though, the signs of fall were in the air, er, on the tables. I could not resist getting some broccoli, cauliflower, and collards. I also picked up a red bell pepper and some cilantro.

Here is the farmers market bounty minus one broccoli bunch. It cost a total of $25.10.

I was a bit peckish when we got home so I whipped up a quick snack. Leftover boiled potatoes and steamed broccoli florets, topped with a "cheesy" sauce. Usually I use the recipes in Jo Stepaniak's Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook for these but today I just whipped it up from the basic ingredients.

To the blender jar, I added 2 small red peppers, 1/4 of an onion, 2 1/2 tbs nutritional yeast, a squeeze of lime juice (because I didn't feel like digging in the freezer for lemon juice), a handful of rolled oats (because I didn't feel like digging in the freezer for the whole wheat flour either), and water. After blending this up until smooth, I cooked it on the stove top over medium heat until thickened. Salt was sprinkled over the top of the dish rather than added to the sauce.

So far, so good on sticking to the challenge. But then, we needed to run into town on an errand and ended up deciding to get lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, a big salad bar. We didn't need to because I have leftovers from last night's Lebanese feast in the fridge and that was the plan. But, we wanted to and agreed to go ahead and enjoy a meal there.

I stuffed myself with plenty of healthy food, starting with a plate piled high with salad. At home, I forget to add some of the tasty things they have at Sweet Tomatoes that make me so enjoy a meal there: beets for sweetness, jalapenos for heat, garbanzo beans for creaminess and flavor, and toasted almond slices and sunflower seeds for crunch. Sometimes I also throw raisins on for sweetness. These extra little touches really enhance the salad which is important when you're eating a big ol' plate of raw veggies with plain rice vinegar in place of a high fat creamy dressing!

That wasn't enough for me, though, so I headed to the hot food bar and came back with a baked sweet potato and small bowl of vegetarian potato-onion-tomato-spinach soup. I smooshed up the sweet potato on a big plate, topped it with more raw veggies (spinach, red onion, celery, zucchini shreds, green peas, and tomatoes) and poured the cup of soup on top. Yum! We told the server with the hot fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies to just keep walking. No cookies for me! (If you knew me, I mean, really knew me, you'd know how incredible that is...)

So how much more did we spend for this decadent yet healthy meal? Another $20.47 (plus tip).

Food purchases for this month so far are $38 at the farmers market and $20.47 at a restaurant. If you are eating out of your pantry this month, how are you doing?

Complete Use of Food

2011-10-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

In my post about this pantry challenge on my weight loss blog, I mentioned that I hate food waste and therefore use various methods of food preservation to get every bit of edible content out of the food that I have. These various methods of food preservation include canning, drying, and freezing. Long time readers may remember the story I tell in that post about first juicing, then dehydrating, and finally grinding up pomegranate seeds, followed by making liqueur with the chunky bits sifted out. (See the linked post for links to those particular stories if I've piqued your interest.)

Why am I so obsessive about this sort of crazy attempt to squeeze more food out of what most people would throw in the compost pile? There are a number of reasons.

1. It's fun and it tastes good. I've always liked making food from scratch. For instance, one of the first condiments I learned to make myself was vanilla extract. It just fascinated me years (decades!) ago that I could produce something so heavenly in my own kitchen. Of course it helped that I grew up with a good example. My father gardened, as did my grandfather during his time living with my family, so my mother regularly canned and froze foods. When I left home for college and had to settle for storebought ketchup and grape jelly, I realized just how good I'd had it at home! Once I took up canning as an adult, I realized just how good I could have it again.

2. Making complete use of food saves money. This goes beyond just eating your leftovers and using a rubber spatula to scrape the last bit of muffin batter into the pan. This means rinsing out the pressure cooker after you've dumped out the cooked and mashed potatoes to get the last bits, saving the water for soup. If no soup is planned in the next few days, the rinse water can be frozen with similar water from rinsing other pans continually added to the container. (Just make sure the flavors will blend.) This means chopping up and using the celery leaves as well as the stalks, stripping the carrot leaves off the stems and using them, finely chopped, in a stiryfry, grating the lemon's rind before juicing and drying it for zest, and salvaging damaged or aging produce. I've written about these concepts before when I've discussed avoiding food waste.

3. Using it all saves resources. A lot of resources go into growing our food, even in our own gardens. Time, human energy, oil energy (to run gas-powered garden or farm machinery), seeds, water, soil amendments, fertilizers, and, if it's not grown in your own garden, transportation. Honor the use of those resources by fully using the harvest. I know most of my readers would not dream of wasting food, but perhaps you actually do waste more than you realize by simply not realizing some of what you have IS food. Making your own vegetable stock is just the beginning. With the vast resources of the internet now at our fingertips, it's incredibly easy to do a quick search on whether there is a way to make something out of a produce part usually thrown away, such as grapefruit pith or watermelon rind and seeds. Seek (using a search engine) and ye shall find!

4. Learning this useful skill may save us in the end. As anyone who's read much about the last Depression era knows, many people had to practice extremely frugal cooking skills to get by. If meat was available, tiny portions were stretched to feed the family, using it as a flavoring more than the centerpiece of the meal. Gardens then and during the second World War provided people with fresh produce they might not have had otherwise and food preservation through canning and pickling was essential. My guess, too, is that vegetables previously peeled, such as potatoes and carrots, may not have been simply to get every last bit of food out of them. By practicing frugal food skills now, we may just be learning those skills needed in the future if the economy continues to go downhill.

How does all this relate to my current pantry challenge? Well, because I can't just go shopping any time I want, and I'm trying to limit the produce I buy to what I absolutely need, I've got to be more frugal and creative with what I have on hand.

Luckily, I've still got a few items of food that I've previously canned, things like jelly, fruit syrup, and pickled vegetables. These can be used to enhance and flavor my dishes, and the fruit syrups can even be the base of quick dressings and sauces. (See my note on salad dressing in yesterday's post.) I still remember years ago trying to empty out the refrigerator before a big move. I had frozen eggrolls but no sweet and sour sauce. After looking up recipes in my cookbooks, I made an acceptable one out of what I had on hand: apricot jam, ketchup, and a little vinegar.

It also means using the produce that I get from my own garden, the place where I volunteer, and the farmers market appropriately, making sure there is no waste. I'm not always as good about this as I should be but this month's challenge is getting me back on track. While our garden at home did not fare well during this very hot summer, the pepper plants cranked out peppers at a good clip, albeit somewhat smaller than they should be. A few weeks ago, I harvested a good portion of them, intending to make a really tasty escabeche. I never made it because I wasn't sure if I could do it oil-free and the peppers, not being used up quickly enough, began to develop some brown spots.

Yesterday I looked at them and decided I had to salvage what was left. Suddenly an old memory surfaced, one of shaving bits off a frozen block of jalapenos as needed from the family freezer. I don't recall whether my dad froze the jalapenos whole, in water, or maybe blended up in water, but it seems like it was a solid block. Since the peppers I have are hotter than my sweetie enjoys, I haven't been putting much in the food I make for our dinners. However, if they were frozen, I could just use some to accent my food or make a hot spicy lunch for myself.

I carefully cut away the bad spots and seeded the peppers. I figured out that if I cut a little higher on the stem, I wouldn't waste the "collar," that rounded top part of a pepper where it attaches to the stem. (The little pile of minced pepper on the right is from the collars of the peppers in the bowl; not a lot of food but every bit counts.)

I minced the peppers so they would be ready to use straight from the freezer. Here they are, all ready to go. 'Course as soon as I finished that, I headed out to the garden to harvest the next batch of red peppers...

The founder of the Tucson CSA used to mention occasionally that he uses minced hot peppers in place of black pepper. I plan to try that with some foods and also use these frozen peppers in some of my kimchi recipes that call for dried red pepper. Alternately, I could put some of the red peppers I just harvested into the dehydrator. There is something very satisfying about using red chile powder made from peppers you have grown, dried, and then ground yourself.

What unusual parts of your produce have you used or preserved?

Easy Salads

2011-10-03T11:15:00.001-07:00

I really love salad. That's good because salad is quite healthy, or it can be. Vegetables are full of nutrients, fiber, and antioxidants, and with the notable exception of avocado, are naturally low in calories. I like going to Sweet Tomatoes, a restaurant featuring a huge salad bar, because somebody else has done all the work of prepping the vegetables (and they wash up the dishes afterwards, too). However, it's obviously not practical to go there every day so I've been looking at ways to make salads a little easier at home.

Prepping veggies for a salad ahead of time doesn't always work well. Some vegetables exude too much moisture and are limp by the time I'm ready to put the salad together. Others brown on the cut edges. But, I don't want to go to all the effort - and clean-up - of chopping for a salad every day. Here are a few ways I've been easing the burden.

Mushrooms - I buy my mushrooms whole. I don't like the stems in salads so after wiping the shrooms clean, I break off the stems, chop them, and put them in a container in the fridge to use for a cooked dish. I slice the caps and put them in another container. They seem to keep pretty well for a few days. If they start browning more than I'd like in a salad, I just use them with the stems in a cooked dish.

Carrots and daikon radish - these harder vegetables keep well when shredded. Carrot can have a tendency to dry out somewhat but daikon has a tendency towards being a little too moist. By combining them, I've found a happy medium that also keeps several days in the fridge.

Zucchini - this keeps well after shredding, too. I'm lazy and have been combining it with the carrots and daikon. If kept separately, it would be easy to toss some in the freezer if it looked like I had grated too much to use up in a reasonable amount of time. Frozen shredded zucchini can be thawed later for use in quick breads and muffins.

Cucumber - the only way I've found to keep sliced cucumber in decent shape for any length of time is to seed it first. I hate to waste any edible part of a vegetable so I eat the "hearts" when I do the prep work. The seedy interior can even be chopped up and tossed with a little vinegar and salt & pepper to nibble on while working.

Red onion - this keeps well when diced, but like the other vegetables, only for a few days before it starts losing its crispness.

Tomato - does not keep well at all. If I have fresh tomatoes on hand, I slice one up right before serving the salad. If I have too many fresh tomatoes on hand and they are threatening to go bad, I either make tabouli (bulgur salad with garlic, lemon juice, tons of tomatoes, and tons of parsley) or I chop them up and freeze them. I like the idea of dehydrated tomatoes but quite honestly, I forget to use what I already have so I rarely bother to dehydrate them anymore.

Lettuce - two ways I've found to keep clean and torn lettuce in fairly good shape are leaving it in the salad spinner in the fridge (spun dry, of course) or placing it in a closed container or bag wrapped in a dishtowel (the lettuce, not the container). The crisper lettuces, like Romaine and iceberg, keep better this way than leaf lettuce. I have also found that making a traditional tossed salad without the lettuce is still good, and I may very well be doing that soon when I run out of the little bit of greens in my fridge.

When I am ready for a salad, I just pick and choose from the prepped veggies above, adding tomatoes at the end if I have them.

Cooked beans are another tasty addition to salads. I'm partial to red kidney beans and garbanzo beans for salad. They add a bit more fiber, protein, and calories but also add satiation. I rarely add nuts or sunflower seeds to salad mostly because the higher fat content isn't worth the flavor to me; I also have some sensitivity to tree nuts so I try to avoid them. Fresh or canned jalapenos add a delicious bite to a fresh salad while raisins can add a sweet touch.

I also enjoy adding some cooked vegetables to tossed salad, usually leftovers so they are chilled. Some of my favorites are green beans, grilled bell peppers, corn, peas (barely cooked), and Yukon gold or red potatoes. The nice thing about the cooked vegetables is they add moisture, reducing the need for dressing.

When I first tried eliminating added oil, salad dressings was one of the areas where I really struggled. I was a ranch dressing and Bernstein's Italian dressing fan, both very high in fat and calories. Trying to buy a dressing in a store that has no oil, no cheese, low salt, and low sugar, without a bunch of nasty chemical substitutes, is very challenging. I've got a large file of homemade salad dressing recipes, many of them untried because by the time I've finished making the salad, I don't want to spend a bunch more time making a dressing, too.

Luckily, I've found an easy way to whip together a satisfying dressing. In Dr. Esselstyn's book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, there is a recipe for 3-2-1 Dressing. It is 3 parts vinegar, 2 parts mustard, and 1 part maple syrup. Any type of vinegar or mustard may be used. I take this a step further and change the last part to any sweetener I want to use, plus I use about equal portions of the three components. It's also very easy to add some herbs to this or a sprinkle of Mrs. Dash Table Blend, a good all-purposed salt-free flavorful blend of herbs and spices.

Some dressing combinations I've made lately:
balsamic vinegar + stone ground mustard + raspberry-chipotle sauce
peach-plum vinegar (homemade) + stone ground mustard + maple syrup
rice vinegar + stone ground mustard + hot pepper jelly

If the dressing is too thin to stick to the vegetables, I might add a pinch of cornstarch and microwave it for 10-15 seconds to thicken it.

An easy way to make salad a part of the meal without being on the side is to just dump it right on top of the main dish. Whenever I make bean burritos, it's hard to see the burritos under the mountain of lettuce and salsa on top. A tossed salad over hot mashed potatoes, with or without gravy on the spuds, makes a nice juxtaposition of hot creamy food with crisp cold raw vegetables. Any way you like it, adding salads to your meals is tasty and good for you.

Edited to add: The Just Bento Cookbook by Makiko Itoh has some interesting vegetable side dishes. To make them a bit more healthy, I will omit the oil from any that I make and probably reduce the salt. One technique for softening vegetables not meant to be cooked is massaging them with salt and then squeezing out the excess moisture. If sodium is a concern for you, it is simple enough to rinse off the salt before squeezing out the moisture. Some salt will remain but the total amount will be greatly reduced. These can be served with a bowl of (unsalted) cooked brown rice for a tasty lunch.

Pantry Challenge: First Food Purchase

2011-10-01T12:16:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons I made the exception to this month's Pantry Challenge allowing us to purchase local produce was that this was supposed to be the last week that a local guy would have dates at the farmers market and I wanted to be sure we could pick some up. I was going to actually buy more than we could eat in the month he says they will keep in the fridge and try dehydrating them.

He wasn't there! We walked through the farmers market twice to be sure we didn't miss him. I'm so disappointed because we did not buy nearly enough last week. I'm not sure if it's worth the long drive into town tomorrow to see if he shows up at the Sunday farmers market but I'm seriously tempted.

Anyway, while we were there, I wanted to get a tomato as the organic garden where I volunteer is struggling with a virus or disease on their tomatoes. At the stand, I noticed white-fleshed sweet potatoes, too. Yum! I didn't know anyone was growing those in Arizona. I purchased four of those. Another farmer I like had bags of mixed potatoes: Yukon gold, purple, and red. We bought one bag of those (probably about 2-3 pounds) and a medium bag of green beans. We picked up a few of his plums, too, but are not crazy about the particular variety. I may try making stewed plums to see if we like them better that way.

All told, I spent $12.90. Unless I drive down to the other farmers market tomorrow, that will probably be my total food expenditure for the first week of October.

If anyone is interested, I can write about what we are eating from the pantry, fridge, and freezer. Some items are recent acquisitions (fresh produce), some bought in bulk at U-pick farms or from local farmers (freezer), and others purchased in bulk or on sale over the past few years (pantry). Would seeing my menu using those things be of interest or help to you?

Update: I am back to logging all my food in my other blog so that anyone following this challenge can see what I am actually eating. I'm giving more detail than usual, as well, to include the ingredients. See the Food Log.

October Pantry Challenge

2011-09-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

For the month of October, my sweetie and I will be eating at and from home. The only food shopping permitted will be for locally grown produce.

This will accomplish a number of goals:

1. Eat foods that need to be eaten up in the pantry storage rotation. It's fine to have some extra food on hand for emergencies, but that food has to be rotated so that when one needs it, it is not stale and/or moldy.

2. Save money, especially on eating out and impulse buys.

3. Eat healthy. We won't have a choice since I don't have unhealthy foods on hand and don't plan to go shopping today.

4. Be creative when something runs out. For instance, I've got a handful of recipes to try for homemade nondairy milk but I've not bothered to try them since I've kept oat, potato, or almond milk stocked in the pantry.

You are welcome to join in on the challenge but I will not be hosting it officially as I have for past challenges. It's just too discouraging to have tons of people sign up enthusiastically and then disappear never to be seen again during the challenge. If you do follow along, please feel free to leave comments, though, reporting your progress and any difficulties you face.

Happy Autumn!

Multi-Day Indian Menu

2011-09-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

I was in town today and decided to stop by the big Whole Foods market. It's far enough away that I won't make a special trip to go there, but I do like to stop in periodically to see what new foods are on the shelves. Eating a very low fat, plant-based diet yet being allergic to soy and sensitive to nuts can get ... challenging ... at times. Most of my cooking must be done from scratch, which I don't have a problem with, but there are times when I'm tired and would really like to have "convenience" foods to help out.

They still have to be healthy, though, and that's where the challenge comes in. Take a wander through a grocery store sometime, or even your own pantry, fridge, or freezer, and see how many products you can find that fit all these criteria:

plant-based with recognizable ingredients
no animal products (meat, dairy, whey, egg, gelatin, casein, etc.)
no oil (or butter)
no soy (not even soy lecithin)
no tree nuts (any other than peanuts)
low sugar
low salt (mg of sodium equal or less than calories per serving)

In the dairy case, I noticed a coconut yogurt. When I discovered my soy allergy, I sadly thought yogurt was something I'd never have again as the only non-dairy yogurt I'd seen up to that point was soy-based. You know I have to try that coconut yogurt!

On my way home, I was wondering how I would use the yogurt. Bean burritos with a nice creamy dollop of yogurt on top? Luscious baked potatoes with yogurt used like soy cream? Hm, how else did I used to use soy yogurt?

Oh yeah, raita! Raita is the tasty yogurt dip that comes with Indian food. It has cucumber and mint in it and is spiced with cumin. Delish! And I just so happen to have leftover eggplant chana masala and basmati rice in the fridge. Perfect!

But wait! I could also make some curried potatoes that would love to have a side of my recently canned peach chutney. Oh, and I could make a peach lassi instead of the usual mango lassi, using the peaches I froze. And the collards in the fridge would work in place of spinach for saag paneer (without the paneer). Those tomatoes I just cut the bad spots out of this morning could be used to make up a new batch of spicy tomato chutney...

Yesterday I tried to cook some short-grain brown rice and messed it up. When the eggplant chana masala was ready, my sweetie's regular basmati rice was cooked but my brown rice was undercooked yet gummy. I just had my dinner over potatoes, but I didn't want to waste the brown rice. To salvage it, I added a little sugar and some rice milk, and cooked it over low heat, covered, until creamy. It turned into a tasty rice pudding. All I need to do to make it into an Indian rice pudding is add some cardamom and sprinkle each serving with chopped pistachios.

As I drove, I kept thinking of more dishes I could make. I jotted them down at the red light. By the time I got home, I had a list of over a dozen Indian dishes, including drinks and dessert.

Basmati rice (regular & brown)
Eggplant Chana Masala
Saag Paneer (made with collards but no paneer)
Curried Sweet Potatoes with Peach Chutney
Creamy Indian Eggplant
Red Lentil Dal
Raita
Salad with Raita as dressing (lettuce, cucumber, onion, tomato)
Pita bread substituting for Naan
Spicy Tomato Chutney
Mint-Cilantro Chutney
Peach Lassi
Decaf Chai with Rice Milk
Indian Rice Pudding

Now the only thing I have to do is figure out which dishes to have ready each evening. Tonight will obviously be the basmati rice and eggplant chana masala since they are already cooked. I need to make the cilantro-mint chutney today before my cilantro gets all slimy in the fridge. Maybe I'll toast the pitas and make chips to have with the chutney. And of course I've got to make some raita to see if I even like the coconut yogurt. Might as well make the peach lassi tonight, too. And season the rice pudding and chop the pistachios.

Sheesh, I've got a lot of work to do. What am I doing online?!

How Does a Blue Watermelon Smoothie Relate to Prepping?

2011-09-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, another food post. Sorry that every single post over the past two months has been about either food or biking, but there's a good reason for it. Since seriously committing to getting in shape, which includes getting rid of the excess weight, my focus has been primarily on that job.

And it is a job. To keep myself on track, I need to keep reading books about eating for optimal health (and easy weight loss), I need to participate in online discussion boards about healthful eating and the benefits, I need to plan meals with delicious foods that support my health, and I need to exercise my butt off. Well, not really "off" so much as decreasing its mass and reshaping what's left.

To my readers that are into the whole prepper lifestyle, this may seem like I've lost my focus. I don't think so. While I may not be preserving as much food as in the past (although I've canned applesauce and peach chutney in the past week), both my sweetie and I feel this is exactly what I need to be doing right now to prep for a lower energy lifestyle.

To survive in a future with oil that is more expensive as it becomes more scarce, I need to be in good physical condition. I need to be able to walk and bike more places more often. I need to be able to haul big loads on my Xtracycle.

To survive in a future where the climate is changing, I need to conserve water here in the desert. Smaller size clothes will take up less room in the washer, ultimately leading to fewer loads and lower water use. Being in better physical condition will mean more water is hauled out to the garden instead of being allowed to flow down the drain because I'm tired.

To survive in a future where the economy is even more tight, being able to wear smaller clothes will make thrift store shopping easier. The larger sizes have far less selection than the smaller ones and the pants tend to wear out on the inner thigh seams due to chafing. (Ladies, if you're heavy, you know what I'm talkin' about.)

These are just a few of the considerations. There are bigger ones as well. With peak oil and economic woes, medical care is likely to get more expensive. Changing my lifestyle to minimize the risk of the chronic diseases of rich Western societies - cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes - saves tons of money and pain in the long run. Frequent trips to the doctor, prescriptions, ongoing tests, hospitalizations, and home health care equipment are all very expensive, not to mention time-consuming! Spending a little extra time daily to make sure I prepare healthy food and get my exercise done is well worth it.

And, of course, if you want to have a really bleak view of the future, if the shit does hit the fan, it would sure be nice to be able to run faster than the other guy when the "eaters" are comin' after you!

So, on to the smoothie. The way I am eating now incorporates a lot of tasty, unrefined plant foods such as whole grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables, beans, and fruit. Lots of nutrients, lots of fiber, lots of complex carbohydrates for energy, little fat, and no cholesterol. This smoothie is full of fruity goodness with a booster of complex carbohydrate and even a little spinach.

I normally don't make a lot of smoothies because I prefer to chew my food. Chewing is a good thing as digestion starts in the mouth with the release of digestive enzymes that start breaking down the food. Chewing also helps increase the feeling of satiety over gulping a blended food. This smoothie, however, still has some texture to it. I generally take a small sip with the straw and chew the smoothie in my mouth before swallowing. Yeah, you already knew I was weird.

Blue Watermelon Smoothie

1 cup of peeled, seeded, and chopped watermelon
1/2 cup frozen (or fresh) blueberries
1/2 of a large banana (the other half will keep well in the fridge if the cut end is covered)
1/3 cup frozen or fresh greens (such as spinach, kale, chard, etc.)
3 tbs Kashi 7-Grain Nuggets (or Grape-Nuts cereal)
3 tbs non-dairy milk (I am currently using oat milk.)
1/2 tbs brown rice syrup, optional

Process in a blender on medium speed for 30 seconds.

Sip slowly, chewing each mouthful before swallowing.

Got a Glut of Zucchinis?

2011-09-02T13:40:00.001-07:00

Tis summer squash season, the time when it's wise to roll up your car windows and bar your porches to avoid the sly drop-off of surplus giant zucchinis from gardening neighbors. That is, unless you're one of those who welcome zucchinis into your kitchen.

I love zucchini and am happy to be getting plenty from the garden. I haven't made zucchini relish this year, but it's a great recipe for those who enjoy adding a little zip to their meals. I made the Happy Herbivore's Chocolate Zucchini Muffins and can vouch for their deliciousness. If you have family who shudders at the thought of yet another zucchini recipe, these muffins may just change their minds.

Zucchini can be sliced thinly and then dehydrated for use during the winter. Or you can try making zucchini chips. There are lots of recipes online with different seasonings for the chips or you can just leave the zucchini plain and eat the chips with dip. I dried some zucchini with pepperoni-type spices to use on pizzas. No, it doesn't taste like pepperoni but it gives my pizza an extra kick!

When you've reached the saturation point for cooking or baking with zucchini, the freezer is your friend. Simply shred your zucchini and measure out a cup or two, or the amount you would use in your baked good recipes. Freeze in Ziploc baggies or vacuum pack. The zucchini will lose its firm texture in the freezer but will still work fine in breads and soups.

Speaking of soups, I recently came across an interesting looking recipe for Zucchini Chili. I made this last night and it was wonderful. The zucchini doesn't quite disappear into the sauce but it certainly does not overwhelm the dish. I made some changes to the recipe and present my version to you here. I've renamed it as well since it now contains all three vegetables from a three sisters garden: corn, squash, and beans.

Three Sisters Zucchini Chili*

1 cup celery, sliced
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 bell peppers, any color, chopped
6 cups grated unpeeled zucchini
1 3/4 cups (or 15 oz can) tomato sauce
2 cups water
3 1/2 cups (or 29 oz can) whole tomatoes with juice
3 cups corn kernels, fresh or frozen
2 - 3 tbs chili powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 cups (or 15 oz can, drained) cooked kidney beans

Saute celery, onion, and pepper until celery is tender, but not browned.
Add zucchini and cook another few minutes.
Add tomato sauce, water, whole tomatoes, corn, and spices.
Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a low simmer. Cook uncovered for one hour.
Add the beans. Simmer another 15 minutes.
Serve with whole wheat bread or cornbread for a filling meal. Serves 8.

Note: I prefer to add salt at the table so that each person can determine how much they need. Avoiding salt in cooking is also helpful for those watching their sodium intake due to high blood pressure.

*Updated to add: I made this chili again and omitted the corn since I was making cornbread to go with it. We decided we like it better without the corn (but with cornbread).

A Return to Canning

2011-08-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

I have not canned anything since we moved to this house last April and I certainly didn't can anything in the last couple of crazy months prior to the move. The hottest time of the year is, ironically, one of the most productive times for produce that preserves best by canning. Summer fruit is ready to be turned into delicious jams and jellies, tomatoes are bursting their skins, early apple varieties are coming off the trees, peppers are turning red if ignored for even a minute, and the cucumbers are lining up on the counter.

After not canning for so long, it seemed really daunting to even consider canning anything again. But, after a trip to a U-pick orchard over the weekend, I really had no choice. Ten pounds of apples, many with blemishes and bad spots, had to be processed. I watched an entire movie in the time it took me to peel, core, and chop these apples, and my hand was cramping badly by the time I was done.

I simmered them in water to cover with some lemon juice added. When the apples were tender, I drained them, saving the apple "juice" for drinking. (This is a great tip for reducing the time it takes to cook down apple buter!) By then, on Monday night, I was not up to starting on the canning part of the project. Yesterday I was busy shopping and getting ready for my new health challenge for next month.

This morning, I woke early - 4 am - and decided I had enough time to puree the apples into sauce and can it. This was a good plan. I'd already determined that I was making half the recipe in the Ball book, which meant I could use my smaller pot (see this post). Water comes to a boil much faster, saving energy and time. The original recipe would make 4 quart jars or 8 pints. Here, however, is where my early morning math skills failed me. I prefer my applesauce in 8 oz jars. My smaller canning pot holds 4 jars...

The error did not dawn on me until the jars were halfway through the sterilization time. By then, I didn't want to have to go rustle up 4 more jars and lids, transfer everything to the bigger pot, and start the sterlizing all over. So, I filled the four small jars and while they were processing, got out the supplies to repeat the whole process. In other words, this quick canning project took twice as long as planned this morning!

Who cares? I've got 8 jars of tasty applesauce (no sugar) waiting to be put away tomorrow.

I've also got two more canning projects lined up. There are three pounds of salvaged peach pieces from damaged and not-entirely-ripe peaches sitting in the freezer waiting to be turned into yummy chutney.

And I harvested all the hot peppers from our garden with the intent to make pickled jalapeno escabeche. I want to try making this without oil. I think it will be fine from a canning safety standpoint since there is a boatload of vinegar in the recipe, but I'm undecided as yet on how to cook the peppers, carrots, and onions in a satisfying way. I can dry saute them in a hot skillet, saute them in a little water - more like steaming, or I might try just grilling them.

It's good to be canning again but just a little exhausting, too.

Planning a 10 Day Fast

2011-08-21T13:50:00.002-07:00

No, not from food, silly! I like to eat way too much to do that.

Starting tomorrow, I'm taking a 10 day fast from most of the internet. I need a break from the social media to focus on my life off-line. I won't be posting on my blogs other than continuing to record my food and exercise on the other blog.

I will continue to do some research for specific information online but I will avoid surfing just to pass the time. I will respond to emails, and comments on the blogs, but probably only once per day instead of frequently.

I'm curious to see how freeing up the time I usually spend online will affect my productivity and general attitude. See ya'll next month!

Delicious Mexican Pizza

2011-08-16T20:50:00.001-07:00

I recently tried a recipe for sweet pea "guacamole" which yielded a HUGE batch of dip that was tasty but not really the same as guacamole. We've had it with a few meals but still had quite a lot of it left. While I was out yesterday I almost stopped at the store to buy tortillas but then I had a flash of inspiration. Why not make a Mexican Pizza and serve it with dollops of the faux guac?

Yesterday was a big cooking day so I prepped ingredients I would need for the pizza. I grilled and sliced some green, yellow, and red peppers. I threw a few cobs of corn in the oven to roast alongside the roasting eggplant and baking brown rice. I was going to cook some beans but ran out of steam.

No worry, with a pressure cooker, cooking beans is a snap even if I forget to soak them overnight. Today, after checking for pebbles and rinsing the beans thoroughly, I put them in the pressure cooker with plenty of water to cover. Over high heat, I brought the cooker up to pressure and then let it cook for just a minute. The heat was turned off and the beans left alone for the pressure to come down naturally. This takes 30-60 minutes usually. This step is called speed soaking and replaces overnight soaking.

Once the pressure was released, I drained and rinsed the beans and then covered them with fresh water. Repeated bringing them up to pressure but this time I let them cook for 5 minutes. The pressure was allowed to come down naturally again. That's it. The beans were all done.

Tonight, it was a fairly simple matter to put the pizza together. I'd defrosted my pizza crust earlier in the day. For quick and easy healthy pizzas, I order whole wheat Kabuli pizza crusts by the case (which I split with a friend) from the Dallas Gourmet Bakery. (Call them to place an order.) Their crusts are ready to use, just like a Boboli crust but made with whole wheat flour, no added oil, and no cheese. And they're cheaper!

I like to parbake the crust for 5 minutes before adding the sauce and toppings. While that was baking, I blended together my beans, salsa, and spices, using the recipe from Soul Searching Vegan, except I substituted local, organic red chile powder for the paprika and my own cooked pinto beans for the black beans.

I spread this over the pizza crust. Then I sprinkled on chopped onion, the corn kernels cut from the roasted ears, the grilled peppers, and the dehydrated spicy zucchini I made last week. We skip the cheese.

The pizza baked in just 10 minutes and came out smelling yummy.

The sweet pea guacamole was spooned on each slice and added a nice touch, although the pizza is also good without it.

Dinner was delicious, filling, and quite healthy. Other than the crust and the salsa, everything on the pizza was grown locally and organically.

Bike Heaven is Flat

2011-08-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

Today we took our bikes to a park with blessedly flat roads. I would love to take my bike there every day to do my riding but I can't justify driving my bike somewhere like that. It was not a special trip today as we were already heading to the farmers market not too far from the park.

The joy of being able to coast along and leisurely pedal on flat roads was indescribable! As I mentioned in my Summer Update early last week, every single road in my area has hills - small rolling ones or big quad-killing ones. While this is great for getting an extra-hard workout, I'd like to also log more miles than is possible when all my energy is burned up trying to climb the hills.

There's one bugger that is so hard for me right now that I have to stop about two-thirds of the way up to let my pounding heart slow down enough to finish the climb. I used to just walk my bike up the last bit of the hill after having to stop but then figured out that a rest would allow me to get back on and bike the rest of the way up. It's far less embarrassing to do that than to walk the bike!

I think my policy on riding my bike in flat-road heaven will be that it's allowable if I am going to be very near the park anyway for other errands. And before you suggest that maybe I should just bike to the park, let me note that the hill getting home from there makes the ones by me look like little bumps in the road.

When people think of Arizona, I'll bet most of them think of long flat expanses of cactus-filled desert. Surprisingly, in and around Tucson, it is not flat in the least. First of all, there is a mountain range on the north side of town so much of the development in Tucson is actually in foothills and the areas south of that - full of rolling hills. More municipalities and county land wrap around the mountain range to the west and north, again resulting in rolling hills even some distance from the actual mountains. With intense summer rains, arroyos (washes) have been dug out by water draining from the higher places to lower ground. The end result for roads: big dips for big arroyos and little to medium dips for smaller ones.

Hm, this makes me wonder if the terrain is an attractive feature for the professional bicycling teams that come to train here in the winter. Obviously the mild winter weather is a factor but now I'm wondering if having long roads with lots of terrain changes is also desirable to them. Plenty of bike lanes and shoulders many places through Tucson and the county help, too, I'm sure.

In any case, my legs, lungs, and heart were all thrilled to pieces to get to relax and enjoy the ride this morning instead of feeling like they might burst!

Local Purslane Salad

2011-08-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

I've been sad lately that lettuce is not in season because the hot summer months are the perfect time for vegetable salads and low-cal salads are perfect for my weightloss efforts. At the organic garden where I volunteer, the only salad greens this time of year are arugula, amaranth, and purslane (aka verdolagas). The arugula is very limited so I usually don't get any. I cannot stand amaranth. I've tried and just don't like it. I usually am not crazy about purslane either.

This week, however, I took a bite of leftover purslane at the end of the day and loved it. It was like a switch had been flipped and the tangy moist flavor was exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, that bite was just about all that was left and it was too late to go harvest any more. Not to worry, I'd noticed some in my own yard (along with tons of icky amaranth).

Now you might say, "Ew, she's going to eat weeds from her yard where the dogs are?" Yep. However, I know where my dogs pee and they do not pee on these weeds. The yard is fenced so no coyotes or stray cats are peeing on them either. Just to be sure, though, I washed them really, really thoroughly. Then I stripped the leaves from the fleshy stems and set them aside while I prepared the rest of the salad ingredients.

The remaining vegetables all came from the organic garden (not mine) and included bell pepper, zucchini, cucumber, tomato, corn, and onion. They don't have any cilantro currently but I did have some from (gasp) the grocery store. I shredded the zucchini, cut the cucumber and onion in thin slices, and chopped the previously grilled green and red bell pepper. I boiled the corn just until tender and cut the kernels off the cob. I added them with the cilantro and purslane leaves, and then gently tossed the whole thing with chopped tomatoes and salt & pepper. The tomatoes were juicy enough that no dressing was needed plus the purslane added a tangy flavor.

It was a very pretty and tasty salad, and more filling than I anticipated.

Watermelon Season

2011-08-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been coming home with watermelon halves - huge halves - from the organic garden where I volunteer. Watermelons are one of those fruits that really make you appreciate eating in season. It's so delicious to bite into a nice crisp juicy bite of cold watermelon during the heat of summer, and about the time you think you can't stand another bite of melon, they're gone for another year.

I've been liquidizing my watermelon lately. No, I don't mean that I'm selling pieces of it off at LOW, LOW PRICES! Rather, I mean that I'm blending it up into tasty drinks. So far, I've made a tasty smoothie and agua fresca.

But, I'm getting the fruity meat ahead of the rind here. The first thing I had to do was turn the great big halves into ready-to-blend watermelon cubes.

All the rind was cut off and tossed in the sink until I had a chance to take it out to the compost bin. I'm not making any of the watermelon rind pickles this year and so far have not felt compelled to make watermelon relish either. I don't have chickens so this just had to go directly to compost. Hm, I wonder if the four deer that wandered through the other day might have liked nibbling on it.

Then the meat of the melon needed to be seeded. Don't discard those seeds! Save them to roast and add flavor to beans.

The recipe for the smoothie I made came from a fun little book called "Great American Smoothies." The Blue Dragon recipe called for watermelon juice but I just tossed in the watermelon cubes figuring more fiber is better anyway. It was blended up with blueberries and banana along with some Kashi nuggets (think Grape-nuts), yielding a very tasty and filling drink.

Yesterday, I wanted a simpler drink so I made agua fresca ("fresh water"). You can find plenty of recipes online. Mine resulted from reading a number of recipes and choosing the amounts and ingredients I liked.

Watermelon Agua Fresca
3 cups chopped and seeded watermelon
1 cup ice water
a dozen fresh mint leaves
2 tbs - 1/4 cup sugar (to taste)
Juice from 1/2 lime

Place everything in the blender and process until liquefied. Serve over ice with a couple of mint leaves for garnish. Serves two.

Summer Update

2011-08-02T04:45:00.000-07:00

There has not been much of interest happening around here so the blog has just been languishing in the heat along with Chile. I am hesitant to complain about our hot summer given that much of the country has experienced temperatures akin to our usual summer ones this year but have the humidity added in for extra misery. It seems hotter and more humid here for us this year as well, and our electric bill has risen as a result.

Actually several factors are at work regarding the electric usage. The biggest impact comes from the removal of a covered porch that spanned the entire front of our home. It was not our idea to remove it, rather required by overly officious zoning code enforcement. By 3 pm, the hot afternoon sun is shining strongly on the front of the house, heating it up like a solar oven. Even the dogs abandon their window seats to get out of the heat, although they both get whiny if I try to close the blinds all the way to block more of the sun.

Last year, I also had put cardboard lined with Reflectix in the windows we didn't need to see out of during the day. This helped quite a bit, even though it looked a bit low-rent. Unfortunately, I discovered that it was responsible for warping and discoloring one of the blinds (which I had not yet replaced) so we determined this was not the best choice for dealing with the heat.

I have also not been using the solar ovens as much as I'd like this summer. One reason is that although we've received little rain - not even two inches yet - it's been frequently overcast and windy. In fact, the wind this spring was horrible, blowing right past March all the way into June. The frequent cloud cover is annoying when it doesn't produce the needed rain, especially since the humidity is also higher without the usual relief of an afternoon monsoon shower.

My hope over the winter months, after we've caught up on the huge list of projects put off until the cooler outside fall temperatures, is to sew up some insulated window shades of some sort. A local friend told me about her homemade Roman shades that are making a huge difference in keeping the heat out, but I simply haven't had time to travel to her home (an hour away) to study what she did and figure out how to replicate them with my remedial sewing skills.

Much of my current focus continues to remain on improving my health by eating right and exercising. It is so easy to slip into unhealthy eating habits and blow off the exercise when my schedule gets busy. I have to keep bringing my focus back to this as a priority in my life right now. The desire for good results from the follow-up cholesterol blood work at the end of this month is helping keep me on the straight and narrow, though. The desire to, once and for all, rid myself of all my excess weight is also a motivator, but not as strong because the journey will be long. I like shorter projects with a concrete deadline, so I can move on to the next project.

Well, weight loss and good health is not like that. It requires a constant commitment to buying, preparing, and eating the right foods as well as a regular exercise routine that isn't set aside as soon as other commitments appear. This past month included more non-health related commitments, as well as some stress, and the resulting lack of focus on my health is evident. Shifting my exercise routine from the gym to home has also been slower than anticipated, meaning less workouts.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I dusted off my bike and have been riding it about four to five times per week. I am still riding the kinds of distances that I hoped to be riding by now and it's not because I am lazy or lack the time. The problem is there are no flat stretches where I live. None. Every single road has either slight inclines (or declines), rolling hills, or big-ass hills that kick my butt. One knee is still not capable of climbing hills the way I could a few years ago so my rides are limited right now. My cardiovascular system is getting a workout on the hills, though, and I can feel the muscles in my legs and rear growing stronger, aided by strength-training workouts once or twice a week for them.

It's tempting to toss the bike in the back of the vehicle and drive it somewhere with flat roads or bike trails, but I just can't bring myself to burn the gas to do that. After all, part of the reason I want to get more fit is to be able to bike for more errands instead of driving. Driving to bike in this context then just seems, oh, I don't know, maybe stupid...

Surely I can report good news about the garden, though, right? Wrong. The aforementioned heat and lack of rain is taking its toll on our small garden. By mid-morning, the squash leaves are all hanging like limp flags, and the afternoon heat just cooks the female flowers.

The only squash doing well is a volunteer mutant weird one that looks like a cross between an acorn squash and a zucchini.

The rind is ridged and tough but the inside looks like zucchini. We're not crazy about the taste but the dogs seem to like it grated and sprinkled on their food.

The patty pan squash and a small round yellow summer squash are producing a little bit.

They are tasty grilled or simply boiled. My sweetie prefers the yellow ones while I prefer the green ones. Nice how these things work out, isn't it?

The tomato plants all look stressed and production has dropped dramatically with the high temperatures. Again, the heat just cooks the flowers, specifically the pollen from what I've heard. I need to harvest the few eggplants and peppers that have been on the plants for far too long and still never grew to the size they should have. In other words, we don't have a particularly vigorous garden going this year. We are looking at ways to improve our success next year and thinking it may involve lots of shade cloth and a lot more mulch.

I hope that wherever you are, you are experiencing a cooler and more pleasant summer than I am, and that your garden is overwhelming you with its bounty.

Real Food in the Fridge

2011-07-19T15:55:00.001-07:00

Today I decided to clean out my produce drawers. At times, I can get overwhelmed with too many good veggies and forget to use them all. That's not acceptable, especially when I buy or get them directly from the organic farmers growing them. I know how much work has gone into producing these edible bits of the plant and it is my responsibility to honor that by eating them.

To make sure I don't lose track of anything I prepped today for the next few days' easy meals (Assemble & Eat!), I jotted everything down on the dry erase board I keep on my fridge. I figure we'll have the fridge cleaned out by the weekend.

Food in Fridge (Cooked & Ready to Eat)

3 small roasted beets
1 head of broccoli, steamed
1 cup chopped steamed chard & beet leaves
6 ears of corn
1 roasted eggplant
1 1/2 cups steamed green beans
11 small-medium baked potatoes
2 small roasted yellow squash

What kind of dishes can I make with these cooked foods? All sorts of tasty possibilities come to mind, especially combined with the other raw veggies I have.

Baked potatoes with steamed broccoli, covered in a non-dairy "cheesy" sauce

Tossed salad with shredded raw carrots & zucchini and sliced roasted beets

Southwestern salad with corn, yellow squash, raw onion, grilled peppers, & tomatoes

Crackers with baba ganoush (eggplant dip)

Quick soup with baked potatoes, steamed green beans, carrots, onion, & chopped chard.

Dang, I'm making myself hungry. I'd list more ideas, but I really have to go eat something!

Edited to add: Dinner will be Basmati rice with spicy tomato chutney (local tomatoes & garlic) and saag without paneer (local chard & beet greens & garlic). Can't wait for the rice to cook - I'm starving!

Dusting off my Bike

2011-07-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

It's been so hot here - frequently over 100 during the day - that riding my bike has not held much interest for me. You may remember in the past that the electric bike assist on my Xtracycle really helped out with riding in the heat. Unfortunately, my Xtracycle lives in a storage unit away from home at this time because we still don't have a shed and haven't figured out a weatherproof and secure way to store the bike here. I do, however, have my regular hybrid "comfort" bike here.

One of the reasons I joined the gym was I needed to be able to exercise during the hot months without getting heat exhaustion. Unfortunately, my feet just don't do well with a treadmill, something my chiropractor confirms is not an uncommon problem. The elliptical machine is even worse for my feet. The only two cardio choices this leaves at the gym are the upright bikes used for spinning and recumbent bikes. My knee sometimes fusses about the recumbent and my, um, lady parts don't like the seat on the upright bike. I cannot adjust the angle of the seat nor replace it with a saddle with a cut-out in the right place like the one on my bike.

It finally occurred to me that I should just ride my own bike for the cardio part of my exercise. The tough part about this, of course, is that I have to get up at O'dark-thirty to avoid the heat but wait until there is just enough light to avoid the potholes and rocks in the road. (Roads around here get really beat up with the monsoon rains, forming potholes quickly. Overflowing washes and run-off leave large amounts of sand and rocks deposited on the roads, too.) However, since my sweetie has resumed his running, he is already getting up at O'dark-thirty so it's not that difficult for him to shake me and tell me it's time to get up, too.

I've really enjoyed being back on my bike! Thanks to the lower body strength training I've been doing, along with the miles I logged on the treadmill until my heel started hurting too much, I don't feel like I'm starting utterly from scratch. Of course, there is the normal seat numbness that comes with taking up riding again but TITS (Time In The Saddle) will take care of that. If I keep this up, I'll be ready and able to use my bike for midday errands again when the temperatures cool off this fall.

Fresh, Local, Organic Produce

2011-07-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

Back when I was doing the CSA thing, I used to occasionally post pictures of what I brought home. I realized recently that I haven't ever done that with the new volunteer gig I have at Our Garden.

A few weeks ago, I intended to post a picture of the tasty produce I brought home with comments on what I was going to do with it. Time got away from me and I never did that. I will, however, share the photo with you now.

Mid-June goodies from their garden

You can compare what was in season then with what is in season now.

Early July goodies from their garden

Besides the watermelon, cantaloupe, rainbow chard, zucchini, onion, garlic, and corn in the picture, other things are available at Our Garden currently. I didn't bring any home either because they'd run out by the time I left or they aren't among my favorites. Other tasty goods include fruit (grapes, blackberries), greens (arugula, amaranth, purslane, radicchio), beets, other summer squashes, eggplant, tomatoes, and fresh herbs (such as basil, bay leaves, oregano, parsley, rosemary, and thyme). I'm sad that no arugula, eggplant, or tomatoes were available to come home with me today.

One of the problems with working around fresh produce for hours on end is the tendency to dream about ways to prepare and eat it. This was an issue at the CSA, one sometimes solved by throwing together sample dishes with whatever was available so we could all snack.

Some memorable dishes include a very simple and tasty arugula salad made with arugula and sweet green apples (diced), dressed with fresh lime juice and salt/pepper. That is still a salad I enjoy today. For a while, too, someone would always bring a baguette for we volunteers to eat. I'd make sandwiches with roasted green chiles, tomatoes, and any available greens.

At the garden, though, I don't have the kitchen set-up to do this sort of thing, so I just drool all over myself thinking about what I can make later. The cantaloupe and watermelon will be wonderful for chilling and then eating just as is. I was pleased to see this is a seeded watermelon as the seeds have tasty uses, too.

As I wrote three years ago in a post:
"Roasted watermelon seeds are sold as snacks in other parts of the world, sometimes already cracked open to make it easier to get to the tasty meat inside. While looking for instructions on how to roast them, I found a skillet method used in Egypt. Ultimately I settled on roasting them in the oven. First, rinse the pulp off the raw seeds. An optional step is to soak them in salted water for about 20 minutes. With squash seeds, this is supposed to make it easier to crack open the roasted seeds. Next, drain and dry them while preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Roasting only takes 10 minutes. Stir to prevent burning.

The Indian recipe I was following required ground seeds. I used the electric spice grinder as I seem to have misplaced my metate. I put the ground seeds in a fine sieve and sifted. The shells did not grind as finely as the meat inside and remained in the sieve so pouring boiling water through the sieve extracts all of the good flavor from the shells. According to this recipe and another site, the ground roasted seeds were an efficient way to add fat and protein to the diet during lean times when meat may have been hard to come by. Handy tip in case we face hard times in the future.

I created a soup after cooking the beans. It was wonderful, with the seeds adding a nice nutty flavor to the beans."

Lately, I've been simply blanching my chard and/or beet greens for a few minutes in boiling water and then draining and chopping them. I add the chopped greens to pasta, put them on top of mashed potatoes, or toss them with a little soy sauce and seasoned rice vinegar. The stems are, of course, saved for this spicy pickled stems recipe from Bon Appetit.

Zucchini is so versatile that I have not yet decided how to use it this week. In the past couple of weeks, I've had it sliced thin on pizza (both raw and roasted slices), shredded raw in salad, diced in soup, and shredded and sauteed in spaghetti sauce. I found a zucchini chocolate muffin recipe I want to try this week, and may also make some regular zucchini bread. Even if zucchini gets overwhelming, it's easy to freeze shredded zucchini in bags to pull out mid-winter to make a tasty bread that will have you praising this productive summer vegetable all over again. This lemon-zucchini relish is also really good.

I have some digestive trouble with corn so most of the corn I bring home goes into my sweetie's stomach. He's happy to have it boiled just until tender and then salted. When I do eat a little, I really enjoy it with smoked salt but I am not currently sure where my stash of smoked salt is hiding. Sadly, I did not see any for sale at Penzey's and the other spice place in town that had it seems to be gone now.

These onions are so sweet that I've been using them raw in salads of all sorts - tossed, pasta, and potato. When I cook with them, I don't cook them nearly as long as I normally would saute an onion as it isn't necessary with their natural sweetness. A good many of my dinner recipes start out with "dice and saute an onion until golden" so it is impossible for me to ever have too many onions!

Lately, I've been enjoying a lot of the garlic, too. Just this week, I've had some minced in homemade hummus and added to pasta sauce. Roasted garlic cloves are a wonderful addition to mashed potatoes and homemade pizza will sparkle when sprinkled with minced garlic before cooking.

I've still got a couple of beets left in my refrigerator so this week's eating will include roasted beets. They are so simple to prepare yet so tasty. Simply clean the beet well, trim the stems off to about 1/2" above the top of the beet, and toss on a baking sheet. Roast them until tender in a 350-400 degree oven. Large ones can take an hour, but start checking smaller ones in 30-45 minutes. Once cool enough to handle, the skins slip right off. I like to slice them and serve with horseradish sauce and salt.

Once I get my hands on some tomatoes, I'll probably defrost some of my few remaining frozen roasted green chiles and dice some of those onions to make fresh salsa. That with some quick pickled cucumber, when they are ripe, will be just lovely with bean burritos. And perhaps this will be the year when I finally find an authentic, but not impossible to make, recipe for spicy eggplant. If not, I'll stick with this Indian spicy eggplant dish. It may look like dog food but the taste is awesome!

For additional ideas on how to use fresh, local, organic produce, either from your garden, a CSA or farmers market, produce stand, or u-pick farm, check out my recipes and the recipe database from the Tucson CSA. The latter one is organized by type of produce, which makes it a great resource.

What Has Chile Been Up To?

2011-06-30T08:40:00.001-07:00

I know it's been quiet on this blog lately and I apologize. However, my current focus is really on losing weight and increasing my fitness so I spend most of my blogging time at my newer blog: Chile's Little Weight Problem. Over there, I talk about why being overweight and out of shape is a problem, not just because it is unhealthy and unattractive, but because it does not bode well for thriving if things get as bad as many predict they will due to peak oil, economic collapse, and/or climate change.

For my own accountability, to track my progress, and to share what I'm doing with others who may be interested, I am keeping a Food Log and an Exercise Log on the blog. Every bite of food I eat gets recorded in the food log. I'd say this helps keep me from "cheating" but I don't really need it for that. Since switching to eating lots of potatoes, my cravings for sugar, chocolate, coffee, and fatty foods have pretty much been eliminated! All of my exercise is recorded in the log. It does not include the regular chores and activity such as vacuuming or laundry, but it does include significant yard work where I've worked up a sweat from the labor.

I wanted to share some good news with my regular readers here. The following is cross-posted from the other blog and includes milestones that I have reached recently.

Today I will be laundering and then packing away the biggest of my "fat pants." I'm going to save this pair for comparison when I've lost all my excess weight. This morning, I put on a pair of pants that I could not zip up two months ago. Last month, I could zip them up but they were unattractively tight. Now they fit fine, which is good because otherwise I'd be down a pair of pants because of the ones that are too big.

Although my sidebar only records my weight loss from May 23 (17.5 pounds to date) because that is when I fully committed to eating right and exercising, today's weigh-in shows that I've lost over 20 pounds from my highest ever weight recorded earlier this year. I'm beginning to feel like I'm getting my life back! And I'm really looking forward to cleaning out the closet by next year so that I have clothes for only one size. The charity thrift stores will be cleaning up with all that I will be donating over the rest of the year.

As you can see by the sidebar, I have achieved my goal already for a healthy blood pressure. (It was 99/61 on Monday.) I'm sure my cholesterol is back down under 200 where it should be by now and I'm eagerly looking forward to new bloodwork in September to find out for sure. My eventual goal is for it to be 150 or lower as research shows that is the safest level to ensure no heart attacks. However, since excess weight contributes to higher cholesterol, it is unlikely mine will be that low until I lose more weight. Insurance will not pay for it to be checked again until next year (unless medically necessary - which it will not be!)

As you can see by my exercise log, I have been working very hard out in the yard. We're doing a big project that involves a lot of manual labor: using a pick/mattock, using a drop bar, digging, and hauling dirt, gravel, and rocks around in buckets and a wheelbarrow. I've put in over 9 hours on this since we started on Saturday. Normally I'd be in a fair amount of pain. However, thanks to the strength training I've been doing, I am not. I'm sore and I'm tired but I am not in pain. My back and shoulders have been holding up just fine. My feet are sore, but that is due to screwing them up years ago and they always get sore when I spend time standing on them in one place. (They generally hurt less when I walk than when I stand in place.)

The future implications for this are good. With increasing fuel costs (peak oil, political upheaval, aging electrical grid), we expect to need to do more and more without the benefit of machinery powered by electricity or oil. Being more fit will make this easier and it looks like I am already on my way. Note in the exercise log that I did not skip my regularly scheduled strength training workouts just because I'd already done work in the yard.

Are you taking steps in your life to lose weight (if you need to), improve your physical health (shown through measurable lab numbers), and get more fit? If not, what are you waiting for?!

Have you ever had a Wardrobe Malfunction?

2011-06-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

On a discussion board I frequent, we've been sharing some funny and embarrassing tales about wardrobe malfunctions. Our tales are related to weight changes. One person took an old pair of shorts on a trip, forgetting she'd lost 40 pounds. The result? Her shorts fell down while she was in the airport. Another person wore pants that had become too large and had to spend the entire day holding them up with one hand to avoid the same embarrassing fate.

On the other end of the spectrum are those of us with embarrassing tales due to weight gain. It still mortifies me to remember the time years ago when my belt popped off as I bent down to pick something up in my boss's office after finishing my exit interview. It was obviously due to my weight and hard to recover from gracefully.

Do you have any funny or embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions you'd like to share?

Ban on Fireworks

2011-06-22T21:01:00.001-07:00

Following up on my last post... Due to the extreme fire hazard due to very dry conditions locally, Pima County has banned fireworks until weather conditions improve - basically until we get some much needed rain. The Sheriff has made a point of pointing out that people caught violating this ban will not just be ticketed for the Class 3 Misdemeanor; they will be arrested on the spot and hauled off to jail.

Cochise County has also banned fireworks - not terribly surprising considering the enormously expensive and destructive Monument Fire is still raging down south of Tucson.

I should note that the Cities' official fireworks displays are still on and will have, as usual, all the fire personnel on hand. All other commercial and personal fireworks' displays are banned, including ones by the big resorts (their previously-granted permits have been revoked until the weather improves).

Please, Don't Be an Idiot

2011-06-18T06:15:00.005-07:00

Dozens of fires are burning right now in Arizona, Texas, and Alaska. I can't speak for the other states, but Arizona is bone dry. This is our normal dry season and we are at risk of fires every summer before the monsoon rains begin, usually in early July. Sometimes the fires are started by dry lightning strikes - from building thunderstorms that don't have enough moisture to provide rain but still plenty of electrical activity. Sometimes fires are started by people, such as in the case of the Chediski fire, which was started by a lost person trying to signal a helicopter. That fire grew to be the largest in Arizona's history ... up until this week when the Wallow Fire overtook that statistic. If 500,000 acres burned - so far - is hard to visualize, try it this way: over 700 square miles have gone up in flames. That's equivalent to half the state of Rhode Island!

Another fire in Arizona, however, is now dominating the local news because it is affecting people far more directly. The Monument fire down in southeastern Arizona was human-caused. High winds (40-45 mph sustained wind speed for the past week) and very low daytime humidity (5%) have driven this fire fast and furious towards the small city of Sierra Vista which borders Ft. Huachuca (known for it military intelligence school). On the way, it has burned through 47 homes in mountain canyons already and forced evacuation of three thousand homes from neighborhoods in the foothills and flats below the mountain range. I have family and friends currently displaced from their homes, waiting on pins and needles to see whether the firefighters can keep it from roaring through their neighborhoods.

In addition to the wind and humidity issues, there is a higher fuel load this year for fires to consume. Due to a very unusual hard freeze in early May that killed a lot of frost-sensitive native plants and landscaping, there is a tremendous amount of tinder-dry dead vegetation. My relatives reported that they were desperately trying to remove 20 foot high dead desert broom bordering their property fence while in the pre-evacuation stage this week.

So, with these super-dry, very windy conditions in the SouthWest, I am asking you not to be an idiot. If you smoke, remember that the world is not your ashtray. Keep your butt(s) in the car! I can't tell you how many burned spots along roads and highways show up in this state from idiots flicking their lit cigarette butt out the car window as they're driving.

The national forest has been closed here for over a week, as the resources of this state are already stretched very thin and the last thing we need is another forest fire. That should minimize new fires started by careless idiot campers leaving fires unattended. Nevertheless, these same people might decide to have campfires elsewhere on private or public lands.

Don't be an idiot and kick off a much larger fire! Building a campfire is easy to do safely and every camper worth their salt knows how. Clear adequate space, dig a shallow bowl, line with big rocks, and build a small fire. Never, ever, leave the fire unattended. When done for the night (or day), extinguish completely with water and dirt, stirring to make sure it is totally out. A single hot ember can spark a wildfire! If you can't reach in and touch the dirty, muddy, ashy mess because it's still too hot, you're not done yet.

If you go target-shooting or hunting, be aware that steel-core ammo (generally foreign military surplus) can start a grass fire from the spark created if the bullet hits a rock. Do your target shooting at a proper range where the vegetation has been cleared and there is an appropriate backstop. For hunting, try archery!

With 4th of July coming up and fireworks now legal in this state (thanks to the idiots in Phoenix), we are already looking at our property here to see what we might need to do should a local idiot decide setting off fireworks in their brushy yard would be fun. Since they are more visible at night, the added danger of drunken firework displays is even more concerning. Although we prefer hand tools to power ones, we've assessed the risk and decided we should pick up a small chainsaw to have on hand for emergency tree removal. Better that than lose everything we've worked so hard for. My sweetie just pointed out, too, that we will be sure to purchase a chainsaw with a "spark arrester" on it.

Fires sometimes start by accident as well. Yesterday's "Antelope Fire" even closer to Sierra Vista and Ft. Huachuca started when sparks from a bulldozer clearing a firebreak ignited dry brush. It burned through 2,000 acres in no time, racing towards houses very nearby. If you are operating any heavy machinery, please be very, very careful!

And, for those of you not familiar with the rules of the West which are common sense to the natives, do not ever pull your vehicle off the road into tall dry grasses or weeds and park. The hot catalytic converter can (and does) start brush fires. In our current red flag conditions, these can roar out of control and threaten the lives, livelihoods, and homes of people unfortunate enough to live nearby.

So, please, I implore you again: Don't be an idiot. That brain in your skull is there for you to use, not just to keep the skull from collapsing in. Keep your butts in the car, don't build a campfire, skip the fireworks or go to a community display that has firefighters on standby, watch out with your heavy machinery, and don't park on the grass. And, of course, don't play with matches!

Choosing Conventional Produce

2011-06-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

The Environmental Working Groups has come out with its 2011 lists of conventional produce with the most pesticides and those with the least. I know some of my readers strive not to buy anything other than organic and/or locally grown produce, but some people are still purchasing conventional produce from the grocery store because it is less expensive, has the variety desired, or they have few other choices. I still buy a few items at the store that I have not been able to find locally and it's nice to know when I should pay the extra for organic.

Because I would never remember a list of the 12 worst produce as well as a list of the 15 with the least exposure, I copied the lists and printed them out to keep in my purse. Since I'll be pulling them out frequently, I laminated them with packing tape to keep the lists in good shape. They are printed back to back so I only have one small piece of laminated paper to deal with.

Here are the lists, which can also be found at the EWG link above.

The Lunch Beet

2011-06-12T18:00:00.001-07:00

My lunch today included all parts of the beet. Of course, you may not believe that since there are no beets in evidence on my plate above, but that's only because it didn't occur to me to include the beet greens with lunch until after the potatoes and gravy were ready. So, while the water was coming to a boil, I ate the delicious roasted Golden beet.

Remember the Penzeys spices trip? The horseradish powder was a smart purchase. I've used it several times already on roasted beets. It's easy to combine a very small amount of the powder with a bit of water to make instant horseradish sauce. Spread on the beets with a sprinkle of salt, its zippy flavor really complements the sweetness of the beet. Best of all, I don't have a jar of horseradish in the fridge that will go bad before I can use it all up.

Once the water was boiling, I blanched the beet greens until tender. Remember, these are the leaves without the stems, since I pickled those separately. After draining the greens, I used my hands to squeeze the excess water out of them and then chopped them finely. I tossed them with minced fresh garlic and minced pickled beet stems to add bite and a touch of sweetness. The stems are somewhat chewy so chopping them finely seems the best way to go.

For the green report, let me note that the potatoes, onions (in the gravy), beets, and garlic are all local. The only non-local ingredients in this meal were the minor players: the flour and salt for the gravy, plus the sugar, vinegar, and celery seed used to pickle the beet stems. The potatoes, whole beets, and onions were also all cooked in the solar ovens over the past couple of days.

This was a lunch that can't be beet!

Pickled Pink

2011-06-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

While waiting for my appointment with my chiropractor, I browsed through her latest copy of Bon Appetit. I really appreciate that she leaves it out in the waiting room as the last time I browsed through it, I discovered the wonders of roasted beets with horseradish. This time the word "Sriracha" caught my eye in the Table of Contents and I immediately flipped to the one page article about how chefs were challenged to come up with recipes featuring the spicy sauce.

This particular recipe for pickled chard stems looked interesting, especially since I've been tossing the stems into the compost lately. Sometimes I'll chop and cook them separately but I'm not really crazy about them so I've just been discarding them. This recipe looked like a way to reduce that waste while making an intriguing hot pickle.

The only problem was I don't have any chard. However, I did have beets. Did you know that beets and chard are the same species? I learned that recently when I was breaking up my dying chard plants to toss in the compost. When I broke the stems off at ground level, I was surprised to see concentric white and pink rings in the little swelling at the top of the roots. The rings looked just like the rings on a slice of chioggia beet. I showed it to my sweetie and he looked it up, then relating the same species information to me. Chard and beets are different varieties within the Beta vulgaris species.

So, as you've probably already guessed, I made this recipe with beet stems instead of chard stems.

The red stems were from darker red beets and the green stems from golden beets (my fave). These will be ready to sample in a few days.

In the meantime, I'm starting a batch of radish kimchi following the recipe in Sandor Katz' great book, Wild Fermentation. The wait for those will be even longer, about a week until they are nice and sour.

Lastly, I pulled out my recipe for sweet pickled onions and plan to pickle a big batch of fresh sweet onions from the organic farm.

I just love pickled vegetables. How about you?

State of the Garden

2011-06-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

It's June in the desert but that doesn't mean that gardening has to be suspended until the temperatures cool off again. By choosing the right varieties and growing conditions, it is entirely possible to garden through the heat without leaving the hose running 24/7 on the plants. In fact, we found out through a garden seminar at a local nursery last month that it is likely that we've actually been overwatering - and weakening - our plants. We've cruelly cut back on their allowed drinking and the plants seem to be doing fine.

Ok, not all the plants are doing fine. The chard got cooked by the hot sun. If we'd kept it shaded, it would still be going strong, as evidenced by the lovely rainbow chard still available at the organic mini-farm where I volunteer. Theirs is covered with shade cloth and looks just as bright and green now as mine did several months ago.

Speaking of the garden there, I kept some of the sunflower seedlings I helped thin months ago. Last month, they had grown up to about half the height of my ultra-dwarf Fuji apple.

They kept growing and just started blooming this week. The apple tree in the middle is no longer visible, even though it still has about half an inch on the tallest flower. Note the pretty red poppy down in the right corner.

Note also the ugly piece of plywood behind the fence. We had to wire this up to protect the Brassicas in the 5 gallon buckets from the fierce hot winds we've been having lately.

This is a two week old photo of the herb bed in a half-barrel. My sweetie planted them low in the barrel to get a little extra shade. All these plants have about doubled in size by now. I really must make more recipes with basil and dill!

I can't wait for these tomatoes to ripen.

Does anyone else like to see their tomatoes in bondage? It seems to be working as the little yellow plums off this baby are tasty!

I'm excited about the peppers, too, but I have got to convince my sweetie to plant more of them. How can I call myself "Chile" with this few peppers?!

Remember the hugerkultur beds I showed you a while back? This is a picture from May. The plant in the back is an Amish pie pumpkin. There are a couple of other small plants in the foreground but they are not thriving like the pumpkin.

This is the same bed in June. You can see the pumpkin has grown. It's put out a few male blooms recently, too. The other plants never did well.

In the second bed, there are three main plants. Watermelon on the front right, another melon in the back, and a black Futsu winter squash on the left. None did as well as the Amish pie pumpkin, but the watermelon in the other bed didn't grow much at all compared to this one.

Here is the bed in June. As you can see, these plants aren't doing much. I think the melon in the back has put out a couple of blooms.

Will we do the hugerkultur again? Probably. The beds do stay moist longer thanks to the wood underneath, although I think the old horse manure holds a lot of moisture as well. The woody brush layer has also prevented pocket gophers from burrowing up under the plants and eating the tender roots.

I think we just need to find which plants thrive in this kind of bed. Blackberries are supposed to like it; we hope to get some cane prunings this winter and we may fill one of these beds with berries. I think it would look really nice to have a blackberry plant totally covering the bed and growing over the chickenwire hoop.

No new pictures of the fruit trees but most are doing pretty well. One of the figs has never looked good since our last freeze and we're not sure it's going to make it. The fierce winds we've been having have also taken their toll on our future harvest. An apple and a plum were blown off their trees this past week. Birds already pecked one of our few early peaches, too.

We did harvest a strawberry already. Sadly, the picture on your screen is just about lifesize since this is an Alpine Strawberry, which surprisingly does well in the heat here. The strawberry, however, was smaller than the fingernail on my pinky and didn't have spectacular flavor. The other disadvantage of this variety is that it does not send out runners like regular strawberries. What you see is what we've got.

We hope to expand the garden this winter and keep getting better and better at making it work.

Penzeys Spices Come to Town

2011-06-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I noticed the sign on the corner of a little strip mall in Tucson that said "Penzeys Spices." They were obviously not open yet but I was still pretty excited. I've been hearing about Penzeys spices for years.

You see, despite my choosing to follow a strict vegetarian diet, I am a foodie. I grew up with parents that both enjoyed cooking from scratch, often with fresh vegetables straight from the garden. A sibling grew up to be a very adventurous cook, making ethnic foods from across the globe. And I was helping out in the kitchen myself since I was "knee high to a grasshopper."

Even though I began dipping into vegetarian cooking years ago, I still love using spices to make the food more interesting. Heck, I've shared my spice list with you before and even finally stumbled across the perfect spice rack after years of searching. I hang out online with other vegetarian foodies and have been hearing people talk about ordering from Penzeys for years. I never got around to really examining their website and didn't particularly want to order sight unseen, or rather spice unsmelled. And then I saw the sign.

I've passed by the store once or twice since it opened but not had time to stop. Yesterday I made time and enjoyed the experience. For every single herb, spice, mixture, and even extract, they had containers specially set up to open and sniff. It was a lot of fun going through the store, checking out the selection, and sniffing almost everything. It confirmed something I already knew, as well: I much prefer spices over herbs. Year ago, it took me a while to figure out that was the reason I preferred Asian food over French - the seasonings.

Not surprisingly, this preference is evident in what I purchased there yesterday. I tried the toasted onion flakes yesterday in some mashed potatoes. They added a nice bit of tasty crunchiness; next time I think I'll rehydrate them in the cooking water to allow the flavor to permeate more thoroughly. It's like Lipton's Onion Soup mix without all the other ingredients (MSG and soy) I don't want!

I just looked online for the other spice market - Flavorbank - I used to go to occasionally in Tucson and their website seems to be gone. That's too bad because their pepper mixtures and smoked salt were incredible. I haven't been in ages because it is/was on the far side of Tucson from my current location.

If you want to check out a Penzeys near you, here's the list of their locations.

I Can't Eat That. (Or, Living with Food Allergies)

2011-05-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

My food life didn't used to be so complicated. When I was young, I ate whatever my parents put on the table. Well, not the super-hot jalapenos, but my dad was happy to take those. When I was a teenager, I started getting fierce sinus headaches, along with the usual skin break-outs that most teenagers face. The cramps each month made school a misery but thank goodness for Midol! When I was an older teen, I read Laurel's Kitchen and really got into using whole wheat flour, which nobody else in the house appreciated. They liked it much better when I went through the baking cakes from scratch phase.

My first experience with the impact food might be having on my health came when I was living away from home, I think maybe the first summer in college. It was my first time living by myself in my own apartment, having a kitchen to myself, and totally responsible for my own feeding. I picked up the book, Sugar Blues, and decided to try going sugar-free.

It was hard and required a lot of research, label reading, and learning to cook new ways. I eliminated all added forms of sugar from my diet: no white sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, or any other kind of sweetener. I got pretty obsessive and even refused to buy products with caramel coloring since that was a sugar derivitive. I ended up not eating dairy either, but I can't remember if it was because it contained lactose (a milk sugar) or because the taste didn't appeal. A few weeks in, I lost my desire to eat meat; it no longer tasted good to me and the texture was bothersome so, by route of eliminating sugar, I ended up eating a vegan diet.

My health and well-being improved significantly. I was no longer troubled by sinus headaches. I had plenty of energy. I was happy.

I was seduced off this path by a simple, innocent gesture by my mom. Trying to be helpful, she gave me a book called Sweet & Sugarfree: An All-Natural Fruit-Sweetened Dessert Cookbook. The sweetness came only from fruits, but the concentration in the desserts of these naturally occurring sugars triggered my cravings for other sugars once again. I went off the no-sugar diet with a bang by making and consuming half a grashopper pie. I was laid up sick for almost a week with the worst sinus infection I'd ever had.

I have never been able to go completely sugar-free again since. It's much more difficult to do when you share a life with someone else, but it's also just really difficult to do in today's world.

Fast forward a few decades to when I stumble across Dr. McDougall's book, The McDougall Program: 12 Days to Dynamic Health. He brought together all the disparate nutritional information I'd read over the years into one concrete, medically-proven way of eating for optimal health. I persuaded my sweetie to try it with me and we both felt great. We were willing to give up animal products to feel better in the present and to prevent future disease, especially since each of us has a nice representation in our family lines (stroke, glaucoma, heart disease, and cancer).

The times that we stuck with eating a whole foods, plant-based, starch-centered diet, we felt great. Our weight dropped, energy soared, aches and pains disappeared, and life was good. Life was, however, sometimes more challenging because avoiding all animal products - meat (that includes fish), dairy, eggs, and even gelatin - is not the societal norm. Not only did we skip those, we also eliminated added oils and reduced our sodium and sugar intake. Plus, we switched to whole grain products.

It meant learning a whole new way of cooking for me. At that time, there was not the cornucopia of vegan cookbooks available, and the few that were tended to use a whole lot of oil. Learning to make the dishes we loved a healthy way, especially quick breads and muffins, meant a lot of experimenting (and some failures). But over time, I came up with a lot of good recipes. You can find some right here on this blog, under the recipe tab at the top of the page.

After eating this way for a while and feeling really good, I started noticing that sometimes I did not feel so good. Repeated occurences of heartburn, which I never had before, led me to discover I was allergic to walnuts. Or, maybe not allergic in a technical sense, but definitely sensitive to them. Over time, I made the connection that eating any other tree nuts caused my skin to break out. My skin clears right up when I avoid those tasty almonds and pecans. Boy, would it have been nice to know that in highschool! Without my overall system feeling and working better, I never would have been able to tease our specific foods that made me feel worse.

However, the need to avoid nuts had just added a layer of complication to finding food that I could eat and also impacted the ability to eat with others. When someone invites you over to dinner, they really don't want to receive a long list of what you can't eat (meat, eggs, dairy, fats/oil, tree nuts). But, eating those things would make me sick, so I had no choice. Or rather, I had few dinner invitations...

I was never a big tofu fan but did eat it occasionally. One day, I noticed that my throat felt funny after I ate tofu. It felt constricted. The next time I had some tofu in a restaurant, my throat definitely felt like it was swelling. The final time I ate tofu, when a restaurant mixed up my order, I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital. I have scrupulously avoided tofu since, which is a real PITA when you are trying to eat a strict vegetarian diet. The vegetable meal options on Asian restaurant menus almost always include tofu. Many of the vegetarian frozen dinners feature tofu. Tofu is prominent at vegetarian potlucks and even the local all-vegan restaurant.

I now had an ingredient that was critical to avoid, not just one that would make me a little ill, but one that could, in theory, eventually kill me if the symptoms got worse each time I ate it. I learned to very carefully read labels and grill restaurants about what was in a dish I wanted to order. If I went to a potluck, I had to request that everyone label their dishes for those with allergies. It's a hassle but something I have to live with.

At least I could still use soymilk.

A few years later, I tried one of those Amazake rice drinks. We were on the road when I realized that I was having the same kind of allergic reaction to it that I do to tofu. We turned around and got to the nearest drugstore to buy some Benadryl, which we now always keep in the vehicle. I've since avoided any product fermented with "koji." It's a rice-based product but apparently a problem for me. To be on the safe side, I also avoid tempeh and miso.

But at least I could still drink soymilk.

Or could I? Lately I'd noticed that I had a lot more phlegm after any food or drink with soymilk. That was a reaction I used to have to dairy - an increase in mucous. Dairy also caused other problems, inflammation problems such as sinusitis (inflammation of the sinuses) and plantar fasciitis (inflammation of the plantar fascia). Avoiding dairy virtually eliminated those two problems and soymilk was a wonderful substitute. It acts much like milk in baking, which was very helpful when I learned to bake fatfree, eggfree, whole grain breads and muffins.

On Monday of this week, I started a little mini-diet to get back on track. I'm eating potatoes as the main part of my meals, with steamed vegetables or a salad to go with it. I've been doing great on it, losing weight while feeling completely satisfied with the food. I have not missed coffee (or my old frappuccinos) at all. I am using far less sugar and salt, and not missing dessert. I sometimes miss the idea of dessert but not the actual food. I had intentionally avoiding using any soymilk, based on my growing suspician it was responsible for the phlegm.

However, last night I made mashed potatoes and I really wanted them to be a little creamy. So I used some soymilk. To my surprise, I had a rather serious reaction. It started about fifteen minutes after the meal when I felt quite flushed. A bit later, I noticed that my neck was feeling stiff and my knee was starting to hurt. I sat down and observed, with amazement, as the symptoms got progressively worse.

As I described the litany of aches and pains returning - ones that I hadn't had for quite a while - to my sweetie, he wondered if I might be getting the flu. Nope, no fever at all. A few minutes later, my throat started to swell and I kind of, um, freaked out. I quickly took a couple of Benadryl to deal with the allergic reaction, but that wasn't what the freak-out was about.

There are so many things I already avoid for my health and now I've got to add soy, all forms of soy, to that list. Do you have any idea how much more complicated that makes life?

Here's an example. I went through the pantry today and pulled out everything that contains soy. I can't eat these anymore.

If my sweetie wants them, we'll set them aside in a labeled box for him. Otherwise, I'll probably be trying to find a way to unload some of it. Not shown are 15 freakin' pounds of dehydrated soy-based fake chicken nuggets we got for our food storage. Leave me a comment if you are interested; they are tasty.

I have not gone through the refrigerator and freezer yet, but I know it's going to be equally grim. What I did do this morning was check out a couple of natural food stores to look at other nondairy milk options. What do I find?

Almond milk. Um, can't do that with my tree nut problem.

Coconut milk. It's two-thirds fat and all of it saturated. Not an option.

Rice milk. All brands have added oil. No thanks.

Hemp milk. Pretty high in fat, too.

The only one left is Oat milk. I remember not being thrilled about it when I tried it years ago, but I have no choice now. I can try making rice milk again at home, with no added oil, but previous attempts did not leave me impressed.

This means I'll be having to revise all my recipes again and I suspect some will not be salvageable without soymilk. This means I likely won't be able to eat out hardly anywhere anymore other than maybe Sweet Tomatoes salad bar where I can have salad with rice vinegar and a plain baked potato. This means I will likely never share a meal with other people again unless I do all the cooking. This means I will have to make almost all of our food from scratch. Some of the products I've gotten in the past to save time occasionally contain soybean oil (the pasta sauce in picture) or soy lecithin (the whole wheat bread in my freezer).

I am so irritated by this. I've made lots of changes to get healthier and it's been worth it. But now I have to eliminate a food I enjoy, one that is present in so many other foods I enjoy. I guess I shouldn't complain since there are plenty of healthy foods out there left for me to eat: potatoes and tubers of all sorts, grains and seeds, vegetables in every color of the rainbow, and luscious fruits. And theoretically, if I eliminate a food that has been causing me problems, even when I wasn't fully aware of them, my health should improve considerably. It may even turn out to be a key factor in my ability to lose my excess weight.

If nothing else, I can still drink my homemade liqueur...

Shopping for Lower Food Prices

2011-05-26T09:32:00.003-07:00

I got to thinking about this after reading a thread on a discussion board about folks who keep a list of the things they normally buy and shop from that each week. The impression I got was that they were shopping as supplies ran low in their pantries.

I shop differently. For instance, I buy in bulk so the price is cheaper and there's always something to eat in the house (as well as some stored food for emergencies.) And by bulk, I don't mean just filling up a bag at the bulk bins.

The natural food store near me gives a 10% discount for ordering by the case or bag, so when I need rolled oats, for example, I’ll order a 25 pound bag. A half-gallon jar of it goes in the kitchen cabinet and the rest is dumped into a bucket I got from the bakery department (well-washed, of course). Once sealed, the oats stay fresh pretty well as long as we work our way through them consistently. There are products to help storage, like oxygen absorbers and mylar bags, but we've found they aren't necessary in our dry climate as long as we keep the bucket in a cool place.

I buy my rice in 25 pound bags at a large ethnic food store for much less per pound than the little 2 pound bags at the grocery store. For those eating whole grains, brown rice is usually available in a number of varieties, including Jasmine, Basmati, and sushi. The store also has large packages of noodles, rarely whole grain, but good for the occasional noodle dish. And they store quite well.

Buying this way keeps the price of our food down, as long as we keep on top of what we have and use it up. Processed products like rolled oats do not keep as well as the intact whole grain - the oat groats, and products with higher fat - like oats - do not keep as well as lower fat things - like wheat berries. Whole wheat flour, of course, doesn't keep well at all unless stored in the freezer, but we have our own grinder (pedal powered) and just buy whole wheat berries that we can grind as needed. Brown rice does not store nearly as long as white; I've taken to keeping brown rice in the freezer now after having to throw quite a bit out because it got rancid.

For regular shopping, I go through the ads each week and shop the loss leaders. For instance, Shredded Wheat is on sale this week, so I'll get the maximum number of boxes (4) permitted. I also check the clearance shelves at any store I go to. Usually the expiration dates are a ways off; the store is just getting rid of a product. My best score was 9 tins of organic fair-trade cocoa powder for a buck each. Those lasted us, gosh, I think about 3 years. I recently scored a bunch of small wild rice boxes for pretty cheap, too, and we just finished up the last of a case of "Pasta & Chreeze" I'd gotten half price. I guess the brown rice noodle version wasn’t as popular as the regular pasta one.

For produce, I buy some frozen (on sale or at Costco) but primarily get organic, locally grown produce in season. It tastes better and is usually priced about the same as store-bought organic. For much of my produce, I trade volunteer labor - over three years at a CSA and now at a small organic farm's produce stand. And, of course, we are starting to grow more of our own.

I have also been buying my spices in bulk for years so I don't have to run to the store every time I empty a jar. I just shop in the closet. A Penzey's store has opened up in Tucson and I can't wait to go check it out!

For my style of shopping, a print-out list wouldn't do a lot of good because what I buy weekly, monthly, and seasonally is never the same. Shopping weekly for only what I needed that week, regardless of sales, would also cost a whole lot more.

Oops, I did it again!

2011-05-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

I missed my own Blogiversary. I've had it in mind for a couple of weeks yet the 23rd just slipped right on by without my even acknowledging it. Time for an apology letter!

Dear Blog,

I am so sorry that I missed our four-year anniversary. Traditionally, this is the anniversary for fruit and flowers. However, seeing as you are not technically a living being, I suppose you'll forgive me for not dripping fruit juice on you or getting your tags all clogged up with flower pollen.

In these modern times, the gift recommended for the fourth anniversary is appliances. Well, Happy Anniversary early (er, late?)! I hope you are enjoying your new, faster laptop. It uses less energy than that old desktop and sure is quieter. In fact, so much quieter that I can spend more time with you when my sweetie is still sleeping.

See? I do still love you even if I forgot our anniversary.

Love,
Chile

Time to Laugh

2011-05-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

My sweetie's new favorite YouTube video. Our dogs really, really wish we were not vegetarians!

Tropical Plant Roots

2011-05-19T08:18:00.000-07:00

This is just a little update on my efforts to propagate a couple of the tropical fruits I recently bought for a salad.

Here is the current status of the pineapple rooting in water. I initially had it in way too much water, which caused some of the bottom leaves to begin rotting (not rooting). I peeled them off, washed the plant well, and put it in a much smaller jar with water only covering the bottom nub part where the roots were coming out. It is doing much better and should be ready for planting in soil in a week or so.

The mango seed has obviously sprouted and started putting out roots. I'm not ready to dig it out of the damp peat moss yet for planting, but probably will check on it this weekend.

How It Spirals Out of Control

2011-05-16T16:50:00.001-07:00

Years ago when we lived closer to my mother-in-law, we'd sometimes catch the "Clean Sweep" program on television while visiting her. I really enjoyed that show, especially when Peter Walsh was on as the organizer. He was tender but firm with people about cleaning out the clutter and doing it now! What I didn't understand then, though, was how people's home got into the incredibly cluttered mess in the first place.

We're not talking just a half dozen loads of clean laundry piled up on the couch, a week's worth of mail on the counter, and some crap on the floor. No, these people often literally could not use their furniture because it was buried under the mess. Their homes were a source of stress rather than a place to relax and retreat from the cares of the day.

My house does not look like that, but it has gotten pretty darn messy. It's probably the worst it's ever been other than when we've been in the middle of a move. In fact, in some ways my house looks like we're still in the midst of moving in, because once we had to get rid of the shed, tools and other things moved into the house - things that still have not found a good place to live within the house so they either keep getting moved around or they sit in the way.

What this situation has done is show me how easy it could be for a home (or life) to spiral out of control until one begged "Clean Sweep" to come to the rescue. Why do I say this? Because getting out from under this mess is proving far more difficult than I imagined. My schedule is always overfilled (gotta plant those new trees ASAP, you know) so carving out the time to work on the mess is difficult. Spending 15 minutes on a room barely makes a dent. Finding an entire weekend to spend on it might be possible but it would still not get it all done. The magnitude of the task at hand is daunting.

So, I can see how easy it would be for someone to just throw up their hands and give in to the clutter and chaos. The focus would turn to just dealing with the immediate needs. For instance, in my case, despite having months-old papers on my desk that have not been filed, I still make sure the bills get paid. I know that is a high priority so I make the time for it. Filing all that paperwork, not so high a priority, even though it would be nice to be able to use my desk again.

I fully intended to get the office under control this month. Before I file those papers, I wanted to clean out the old files so I'm not adding to the mess hidden away in the drawers. I've run into a snag, though. A higher priority project came up: working on getting my health back. That project is requiring a significant investment in time spent exercising and making meals from scratch again. Not only that, the new exercise regimen is leaving me wiped out, with no mental or physical energy left to deal with paperwork.

So the mess marches on. I've moved some of it into the living room so that the office won't seem so bad. I'd show you a picture but a "Before" all by its lonesome without a success story "After" photo would just be depressing.

Need a Chuckle?

2011-05-14T08:10:00.001-07:00

Green Bean has finally regrown from her dormant roots and resumed her own blog! Yay! To you new kids on the block, you may not understand the excitement, but many of us "green" bloggers all started blogging around the same time and seemed to be a pretty tight little cyber-group for a while. It was a sad day when Green Bean pulled back from her personal blog although she still made appearances on The Green Phone Booth group blogging site she put together. (It was also a sad day, several times, when Crunchy Chicken quit her blog ... but her quitting never stuck. LOL)

Anyway, for you chicken fans, go check out Green Bean's "Tales from the Roost" for a good chuckle this weekend. Start from the earliest posts in that series and work forward.

I Quit Coffee (Again)

2011-05-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

A glance through my past posts labeled "coffee" will show my love/hate relationship with the stuff. I love coffee and hate that I occasionally have to give it up.

Alas, a recent visit with my doctor revealed that my blood pressure has crept up a bit over the past year. It's not really into the hypertension range so much as flirting with it in the pre-hypertension zone. Although I was disappointed, I wasn't terribly surprised. After all, I used the last year of stress as a license to eat all the unhealthy foods I'd eliminated from my eating in the past.

Want fried zucchini appetizers? Go for it. You've had a rough week dealing with the zoning inspector.

Want to make another batch of homemade soy ice cream ... this time with more chocolate chips? Why not? You just sledge-hammered 39 porch supports out of the ground today.

Want to order pizza for dinner? Sounds reasonable after watching your shed get hauled away today, sold to someone else for two-thirds of what you paid for it just a couple of months ago.

Want to bake chocolate chunk cookies? Might as well. You can always share them (a few) with friends even though they rarely have the time to come visit. Or maybe they've just been avoiding you because you've been so damn negative.

Shall I stop to get a white mocha frappucino today? You must or the baristas will think you don't like them anymore. Besides, since your friends don't want to hear about all your stress, they are the only ones who will listen to you whine anymore. And if you're getting the frappucino, you might as well have the whip cream on top, too. You deserve it, you know!

Yep, that's the kind of thinking that put on quite a few pounds last year, and raised my blood pressure and my cholesterol. The doctor has threatened me with medication if I don't get the blood pressure and cholesterol under control. I don't do medication for symptoms I can treat with diet and lifestyle....which means I am having to change my diet and lifestyle.

I've been trying to wean myself off the caffeine for quite a while. When I switched to making half-caff at home, I mysteriously felt the urge to resume my frappucino habit. It took me a while to figure out that I was craving the caffeine as much as the fat and sugar. (And I'm currently reading a really interesting book about how fat and sugar really bang the dopamine receptors in the brain, making it very addictive.) I started making extra coffee at home so that I could have a cup in the afternoon to help me get over the frap cravings.

I'd gotten down to less than a quarter caffeinated coffee per cup when I got the lab results about my cholesterol. Coffee can raise cholesterol as well as blood pressure. It was time to give it up. My last cup of coffee was Tuesday, May 10. On Wednesday, I tried one of the coffee substitutes I'd reviewed a while back. Ick, didn't like it at all. On Thursday, I tried a different one that was better. Today, I had nothing as I had to get out of the house early.

Was quitting easy? Yes and no. It was not as hard as in the past. I had no headaches or physical withdrawals, probably because I'd been cutting back on the caffeine already. However, sometimes my mind acts like a two year old and wants what it wants. I had to talk myself out of stopping for a frappucino yesterday afternoon after going to the gym. (Yes, I joined a gym. Gotta deal with the weight, too!) It was hot, I was tired, and boy did I feel like I deserved a treat. I managed to keep the car from turning into the parking lot, however, and feel better for having done that.

Am I ready to get rid of my last remaining French Press? Oh, okay, I'll admit I have two left: a four cup press and a single cup one. No, I'm not ready to give these away. Knowing my past history with quitting coffee and then taking it up again, they're best packed away in a dark closet until after I've conquered the cholesterol and blood pressure issues. At that point, I suspect I'll start drinking coffee again and seeing what I can get away with before it affects my vital numbers.

Greening my Brown Thumb

2011-05-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

When I write about my garden, you may have noticed I often actually write our garden. I've mentioned a few times that I am not particularly good at growing things. My gardening efforts before marriage were a complete bust. In one large plot I planted, I had zero germination. Zip, nada, nothing came up. When I bought and planted flowers outside, they all died. Quickly. I was hard-pressed to keep my landlord's landscaping plants alive. When I house-sat for one couple, the lady's biggest concern was that I keep her poinsettia alive. As anyone who's every kept a Christmas poinsettia alive knows, these are fickle and difficult plants and I was looking at seven weeks of care. I did, but I'm not sure how. (And let's not get into their rotten little dog who hated me.)

Houseplants that came to live at my house usually could have saved time by just jumping directly into the trash can themselves. If they couldn't survive on water once a week and absolutely no other attention, they died. Most died or I gave them away as quickly as possible. In one case, I'd neglected a Christmas cactus terribly and finally offered it to a friend. She took it somewhat reluctantly, saying that once so neglected, they rarely recovered or ever bloomed again. The next time I visited her, only a few months later, the plant had increased in size by a third. The next visit, she showed me its profuse blooms. This was a plant that barely survived several years with me and certainly never once bloomed.

I learned to turn my attention to destructive gardening instead of constructive gardening. In a house with an overgrowth of trumpet vine, so bad that it as cracking the plaster and messing up the window screens, I ripped that stuff out and coiled big piles of it for the quarterly brushy pick-up. I went after the huge tuberous roots with a passion to keep it from re-sprouting. I removed dead trees, small and medium-sized, by hand with no power tools. I did biweekly pruning on the fast-growing Chilean mesquites in our yard. I was good at these things.

When we decided it would be wise to start growing some of our own food, I was the one who encouraged it but my sweetie is the one who does it. I am the grunt labor. I find or buy the buckets we need for container planting. I make the compost - collecting browns around town and saving every kitchen scrap to go into it. I tend the compost, get rid of the mice nesting in it (or black widows as the case may be), and I sift it when it is finished. I dig the holes for the trees and shrubs, and sift the leftover dirt for use in ~~pots~~ buckets.

Then this Spring I decided I needed some color. I'm not a fan of flowers usually because, well, I kill everything, but also because they need resources I'd rather put towards edible plants. Also, I dislike many flower fragrances; roses, for example, make me nauseous and I absolutely cannot stand the smell of lavender. Yes, I'm strange. Certainly not a girlie girl!

Back to the need for color. I purchased a "Color Bowl" at the nursery. It no longer looks as pretty as it did when I first got it, but it's still alive and some of the flowers are still blooming. Encouraged by this, I bought some vegetable starts and planted them in moss baskets and a regular pot. Other than a problem with aphids, they are doing pretty well, although I find their constant neediness - for water, fertilizer, and hand pollination - somewhat annoying. (See why I chose not to have kids?!)

Perhaps it was time to move on to more ambitious projects. I had a number of sweet young onions to clean one day and remembered reading something about regrowing the greens from onions. While searching for information online, I stumbled across a thread on growing plants from the produce department. It was fascinating! It sounded like fun and it sounded like a way to maybe get a little extra food from something that would ordinarily just get tossed in the compost bin. Several books were mentioned and I decided to order them from Amazon.

These are the two books I got.

By the way, my attempt to grow greens on my onion bottoms looks to be a total bust. Nothing is coming up.

My first experiment was a pineapple. Using the instructions in the newer book (on the right in the photo), I twisted off the top of the pineapple and then peeled off several layers of leaves. I added some activated charcoal to the water and plunked the pineapple top in. Those little white nubbins you see on the bottom are the beginnings of roots. When those get a few inches long, this will get planted.

I'd been craving a delicious tropical fruit salad I like to make in summer. It is not a local dish because these fruits don't grow here, but I bought them anyway so I could try some ideas from the books. The salad has chopped pineapple, mango, papaya (Mexican), banana, and orange segments tossed with lime juice. I forgot about the oranges but got everything else.

As I processed the fruit for the salad, I saved the appropriate bits and pieces for my propagation attempts. You can click on this photo to enlarge it.

On the left is the cut-off top of the pineapple. I'm trying the method from the older book (yellow in the photo) on this one which suggests leaving some "meat" attached and letting it dry a couple of days. Above it are the little papaya seeds. I only saved a few and made sure to pop them out of their slimy little cases before drying. I'll get around to planting them eventually. The seed next to the bag is what you find inside the husk from the pit of a mango. After dicing up the mango, I scraped the extra pulp off the mango pit and let it dry overnight. In the morning, it was easy to snip off the top end and pry the husk open to extract the seed. I placed it in the baggie of moist peat moss and stuck it in a cabinet where I'm hoping it will start to sprout roots.

I planted the pineapple top yesterday. The pot has mostly potting soil in it plus some peat moss and a few batches of rinsed and dried used coffee grounds (drying in the pie tin in above photo). Pineapples like acidic soil supposedly. Since they are related to bromeliads, they also take in nutrients and water through their leaves, so I picked up a spray bottle to spritz and feed it occasionally from the top. If all goes well, it will live and I can force it to bloom in a few years and grow me a new pineapple!

I've just scratched the surface of the possibilities of kitchen growing. The books promise I can grow out my spices from the spice cabinet and plant my sprouted sweet potatoes, among many other things. We shall see how many plants I can actually get to germinate or root, and then how many actually survive to make houseplants or maybe even produce a bit of extra food.

Too Few Posts?

2011-05-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

Getting bored with Chile Chews because the posts aren't coming fast and furious anymore? Well, part of the reason is that Chile, who looks more like a bell pepper than a slender green chile, is also posting at her "fat" blog. Check it out for the same no-nonsense writing you've come to love here. Today's post even features one of her good ol' rants!

Coming soon here: "Greening my Brown Thumb"

Washing Laundry by Hand: Product Review

2011-05-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

Please note: This is an unsolicited review of a product I purchased, used, and liked. I am receiving no compensation from the manufacturer or distributor for this review.

How many of the blogs you read have a subject tag for laundry? Mine does. It's not that laundry is exciting, sexy, or glamorous; it's more like laundry is a fact of life. Unless you are a full-time nudist, you're always going to have some dirty clothes to wash. If you have children or you like to garden or muck around in the big composting pile of horse manure, you probably have a LOT of laundry to do.

I am not advocating that you do all your laundry by hand. If you have the time and energy to do so, it's a great way to save electricity and probably water as well. However, more people are willing to save energy and water on laundry by only washing full loads, using cold water, and line-drying than go to full-time hand washing.

Being able to wash clothes by hand, though, is helpful for those times when you've got clothes that you absolutely need for the next day and don't want to run the machine just for a couple of items. There are also those times when the machine breaks or the power goes out, but you still need to wash some clothes. Some people don't mind hand-washing in their sinks or tubs, but I prefer to use a plunger-type tool and a bucket. It's easier on my wrists and shoulders - two joints with ongoing issues - and makes it much easier to dump the water into a nearby tree basin.

You may remember from my hand-washing laundry post two years ago that I had purchased the "Rapid Washer" from Lehman's. (See picture in post linked above.) It was a nice design and, after my sweetie drilled a hole through the top of the handle to put a rope through it, it could be hung up outside to dry.

However, it still rusted and I've been increasing less comfortable with using it, especially on whites and light-colored clothing.

Now I know some folks out there are anti-plastic anything. I, on the other hand, think plastics can be useful if chosen wisely and then treated with care so they last. I noticed a plastic laundry plunger - the Mobile Washer - for sale at the Emergency Essentials website recently and ordered one. For those unfamiliar with using a plunger to wash clothing by hand, they have a short little video demonstrating its use.

I tried it out this afternoon and was pleased with its performance. I think it worked just a little better than the Rapid Washer.

Best of all, I was able to disassemble it afterwards to dry thoroughly.

I know that I could have purchased a plain old rubber toilet plunger and drilled some holes in it to "hack" a homemade laundry plunger, but I like having one designed specifically for the job and easy to take apart for cleaning and drying. Plus, I know this one will never be put in a poopy toilet and then used on my clothes. There's a lot to be said for that!

Versatile Blogger Award

2011-05-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since anyone has given me a blogging award, probably because I started getting cranky about the rules involved with passing them on. In fact, I still have never acknowledged the award Rob gave me a couple of years ago. Hm, I wonder if I still have that info.

In any case, the Versatile Blogger Award was passed on to me from Rural Aspirations. Her aspirations of living on her own farm have come true and it's always interesting to read about the latest projects there. I have to admit, though, I also get jealous that she is able to move forward in so many directions that we cannot. But, each of us has our own circumstances so I live the life I have.

As part of the award process, I am to share seven things with my readers that you may not know. Since I've been blabbing online for four years, that's hard to come up with! Let's go with a nice light theme, okay?

1. I love to watch movies. I hate going to theaters anymore because of the rude audiences and sound systems that are overwhelmingly loud, but I enjoy watching movies at home. I cruise yard sales and used bookstores to find movies that we would want to watch more than once.

2. I love food movies. My very first DVD purchase was "Tampopo," a really good Japanese film (subtitled) about the quest to make the perfect noodle bowl. I always crave noodles after watching it. Also on my shelf: "Babette's Feast," "Big Night," "Chocolat," "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman," and "Mistress of Spices." And yes, I crave whatever type of food is featured in each film after watching it!

3. I like foreign films. This is pretty obvious from the list in #2. Foreign films can still be watched in a theater environment because the presence of subtitles tends to weed out the worst of the rude and noisy audience members. Foreign films are also a welcome change from the predictability and over-reliance on special effects found in Hollywood films, as well as being an interesting glimpse into other cultures (at least as represented by the filmmaker). I can do without Dogme films though. A little technology - lighting and sound - goes a long ways towards making a better movie!

4. Documentaries used to be better. I have watched some of the highly touted documentaries on soil, peak oil, and food issues in the past few years, and have been very disappointed. Instead of a well-presented film that thoroughly explores the subject, all of them seem to be preaching to the choir - making the movie for those people already familiar with the subjects instead of trying to educate those that are not. They jump from interview to interview, presenting multiple experts but in a somewhat random manner without a unifying thread to tie it all together. Whether one liked his experiment or not, at least Morgan Spurlock had a framework to his movie, "Supersize Me."

5. I love IMDB: the Internet Movie Database. You know how you're watching a movie and you're sure one particular actor or actress looks familiar? Well, at IMDB, you can quickly go find out what other films or TV shows they've been in. There are ways to search even for films that both feature the same two people. For instance, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks....which makes me kind of wish I hadn't gotten rid of "Sleepless in Seattle."

6. I don't own a TV but I watch TV. The local library carries many of the TV series on DVD so I can occasionally watch shows that I've watched in the past or heard about. I have a few series at home that I was able to pick up for a good price, shows that we like to watch more than once. This includes "Northern Exposure," "Forever Knight," "Angel," and "True Blood."

7. I like vampire books and movies (but have not seen "Twilight"). It all started with Anne Rice. I've read all of her vampire chronicles, more than once. Okay, more than twice actually. I absolutely loved the "Forever Knight" series when it first came on, especially the thought-provoking aspects presented by Lacroix. We watched "Angel" sporadically when it aired but after picking up the whole series used, I've been working my way through it. And we're currently rewatching "True Blood" seasons 1 & 2 in anticipation of the DVD release of season 3. I am not a vampire wannabe but I enjoy watching how authors and screenwriters present their culture.

Alright, now I need to pass this on to five other bloggers.
1. Katie. I've been following this lady for years. Her blog(s) and life have gone through so many changes, and I'm thrilled to see that the current status is pretty darn good.

2. Erica at Northwest Edible Life. I only discovered her in the aftermath of the Devraes debacle but find myself nodding along with or fascinated by every post she makes. Makes me wish, once again, that we'd found a way to migrate up north.

3. Sharlene at Solar Cooking for Mainstream Cooks. I love that Sharlene has tackled the huge challenge of trying to convince the mainstream folks - not just the granola crowd - to look into solar cooking. I eat differently than she cooks but she offers up recipes that much of the population would drool for.

4. Rob's World is an adventurous one where Rob constantly trying out new things, both in fixing up his home and in his garden. And he's got cute pet pics.

5. You, the reader. Yes, you. Why not?

Never-Ending To Do Lists

2011-04-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

Do you keep a "To Do" list? Is it possible to ever complete one of those things? Or, is it just their nature to constantly have new items added so the list never really shrinks? Mine actually seems to grow exponentially, especially if I am reading lots of blogs or homesteading-type books. I get far too many ideas for projects we could do, far more than we'll ever have time to do.

One issue we're running into now is the rapid approach of summer temperatures. We've already had a preview, in fact, with a number of days reaching the mid-90s. After my little overheating episode earlier this month, I seem to be much more sensitive to the heat and cannot work outside once it gets warm. I hope this is a temporary situation that will gradually fade away. If not, this summer is going to really be challenging.

We've got a number of projects that we'd like to get done before the summer rains begin, typically in early July. With just 8 weekend left until then, planning is critical and a well thought out "To Do" list will be helpful. Once the rains begin, it will be all we can do to keep up with the weed-eating and removing as many of the nasty weeds (Russian thistle aka "tumbleweed", for one) as possible before they go to seed. With our new rain gutters, we're hoping the rains work for us in growing our fruit trees rather than just drenching us as we try to get into the house without our lovely ex-porch.

There are more projects than I can shake a stick at that we have mentioned to each other, always with the caveat: "That is a winter project." In other words, something to take on when the garden isn't sucking up all our time and the temperatures are not soaring above 100 degrees. The weeks and months slide by so quickly, though, that many of those projects could get pushed even further away onto some remote, distant "To Do" list if we don't put them on the one for the colder months of this year.

With all this planning to do and projects to tackle, there is no way I'd even consider trying to write down a Bucket List. I don't have time to think about that, much less work towards knocking things off that kind of list!

How To Make Oatmeal That Doesn't Suck

2011-04-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

My apologies to die-hard fans of regular oatmeal but I think it sucks. The texture is slimy and disgusting. Mucilage is fine for okra but breakfast should not resemble bland snot. With encouragement from all angles to incorporate more healthy oatmeal into one's diet, I have often found it hard to comply.

Luckily there are ways to make oatmeal that doesn't suck. One way even used some rolled oats without too much resulting snottage. I used to buy regular rolled oats and steel cut oats, and mix them half and half. One portion of this mixture was combined with three parts water and then cooked until the steel-cut oats were tender enough to chew. An easy way to reduce the cooking time dramatically was to mix the oats and water the night before and let them soak. Cooking in the morning only took 5 minutes, instead of up to 25.

Nowadays, though, I am looking for ways to avoid having to buy and store multiple forms of oats. I have oat groats - whole oat kernels - on hand. Oat Groat Pilaf is delish, and whole oats store better than cut oats (as is the case for most whole grains). I have a small grain grinder, the ubiquitous "Universal" brand, that I acquired by trading a beading loom - purchased at a yard sale - for it.

Oat groats are relatively soft grains and much easier to grind than wheat berries. However, this grain grinder doesn't make rolled oats. Oat rollers are available but pricey and since I'm not crazy about rolled oats, I have little incentive to get one.

I have found, however, that just running the groats through the grinder produces a version of steel-cut oats that I like. The grinder can be adjusted to just barely break the grains or to produce flour or anything in between. I like grinding the oats finer than the typical steel-cut oats available for purchase. This allows for faster cooking and a less chewy texture, and for some reason, does not cook up with the sliminess of rolled oats.

To cook, I add three parts water to ground oats. Over medium heat, it only takes about 5 minutes to cook these up, stirring constantly to avoid burning.

Once cooked, I add a dollop of peanut butter and sprinkle of salt for flavor. This is optional but I sure like it. Cover and let sit for a few minutes to let the oats set up a bit and let the peanut butter soften into the mix.

The final step in making oatmeal that doesn't suck is adding a handful of dark chocolate chips. Fold them in quickly to avoid letting them melt into ribbons through the oatmeal. The idea is to distribute them throughout the cereal so that every bite contains at least one melted tidbit of sweet lovely chocolate.

Of course, this sort of recipe is why I have the little weight problem we don't talk about. If forced to, I can adjust to eating my oatmeal with a sprinkle of brown sugar and splash of soymilk on top instead of with the peanut butter and chocolate chips. If pushed really hard, I can eventually accept eating it with diced fruit such as apples or pears, but that starts moving oatmeal back into the sucky realm for me.

Interestingly, the book I'm reading right now, The End of Overeating, talks a lot in the inital chapters about how addictive the fat-sugar combination is. Adding in chocolate makes it even more so. No wonder I like my version of oatmeal so much!

Who Likes Ya, Baby?

2011-04-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've done a post about my stats, mostly because I don't look at them all that often anymore. I gauge interest in what I've written about by the comments more than by how many hits I get on a post. However, statistics are useful, too, and often entertaining.

I've been glancing at the stats maybe a couple of times per month lately. I find it fascinating that the same search criteria keep coming up over and over. Apparently I've written about a few things that put me high enough up on the search results lists that people check out particular posts. Curious which subjects these are?

Coffee substitutes - I wrote about comparing a bunch of coffee substitutes and it gets a lot of hits. The link also got reposted on at least one discussion board bemoaning the discontinuation of Postum.

Vardo or often, vardo interior - I posted pictures of a fellow blogger's gypsy vardo and ever since then it always appears in the list of search terms in my stats. I guess vardos fascinate people.

Hand crank blender - I've posted a couple of times about my Vortex blender. Too bad it doesn't work as well as I wish it did.

Spoiled apple juice or "can apple juice go bad" - It's nice to know I'm not the only one who wonders about these things. Yes, it can go bad.

Vegetarian sushi - my how-to posts are often popular. Vegetarian sushi is easy to make once you get the hang of rolling up the nori.

Fried rice without eggs - I've been a bit surprised how often this one shows up on the searches. Who knew so many people wanted to make fried rice without eggs?

Sprouting wheat berries - This subject has shown up on the search lists ever since I put up the post three and a half years ago. And my stats only cover 500 visits at a time, which means at least one in every 500 hits on my blog is going to this particular post. And the folks looking for this information come from all over the world, often from Third World countries. How to make corn tortillas is also an international subject of interest.

Bike powered grinder - Not surprisingly, this is also a popular search item. It's much easier to manually grind grain with big powerful leg and glut. muscles rather than the smaller arm and shoulder ones. I just need to make room in the house to set up the bike inside. Time for some pedal power!

Basic or simple first aid kit - I truly hope that my little post on putting together our kit has been helpful to all the people who have checked it out. We haven't had to use it yet, other than occasionally needing ibuprofen when on the road, but it's reassuring to know it's available in an emergency. And yes, we do keep the products with expiration dates rotated.

Composting tissues - Can you compost snot? Lots of people seem to wonder about this. Read here to see my conclusions on the subject.

Blogger business card - I still love having a business card for my (non-business) blog and apparently a lot of other bloggers are curious about the idea.

Thistle socks - it actually surprises me a little how often this one shows up on the searches. I wonder how many people have actually cut up their sweetie's old running shorts to make a thistle sock, though.

Prickly pear or "tuna" processing - I suppose it's not surprising that people would be interested in how to make prickly pear jelly. After all, it tastes darn good.

It's been three years since I noted that people from 100 different countries had stopped by the blog. I've long since stopped keeping track of the countries represented by visitors to the blog, but do find that it's interesting to see about thirty listed each time I look at the stats. It's not the same thirty each time, but seems to be pretty consistent in that variety for each 500 hits.

Folks from the US generally represent about two-thirds of my visitors. Canadians fill in another quarter with Australia and the United Kingdom filling in most of the rest. The remaining couple dozen countries usually reflect only one or maybe a few hits each. This morning's review of the last 500 hits (about a day and a half) yielded this list of countries (in descending order by number of hits):

United States

Canada

Australia

Malaysia

United Kingdom

Taiwan

India

Spain

Belgium

New Zealand

Singapore

United Arab Emirates

Peru

Egypt

Germany

Jordan

Greece

Lebanon

Denmark

Pakistan

Korea, Republic Of

Norway

Switzerland

Nigeria

Slovakia

Chile

El Salvador

Vietnam

Trinidad And Tobago

I hope this post has amused and entertained you just a wee bit today. I do have a couple more informative posts started but haven't gotten the text and/or photos complete yet.

Personal Space

2011-04-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

I don't think of myself as having extraordinary personal space demands. However, I have noticed that, more and more, people are crowding into my personal space. These "crowders" fall into several categories. For clarity, I will give examples based on grocery store line experiences, but I'm sure you'll recognize the same behavior from drivers on the road.

The Distracteds

These are the folks that are busy talking or texting on their phone, fussing with their child in the cart, or something like that. In a car, it includes the women who think it is not unsafe to apply make-up while driving on a 55 mph road (while their speed varies from 45 mph to 60!) Because The Distracteds are not paying attention, they are likely to ram their grocery cart into your butt while you stand in line waiting your turn to pay.

Best Defense: If someone behind you is distracted, try to give them extra space or catch their attention with a cheerful "Good Day" to minimize the likelihood of being bumped.

Response: If they actually bump you, they usually apologize profusely and rarely do it again.

The Clueless

There are some folks who just don't seem to have a clue. In a crowded store, they seem incapable of figuring out that turning their cart parallel to the aisle is a more effective solution to staying out of others' way than simply pushing their cart into your butt or alongside you.

Best Defense: I have not found much that works well other than staking my place in line more assertively; stepping back or to the side a bit, and then moving forward in the line as much as possible without crowding the person in front to show that I am not trying to block them maliciously.

Response: If you say anything to them, they are often defensive and rarely correct their behavior. Even if they've bumped into you, apologies are uncommon.

The Intimidators

As a female, I've noticed that some men tend to crowd me in line. It is more typical with the younger crowd; I've not had this happen much with older men. Combined with black t-shirts with "tough" designs or logos, substantial ink (tattooes), and/or aggressive posturing, these guys seem intent on making the person in front of them uncomfortable.

Best Defense: I'm never sure how to handle this because I don't know for sure whether the behavior is intentional or unconcious. In either case, I don't want to antagonize the person, nor am I thrilled to let them know that yes, their behavior is bothering me (because that often seems to be the intent). I typically turn sideways so that they are in my line of sight, at least peripherally, and I may widen my stance as well.

Response: Nothing I do seems to elicit any response or change in behavior. In fact, these men often act totally oblivious of what they are doing. Again, it is my belief this may well be intentional.

The VIPs

These very self-important people make it clear to everyone that they deserve to be at the front of the line now regardless of whether it is their turn. Tactics include frequent heavy sighs, shoving your items on the counter forward so they can get theirs unloaded (uncaring whether they bruise your tomatoes and avocados in the process), and pushing their cart right up on your heels. Once you are at the register and their cart is out of the way, they are likely to be breathing down your neck during your transaction.

Best Defense: You can go with totally ignoring them yet claiming your space with a wider stance and leaving more space between you and the person in front of you.

Or you can confront them. It is rare that a stern look back at them has any affect. They are far too important to care about whether their behavior is rude. After repeated offenses, it may become necessary to say something. How you choose to do this is up to you.

A friend of mine is very direct and will turn and ask them, "Rude much?!" I rarely say anything but was tempted today to offer up a sarcastic, "Excuse me for delaying you; I'll be out of your way when my purchase is complete."

Response: None. You are too far beneath them to warrant a response.

How about you? Have you been a victim of the Crowders? What is your favorite way to deal with them?

How about some interspecies cooperation for Earth Day?

2011-04-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

I'm a nice landowner. I didn't rent a bulldozer and blade our lot. I don't buy gallons of poison to rid myself of the annoying weeds and pests. I don't pull out the native vegetation.

So why, oh why, do you other residents on my land treat me so bad? Let's try a little cooperation for Earth Day, shall we?

Quail, quit spreading the straw mulching the fruit trees all over hell and gone. It needs to be thick right around the tree well, not thin for another two feet out because you want to scratch in it. I left you the native weeds whose seeds you like even though they are drying out and look ugly. And by the way, next time I catch one of you snuggling under the chickenwire trying to eat my sweetie's seedlings, I will have you for dinner instead of letting you go.

Ants, I know you turn up the soil but do you have to strip the leaves off my blueberry bushes? Twice?! Back off my garden plants and go back to the native species out there. Or else...

Pocket gophers, thank you for turning the soil, too, but leave my trees alone. They aren't cheap, you know, and it was quite a bit of work to line their holes with hardware cloth to keep your nibbly little teeth away from their tasty tender roots. The Russian thistle are sprouting; try eating their roots instead.

Ground squirrels, don't even think your cuteness will gain you forgiveness for wiping out my wildflower transplants. My friend went to a lot of work to save me the plants she was thinning from her garden and I carefully planted them where they'd look very pretty for all of us. Out of over a dozen plants - poppies, marigolds, mullein, and sunflowers, you've wiped out all but three. You are on my shit list.

Gopher snakes, where are you? I need you here eating up the rotten graound squirrels and pocket gophers! Rattlesnakes need not apply.

Black widows, I really don't appreciate you nesting in my compost. There's a whole big acre here; I'm sure you can find someplace else to catch tasty insects without threatening to bite me in the process.

Are we all onboard? At least for today? All righty then. Happy Earth Day.

Solar Cooker Variety

2011-04-20T13:26:00.001-07:00

We went by the solar cooking exhibition on Saturday to check out the variety of solar ovens. Many people had commercial ovens set up but there were also a few homemade ones, ranging in size from petite to "has to be hauled in a trailer" huge. I did not get pictures of all of them, mostly because I saw little need to duplicate NancyG's efforts from past solar exhibitions. (See the previous post for links to her photos.)

The pictures I did take highlighted things I was interested in particular, such as side or back access into the cooking area. This seems like a great design option to me as I get tired of the brightness and heat I'm exposed to while getting in and out of my ovens.

Front

Back access

Side access in large flat solar cooker

The other oven I was particularly interested in was one made with a fresnel lens, often recovered from projection TVs. The advantage of such a solar cooker is that enormous energy is concentrated in a small space, making it possible to cook foods that need intense heat. Slow cooking is fine, but sometimes a girl just wants to do a stirfry!

Igniting a piece of wood

The cooking rack with cast iron skillet

Turned down to limit fire risk

The disadvantages of this kind of cooker are that it is big, it is very hot, and it can start a fire if not tilted out of the sun's direct rays. The gentleman demonstrating this oven likes to show that it can ignite a piece of 2x4 in just a couple of seconds. Obviously not for use by children or pyromaniacs.

One other oven that intrigued me was a slimline model that apparently folds down to nothing. The oven is really just the panels and then the food is cooked in a metal pot inside a tempered glass bowl with a lid. In the world of commercial solar ovens, it's relatively inexpensive and highly portable.

Of course, there are also plenty of plans online for those who wish to construct their own solar oven. Buy or make yourself one and start cooking with free energy!

PS: It was nice to finally meet NancyG, a fellow McDougaller whom I've crossed paths with online for several years. While visiting with her, who should drop by but Gabrielle, the Solar Oven Chef? You may recall her blog where she posted about cooking with her oven almost every day for a year. Now she blogs over at the Sun Oven website.

Solar Potluck & Exhibition

2011-04-14T16:20:00.001-07:00

This Saturday, the Tucson Citizens for Solar will host their 29th Annual Solar Potluck. If you've always been intrigued by the idea of solar cooking, this is your chance to check out lots of ovens in use, starting at 10 am. When the sun sets, all the dishes are put out for a big potluck.

I have known about this potluck for several years but always seem to miss it. Either something else is on the calendar or I forget about it. This year I am definitely going. I've got too many projects going on at home to spend the day there, but I plan to swing by for a while midday to see all the different ovens (check out photos here!) and then attend the potluck with my own solar-cooked (at home) dish in hand.

If you live in the area, go check the event out. It will be at Catalina State Park, which is worth checking out anyway for its nice trails. I don't know what time I'll be there, but I can't wait to see all the ovens. Plus I get to meet the gal who took the photos in the link above - someone I've "known" online for several years but never met in person before! I'm also looking forward to meeting other solar cooks in the area.

Volunteering for Local Food

2011-04-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

The decision at the end of last year to give up my volunteer position with the Tucson CSA was tough because I'd grown very accustomed to having quality, organic, and local fresh produce available to me every week in exchange for volunteer labor. For four years, I knew where my food was coming from and how it had been grown. I learned about vegetables and fruits I'd never heard of before. I got enthused about canning and food preservation. I made friends and enjoyed seeing the same faces week after week.

Giving that up due to the long drive once we moved north of town meant giving up a lot more than just the tasty food. This year I began going to a farmers' market north of town and started to get to know some of the farmers. Then I missed a few weeks due to sickness, forgetting to go, and just plain being too busy. I was surprised when the farmers mentioned missing me; after all, I was a relatively new customer. Those interpersonal connections are an enjoyable part of the food process for me.

I found out recently that another farmers market had opened up north of town. While checking it out, I was thrilled to run into a friend from the CSA who had a booth there selling her handmade soaps. Sadly, at the time there was little in the way of truly local produce due to a bad recent freeze. However, one of the other vendors mentioned a little organic farm with a produce stand in that area. I checked out their website and waited eagerly for them to open once they'd recovered from the freeze.

I went by "Our Garden" on the first Saturday they were open. Oh, yum! Wonderfully luscious looking produce filled the trays in their selling area. I got to take a quick look around the gardens and marveled at their set-up. There were rows and rows of vegetables including lettuces, onions, garlics, and more. A huge section for asparagus. Shaded enclosures waiting for tomatoes to be started. What looked like an acre of pistachio trees. I was amazed to hear they grow more than half a dozen varieties each of grapes and peaches. So far, I'd only stumbled across a small orchard in that area offering a few fruits. This, on the other hand, had the kind of variety that the CSA farmer grew.

And then the gal there said the magic words: volunteers welcome. You can bet my ears perked up at that. Four days later, I showed up an hour before opening time to learn my new volunteer duties. I've now been going four weeks and just love it. The family operating this little organic farm are all friendly people, more than willing to share their wealth of knowledge about gardening in this part of the country.

My growing conditions are, of course, different than theirs and I am facing strict zoning issues in my area, but it's inspiring to see what they've created. Their customers seem to be a loyal bunch and are beginning to recognize me, too. And it's exciting to be eating quality, local, and organic fresh produce again, especially that which I've seen growing in the field just hours earlier.

Hard to Imagine

2011-04-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I suffered from heat illness after working too hard Friday morning digging holes for our new rosemary plants. The highs on Friday and Saturday were in the mid-90s and I apparently didn't drink enough water or take enough breaks. I spent the rest of Friday and all day Saturday with a bad headache, weakness, and nausea. No matter how cool I felt in the house, as soon as I went outside in the sun, I immediately felt overheated again.

This weekend, I am soggy and freezing. We got almost an inch of rain yesterday and temperatures last night stayed just below freezing all night. It's hard to imagine being overheated right now.

Following Links

2011-04-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

Movie links, that is. I'm a movie buff and so is my sweetie. Watching a movie together to relax after a hard physical day or an emotionally-draining one is enjoyable. Since we don't have a television, we've collected some used DVDs through yard sales and thrift stores. The local library also has a pretty decent selection, although the waiting list for newer films or television series can be long.

Lately we've been following links from one movie choice to the next rather than just selecting a film at random. The nuclear disaster in Japan got us thinking about films dealing with such scenarios and we chose the recent Godzilla remake with Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno.

We've done this linking thing before with movies and one has to choose what link to follow. Will it be genre? Another disaster movie? Perhaps geographic. Another movie set in New York? How about following people from one movie to the next?

For our first link, we chose genre and geography - another "New York City is in peril from something unusual" sort of flick. In other words, Men in Black with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

After this one, we decided to follow people in our choices. So, our next movie was another Will Smith flick: Independence Day. Ironically, this also shared a director with a previous picture. Roland Emmerich also directed Godzilla. That left us with several choices for the next viewing: another Roland Emmerich film - Day after Tomorrow or 2012 - or another Will Smith movie.

We went with Will and watched I, Robot. While watching the "making of" special feature, I was surprised to learn the robot movements were choreographed by the lead actor, Paul Mercurio, in Strictly Ballroom. That, of course, dictated that it would be our next choice.

While watching that film last night, we discussed where we would go from there. We could follow the father, Barry Otto, to the movie Cosi. From it, we'd have multiple choices to follow Toni Collette (then to Muriel's Wedding, In Her Shoes, United States of Tara), Aden Young (then to Hotel de Love), David Wenham (then to Van Helsing, Lord of the Rings).

Or we could follow the head of the Dance Federation, Bill Hunter, to Muriel's Wedding (which would provide a link to Toni Collette again), Priscilla Queen of the Desert (and then follow the lead, Hugo Weaving, to The Matrix, from there following Keneau Reeves to the Lake House and Sandra Bullock to Practical Magic which could lead right back to Bill Pullman in Independence Day).

Or follow Bill Hunter to Finding Nemo where we could follow Albert Brooks to Defending Your Life and from there follow Meryl Streep to Mama Mia (or Rip Torn back to Men in Black...)

See how much fun this is? Doesn't that just help take your mind off the Doom & Gloom out there?!

Chile's Little Weight Problem

2011-04-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

I finally started my new blog about dealing with my weight issues. There's not much there yet, but it will fill out over time (hopefully as I become less filled out personally!) The blog will discuss why I think I have a weight problem that I've not been able to successfully conquer, why it's important in many ways that I do deal with it, and how I'm trying to deal with it now. Hopefully it will track successful losses of weight and health improvements over time.

It will not discuss fad diets, crash diets, diet drugs, or surgery to control weight issues. I welcome discussion on topics I post about but comments will be moderated to avoid discussion of the topics listed above. The blog will also not be a daily log of every calorie or morsel of food I ingest. That would bore me to tears and you, too, I expect.

Come check it out if you want. Ignore it if you'd rather.

Thrifty Clothes for the Snarky Shopper

2011-04-06T13:29:00.003-07:00

I hit one of the local thrift stores yesterday in search of work shirts for my sweetie and jeans and shirts for myself. It's hard to find jeans in good condition that also aren't a hideous style but I did pick up one pair. I also found 4 button-downs for hubby, half a dozen t-shirts, and a sports bra. All this for just over $50 made me a happy shopper.

While shopping, though, I must have been in a snarky mood. Here are the messages from three of my new t-shirts.

Yeah, cheesy, I know, but a girl's got to have fun.

It's also important to share one's special qualities with others. Oh, you think my shirts are childish? Fine. I know what's really going on...

Messy Moss Baskets

2011-04-03T18:15:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to making a couple of moss baskets. They were a big mess to make, especially with the dried moss I'd purchased. I dampened it as advised in some of the instructions I'd read but the moss was in pieces, not large chunks or sheets. It kept falling through the gaps in the baskets, and I suspect will continue to do so every time it dries out. Theoretically in time the plant roots will help bind the moss to the basket wires. We'll see if that actually happens. I wonder, too, how well something like this will do in such an arid environment. I suspect moss baskets would do better in more humid climes.

In any case, I'd watched some YouTube videos of a gal making edible moss baskets and decided to try her method.

The moss basket is the one in the middle of this photo. It has cherry tomatoes, red leaf lettuce, and marigolds hanging from the sides all the way around. In the top are a couple of Anaheim chile plants. It only took a day for the tomato plant stems to turn upwards and the lettuces are starting to do the same. I'm rotating the basket every day or so in order to give all the plants adequate sunlight. I can't hang this outside because the quail and other birds would eat the lettuce in the first hour!

After making this one, I decided to abandon the fancy moss basket idea. Hence the regular pot on the left in the photo crammed full of tomatoes, pepper, lettuce, marigolds, chives, and parsley.

I still had plants leftover so I put a single tomato plant in another basket lined with moss. It already has a bloom starting on it. The remaining leftover peppers, tomatoes, and marigolds are going in the outside garden.

The shiny blue glass bulbs in the three planters are those fancy watering balls. I picked them up for $4 at a thrift store and stuck them in the planters to help keep them moist. They seem to do an okay job but the moss basket needs supplemental watering to keep everything on the sides moist enough.

Blogger problems

2011-04-03T14:32:00.003-07:00

I am on a new computer with updated software. I cannot publish a decent looking blog post anymore. First I ran into problems publishing at all. Now all paragraph formatting disappears and my posts turn into one huge paragraph with no breaks where I put them in. Is anyone else running into problems? Have you found solutions? If I can't resolve this, I will be exiting the blogging world entirely because I just don't have time to deal with this kind of crap.

Update: Well, it seems like using Mozilla Firefox solves the issue so byebye Internet Explorer.

Have I've Blogged Long Enough?

2011-04-01T07:22:00.003-07:00

In less than two months, I will have been blogging here for four years and published almost 1,000 posts. The other day I mentioned to my sweetie that I was going to have to start posting about topics I'd posted about before for two reasons: I don't have all that much new to share and I doubted that newer readers were going back to the beginning here and reading what I've already posted.

The more I thought about this, though, the more I realized I don't really want to rehash what I've already said. In glancing at my reader this morning, I see a post about peeing in the garden...I've written about that before here. Another post discusses sprouting. Yeah, done that. There are April Fool's posts. I don't remember if I've done that, but I've certainly done my fair share of silly holiday posts.

No, I haven't posted about everything that other people are talking about but I do think I've posted just about enough. I want to spend more time doing at my place and less time talking about it.

On the other hand, I have loved having an online presence and being a part of this amazing community of people trying to live more lightly on this marvelous planet and I think I'd really miss it if I just dropped out. My plan is to post here once in a while, probably things like new recipes or book reviews, and to start up my weight loss journal with some discussion of why this is important in our low energy future.

I hope some of you newer readers will take the time to browse through my past writings here. Some posts are quite useful or at least that's what my stats show me. There are a number of specific posts that get hits from around the world almost every single day as people search out how to sprout wheat berries or grind them with pedal power, how to make corn tortillas, and whether or not apple juice can spoil. Am I going to link to those posts here? Naw; I'll let you have fun searching for them yourselves.

Happy April Fool's Day. And, by the way, this post was not an April Fool's joke.

Action on the Ideas

2011-03-29T06:27:00.005-07:00

I have not upgraded the computer yet but am posting this to see if my technical problems have resolved.

I appreciate the feedback on my questions in the previous post. Thanks!

For the hair dye, I decided I don't really want to get back into a routine of sitting around with crap on my hair trying to cover white hairs that don't want to be covered. Since it doesn't add much work to my current routine, I steeped some used coffee grounds in vinegar and will use that - after straining, of course - for my diluted vinegar rinse. The grounds can still be composted afterwards.

For the moss basket, I did manage to pick up a couple of standing wire baskets yesterday at a thrift store. I was also at a nursery so I got some small plants and will try doing a couple of baskets. The only problem may be the baskets are smaller than I suspect they need to be.

In the meantime, I got a nice "color bowl" at a sale this past weekend.

For the weight loss blog, I will start that once I get the computer upgraded and have a bit of time to set up a new blog. (In other words, don't hold your breath. It's coming but not this week.)

See, now those decisions weren't so difficult. What's going to be difficult is digging the holes for the trailing rosemary, Texas ranger, and "gopher plants" I bought this week!

Are these bad ideas?

2011-03-25T13:40:00.003-07:00

Seeking feedback on a few ideas. Positive or negative, whatever you got. Alternative suggestions or recommendations welcome, too.

Dyeing Hair with Coffee

I used to dye my hair occasionally, not with coffee but with one of the well-known brands. It was a slightly less toxic version of hair dye, which is another way to say the effects didn't last very long. When I began getting more white hairs, I noticed they were not taking up the dye. I finally gave up the habit and let my hair go natural.

However, I got my annual haircut recently and the gal cutting it mentioned that another customer keeps her gray at bay with coffee grounds and vinegar. I looked around online and found a variety of information about dyeing hair with coffee. I am still unclear on the vinegar method. I saw one site that mentioned steeping used coffee grounds in vinegar for two weeks and then straining it. I'm not sure then, though, how much to put on the hair and how long to leave it on.

Another site suggested mixing brewed and instant coffee with leave-in conditioner and using that just like a commercial hair dye. I don't have any instant coffee, though. Yet another recommendation, listed several places, was to simply work used coffee grounds (wet is okay) into the scalp after shampooing the hair. Rinse and condition.

I decided to try the coffee grounds idea this morning. This was a bad idea. I rinsed my hair with about 20 times more water than normal and still could not get all the grounds out of my hair, despite even rinsing vigorously with my head upside down, something I hate to do because it always results in tangles. It took more water to wash down the tub enclosure as there were coffee grounds splattered all over the place. After towel-drying my hair, I tried doing the hand-banging thing over the tub to shake out more grounds. Then I had to rinse the tub again. I've been picking at my hair all day to remove grounds. People are beginning to wonder if I have ticks or fleas or something!

Have any of you successfully dyed your hair with coffee (not grounds)? If so, would you please share your technique here? Thanks!

Making a Moss Basket

I have one of those large hanging fruit baskets that I never use. Well, almost never - it's got bay leaves drying in it right now. Ordinarily though, it's just a dust collector.

I was trying to come up with alternative uses for it and thought it might be interesting to make it into a set of moss baskets. Flowers would be pretty or it might be fun to make it an edible basket. As I read about how to make moss baskets yesterday, I noticed the recommendation that one select where it hangs carefully. When watered, apparently a moss basket can be quite heavy. That got me to thinking that perhaps hanging it in the bathroom from a ceiling hook was not going to work.

I could hang it outside but it would require more water due to the wind and heat. Outside placement would also make doing an edible basket difficult as all the birds in the area would treat it as a buffet.

This morning, it dawned on me that the baskets themselves might not be able to handle the weight. After all, the chain is not heavy duty and the wire is pretty thin. Maybe this is a bad idea over all.

Input from experienced moss basket makers would be appreciated. Is a moss basket a bad idea anyway in a xeric desert climate?

Weight Loss Blog

I've been tossing around the idea of starting a new blog chronicling my attempts to lose weight. It would mean revealing the extent of my weight issues with the very real possibility that I am not successful in dealing with them. It would mean risking judgement that I must be stupid, lazy, incompetent, "fill in critical word here" because I'm fat, know I'm fat, know how unhealthy it is to be fat, and still haven't lost the weight I need to lose.

It is likely that comments for it would be heavily moderated as I will welcome feedback and discussion but would not want it to become a place to debate fad diet programs, weight loss drugs, or surgery.

It would not just be a weight loss journal. It would occasionally look at weight and fitness from the angle of living lightly on the earth as well as what it means if the shit ever does hit the proverbial fan.

Would this be of interest to anyone?

What a Load of Crap!

2011-03-22T21:20:00.001-07:00

Actually, more like about five or six loads. After moving old horse manure from our neighbor's corral a couple of month ago by shoveling it into the bed of her truck and then scraping it out at our place, we decided to pay someone else to move the rest. This manure's been sitting in the corral for about a year so it's nicely aged, albeit not really composted since it hasn't been turned or tended.

It took a local fellow with a front end loader less than an hour to move the whole pile from her place to ours. I'm thrilled at the prospects of having it for the garden but also a bit intimidated by the quantity. A little bobcat would be a really handy piece of machinery to have on hand!

We need to get this moved and/or contained within the next three months before the summer monsoons present the possibility of flooding, which could wash it all away. So far, we've moved half a dozen wheelbarrow loads over to our hoop beds and are talking about doing some lasagna gardening (sheet mulching) somewhere to grow squash.

The idea for the hoop beds was planted when someone commented here a long time ago about a German method of piling up brush, topping it with soil, and planting in it. I couldn't find the comment so I don't remember what it was called. We wanted to do some kind of raised bed but very casual.

We decided to make a circle about 6 feet wide with chickenwire and fill it with some of the dead brush from the property.

Once there was a good layer in there, one that would hopefully discourage the burrowing critters from getting up into the soil, we started filling it with old horse manure. When we ran out of manure, we left the beds to settle for a while.

Now that we've got enough poop to fill it up to cover all the wood, we've done so. A layer of dirt will go on top and then we'll plant some squash seeds in it. With any luck, we'll be enjoying some nice tasty squash later in the season.

This only made a small dent in the huge manure pile shown above, though, so I've still got a lot of work left to do!

Plans for an Emergency Food Bucket

2011-03-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

In my Costco mailing this week..... Oh, alright, I can tell I'm going to have to explain why I am shopping at a big corporately-owned box store first. There is one reason: organic soy milk. Yes, I do own a soymilk maker. However, it is, quite frankly, a pain to use or rather a pain to clean. And I'm not crazy about the taste of the homemade soymilk. For the past year, I also simply haven't had the time to make soymilk from scratch, so I buy it.

When Silk quietly started sourcing their soybeans differently a couple of years ago, the only way to avoid GMO soy was to buy their organic version. In the regular grocery stores, it is priced at about $3.49 per half gallon. I did the math and joined Costco so I could buy their three-packs of it for $6.99. We've been using a fair amount of soymilk between my coffee and my sweetie's cold cereal. This may not always be the case, and certainly wouldn't be if things fell apart, but it has been for the past year.

So, back to the mailing. I was interested when I noticed Costco was offering a vegetarian emergency food bucket. They have a different one available in the stores that is not vegetarian but this one was, although available online only. It is on sale for $75 and contains 275 servings. Seemed like a good enough deal to check out. Sadly, there is a heavy emphasis on dairy in it, which makes it a poor option for us. (Dairy aggravates my sinusitis and plantar fasciitis, as well as causing digestive problems for my sweetie.)

My next thought was that we could put together a bucket like this on our own. We could use some of our dividend to get dehydrated meals at REI and also order the tasty dehydrated vegan soup blends from Harmony House. If we added some oatmeal packets, we'd have a pretty good emergency food bucket of our own, albeit for a higher price per serving than the sale above, but still convenient for tossing in the vehicle if we need to leave in a hurry.

The wheels of my brain were still slowly turning. When my mother-in-law was recuperating from her emergency hip replacement, I used some of the dried veggies from the backpacking kits we'd gotten before with our REI dividend to make her some instant soups. I included instant brown rice in some as well as seasonings. She said they were darn good and very easy for her to cook. It'd be great if I could do that since I still have some of those veggies left, along with some of their TVP "meat" products. But they wouldn't keep well at all in little ziploc baggies....

Doh! I have a vacuum sealer! Hey, this opens up lots of possibilities, cheap ones and tasty ones. I can custom-make exactly the kind of soups and meals that we would like. I can buy bulk instant oatmeal and mix it up with some sweetener and seasoning for easy breakfasts. I can even mix up some instant coffee mixes for me and toss in some tea packets for my sweetie. The only things I'll need to purchase are some instant brown rice, quick oats, and bags for the vacuum sealer.

Once I get this all packed up, I'll store it with the propane camp stove and a couple of propane bottles. For home use in an emergency, I'd use the rocket stove and solar oven.

Do you have any favorite recipes for "instant" food mixes you can recommend? Do you have a stash of super easy-to-prepare food ready for an emergency? Is it lightweight and portable enough to grab on your way out the door with less than 5 minutes notice? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!

A Siren Means PULL OVER, Jerk!

2011-03-21T15:55:00.001-07:00

Okay, listen up, people. When an emergency vehicle has its sirens on and lights flashing, that means there is an emergency and time is critical. A house may be burning down, someone may be bleeding profusely, a person could be trapped in a burning car, or somebody might be about to get murdered. It might not be happening to you this time, but the next time it could be your house, your deep cut, your accident, or you getting attacked. Whether they are responding to someone else's emergency or your own, the emergency personnel need to get to the scene PRONTO!

That means drivers on the road need to get the hell out of the way. On a two-way road, everyone is supposed to pull over to the right-hand curb and avoid blocking any side roads, driveways, or intersections. Generally if on a divided road - you know, where there is a physical barrier in between the two directions of traffic, only cars on the side the emergency vehicles are on need to pull over. At intersections, pull over to the right (never the left) if possible. If there is nowhere for you to move to get out of the way, then just stop and let the emergency vehicles wind their way through. They have training for this but need the drivers on the road to be predictable.

How will you know if there are emergency vehicles on the road when you're driving? Easy. Pay attention. Stop yakking on the phone, stop texting, stop reading a map, stop cranking up your car stereo, stop applying your make-up, and stop eating that cheeseburger. I know you think you don't have time to do those things except when you are driving but your callous disregard for the task at hand - that would be driving - could very well cost someone their life. Are ya good with that? I'm not!

And while we're on the subject of idiots on the road, jockeying for a better position in traffic while pulling over for a siren and then pulling back out into traffic is so not cool. It's dangerous and could easily spark a road rage incident. Heck, look at how pissed off I am but at least I'm venting my anger in an educational post rather than screaming at other drivers. Okay, I screamed a little but my windows were rolled up.

Are we clear now? Pay attention to your driving when driving and pull over for emergency vehicles.

My Last Yard Sale ... Ever

2011-03-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I made it through our yard sale yesterday but decided it will be the last one I hold. With the time spent sorting through everything to decide what to sell, packing it away, hauling it to storage, moving it from one storage unit to another, hauling it home, going through it all to decide what to keep with the RV plan scratched, pricing it all, hauling full buckets of dirt into the yard to make tables with scrap plywood, making good signs, roping off the drive so people wouldn't drive into the "orchard" area, hauling the stuff outside, setting it all up, my sweetie putting up the signs, holding the sale, packing up after the sale, and hauling the leftovers to a local charity, I think I made about 25 cents an hour. Maybe. Might have been less.

And that doesn't include the cost of an extra storage unit for a couple of months to store it nor, of course, the original cost of the stuff. That part is never included in yard sale calculations because after all one presumably got use of the stuff before deciding to pitch it to the curb. In any case, the yard sale was definitely not worth it from a financial angle.

Now, in the past - more distant than recent - I always enjoyed the actual sale. As an extrovert, being around people generally energizes me. At least it used to. I have found myself moving more and more towards the introvert side of the sociability scale in the past few years. Being around lots of people has become more draining than energizing and by the end of the sale yesterday, I was totally wiped out.

It didn't help that despite anticipating some problems and heading them off by, for instance, roping off where the driveway was so people wouldn't drive into the "orchard" area to turn around, people still managed to astound me. As indicated by my sign, many chose to park on the road. That was fine. What was surprising was that most of these people then chose to cut across an unstable slope littered with holes from the ground squirrels and lined with poky acacia bushes rather than walk an additional three feet on the road to come down the driveway. Thankfully no-one twisted an ankle or fell down! Despite bright yellow rope dividing the yard from the house (and back gate), a number of people headed for the back gate to get in to the yard. Uh, no. Controlled access and exit is important in a yard sale so the back gate was locked. People got a little huffy that they had to walk around. Geez, it was sooooo far.

Can you tell I'm losing patience with people these days?

I specifically said in my ad that we had no children's stuff for sale, hoping to head off crowds of kids. Not that there is a problem with kids; the problem is with the adults. They don't supervise the kids and we had tables full of SHARP-edged and pointy tools. I put warning signs on those tables as well as one on the entrance, yet still had to point this out to numerous parents whose children were left unsupervised.

When I price for a yard sale, I put very reasonable prices on stuff. Past sales have attracted dealers (antique, stores, etc.); these dealers haven't quibbled over cost because they know a good deal when they see one. For a dealer NOT to try to bargain you down means your prices are damn good. So...when people try to grind me on price, it irks me. I don't mind someone throwing out a quick, "Would you consider less?" Sometimes I'll budge, other times no. But to continue to grind me, or to flat-out lie, pisses me off. I'd rather donate to a charity than accept $10 for something priced at $20 when it really is worth $30 in yard sale dollars! (And then to follow up the $10 offer because "that's all I have" with "Would you take $11?" - no, don't do that.)

I did give some great discounts yesterday. Do you know who to? A neighbor. The only neighbor who bothered to show up. I'd really hoped my neighbors would see the yard sale as a great neutral way to have an excuse to come by for a quick hello and visit, yet only one showed up. She's probably got the least money of all my neighbors so I gave her some great deals. Then she called up her mother and sister who live nearby and got them to come over. I was about to close up due to the wind coming up but waited for them. They took a lot of what was left, for pretty good deals. They appreciated it and I appreciated that they took the time out of a busy day to come by.

All that's left to do now is break down the set-up outside, recycle the signs and collapsing boxes, and try to sell a couple of things on craigslist that might be of interest to someone in town. I'm also going to post my remaining yard sale supplies - posterboard, price tags, hanging price tags, and King-size Sharpies (for sign-making) - on craigslist. I'm not doing this again. Anything that doesn't sell easily on craigslist is going straight to charity.

Yard Sale Angst

2011-03-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

I used to love having yard sales. I enjoyed all parts of the process: the culling out things no longer needed in the home (and garage and yard), the price research and actual pricing, the advertising, and the actual sale. Somewhere along the line, this love has become tarnished.

I suspect it started when every yard sale we held in one town, near the US/Mexico border, was attended by folks from across the line with a different view of yard sale ethics. One woman in particular always came for the clothes and tried to lie to me about what she had stuffed in the bag to buy. I learned to get out everything and total it up myself, even though she took affront to this. It got to the point where I dreaded dealing with her so much that I quit selling any clothes at all in my annual yard sales.

Still, after moving from there, I remember having some good yard sales elsewhere. I've even had a couple of decent ones since being back in Tucson. Then there was the day that the wind blew so bad, that I had to fold up early. And the moving sale we had before coming out here was poorly attended, always a disappointment when one has invested a lot of work in putting the sale together.

Now, I am trying to get over a dozen boxes of our belongings priced to put out on Saturday and finding it hard to push myself to keep on plugging. On the one hand, I'd love to just haul it all off to the thrift store and be done with it. On the other hand, we could really use the cash from selling at least the nicer things. We've done some of that on craigslist but finding people who will drive out of town to pick things up can be tough, along with the hassles of dealing with the usual component of flakes ever present on the list.

I sigh and tell myself, it will all be over in a few days. And hopefully we'll have gotten enough money to pay for some new tires. Maybe, too, it will provide an opportunity to meet a few more neighbors.

I think, though, that this may be my last yard sale....unless we end up moving into something tiny (you know, like a remote cave somewhere away from the crazy world) and selling almost everything we own.

Editing My Life for Public Consumption

2011-03-14T08:15:00.002-07:00

Following a comment left on another blogger's post, I stumbled across this funny post about how we bloggers edit what we share with the world about our lives. In the case of Redneck Mommy, her daughter argued that her mother was a hypocrite for telling her to clean her room while she herself never told her blog readers about the messes in the rest of the house.

This got me to thinking about how I pick and choose what to tell you about here on my blog. Of course I edit my life. For one thing, hearing about everything I do (and don't do) would bore you to tears. And, not surprisingly, I want you to think well of me so I don't often share my shortcomings. I do sometimes, though, but usually for a laugh or to illustrate that living a perfectly green, low impact life is damn near impossible. Does this careful editing, however, make me a hypocrite or does it make me simply human?

Does the fact that I've been saying "I really need to get in the habit of baking bread every week" for a couple of years, yet I don't and therefore have to buy bread regularly make me a hypocrite? I read blogs where people talk about (or brag, it sometimes seems to me when I'm feeling like I am not doing nearly enough...) that they just made their peanut butter and jelly sandwich with their own freshly baked bread from wheat they grew, threshed, and ground (by hand!) themselves, homemade jelly from their own homegrown strawberries, and peanut butter ground from the peanuts grown in their own soil. That's lovely, it really is, but I'm not there. Will I ever be? I don't know. Hopefully, though, I will eventually actually bake my own bread regularly (maybe in the solar oven) using locally grown wheat that we've ground with pedal power.

Does the fact that I know how to do laundry by hand but usually use the machine make me a hypocrite? I've never claimed that I do all my laundry by hand, but I also didn't make a big deal about the new water-saving front loader we got when we moved in here. In the world as it is today, I don't have time or energy to wash the clothes by hand and I'm grateful for the machine. If the world fell apart, I would, however, have the skills and ability to do it by hand. Thankfully, if the world fell apart, I think the standards for "clean" clothing would fall drastically so I'd be washing more infrequently than is necessary now, especially for my sweetie's workplace.

Does the fact that I advocate riding a bike instead of driving yet I haven't ridden my own Xtracycle in months make me a hypocrite? No, it makes me angry. There is no place for me to store my bike securely (protected from weather and theft) at this house because we had to get rid of our shed for zoning reasons. My bike lives several miles away at a rented storage unit so it doesn't get used. Lingering feelings of anger and depression over the whole zoning situation here have not helped motivate us to ride anyway, although I think I've finally come up with a way to build a low-profile acceptable storage run for the bikes now.

Does the fact that I'm a huge advocate of decluttering yet am currently surrounded by boxes of clutter we've been storing for months make me a hypocrite? Let's say no. It makes me patient - patient enough to wait for good yard sale weather. Now that it's here, I've drug the two dozen boxes of clutter into my office to sort through and price. Sort through? Contrary to my own advice, we are going back through the boxes to see if there are things we want to keep. We have a legitimate reason. When we set aside all this stuff, we intended to give up the homestead and move into a fifth-wheel trailer with considerably less room. Since we are staying, we can use some of the tools that wouldn't have been useful in an RV. And I'm keeping my sledgehammer. Oh yes, I am.

As you can see, there are quite a few things that I'm not doing that you may have thought I was doing because I generally avoid mentioning it one way or the other. I'm guessing this is probably true of most people, though. We have ideals we strive for but our reality often falls short and we don't necessarily want people to think we aren't as awesome as they might have assumed. Let me tell you right here and now that you should banish all beliefs in Chile's Perfectly Green Life right here and now. I do the best I can but I am, after all, just a little chile pepper.

Roadrunner and Coyote

2011-03-12T12:15:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons I'm glad we have coyotes in our area is that I figure they help keep the population of garden pests down. Actually, though, I've only seen the resident coyote with a rabbit dangling from its jaws once . Most of the time, it is just crossing the property empty-handed, so to speak. One day, he spent a bit of time chowing down on mesquite beans, a good protein source, and the droppings left scattered around are often full of beans, although some also have fur in them.

Today, I learned why I should value my resident pair of roadrunners more highly. Anyone who knows anything about roadrunners - the real ones, not the cartoon character - knows they eat snakes among other things. In fact, they eat rattlesnakes. While we haven't seen in a rattlesnake here in the year (almost) that we've been here, I still feel reassured that "my" roadrunners are helping patrol the grounds. They also eat insects, including scorpions (of which several have turned up here), small birds, and rodents.

Now when I've read their diet list before, I've always kind of assumed that the rodents they were eating were small. You know, like field mice or maybe an unlikely kangaroo rat. Uh, no. While eating our lunch today, my sweetie spotted the roadrunner out front with a large morsel in its mouth, still wiggling. We grabbed our binoculars in time to watch this roadrunner beat the living crap out of a pocket gopher. A pocket gopher, for those of you unfamiliar with them, is about the size of a large city rat.

The roadrunner kept picking it up by the loose skin and slamming it down on the ground until it finally quit moving. Unfortunately, the roadrunner then moved between some dense acacias to eat, so we weren't able to witness the gory feast. I'm super-impressed at the bird's hunting skills as it most likely pulled the gopher out of a hole in the ground. Maybe it saw dirt moving as one of the holes was back-filled from below and was able to grab a leg. In any case, we're thrilled to have some pest control assistance here and will not be following our neighbor's recommendation to poison (with strychnine!) the local gopher population.

Buckets & Barrels for the Garden

2011-03-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Since we plan to grow our vegetables and herbs in containers, both to avoid critters who like to nibble on roots and zoning issues, we need containers. Yard sales and thrift stores sometimes yield a few, often over-priced, pots for plants. Once in a rare while, craigslist will have a few free pots listed, but often the gas to drive to pick them up costs more than new pots. We have found that 5-gallon buckets work just as well as pots and cost a whole lot less. Because they don't flare out at the top, too, more can be crowded into a small space.

If, like us, you've chosen to go the bucket route for your container garden, your next step is to procure a bunch of buckets. I avoid used paint buckets as I don't want to risk contaminating the soil or plants grown in them. Luckily, it is not too difficult to get hold of food grade buckets. The challenge can be getting enough and getting them without having to make multiple trips to pick them up.

Buckets can often be had for free from bakeries, caterers, and restaurants. The problem I ran into when going this route with grocery store bakeries was that it was a real crap shoot. The bakeries, for instance, might or might not empty a couple of buckets per day, usually ones that held greasy frosting and fillings. The store closest to me didn't like to leave the empties sitting around so staff would haul them out to the trash quickly. If I didn't time my visit to the store just right, I'd miss out. They weren't willing to hold them for me, although they were more than willing to give me what they had if I showed up at the right time. Another store promised to hold them for me but didn't. The next couple of stores I checked with looked at me like I was insane when I asked about buckets in the first place.

This routine got old quickly. Then I learned that a local sub sandwich chain, Eegee's, collected all the empty pickle and pepperocini buckets from the shops at their corporate headquarters. They donate about 150 of these per month to the local food bank but the rest are available for purchase. The price is not consistent, I'm assuming due to stock on hand. Currently they are asking $1.50 each including the lids. However, I have not been able to get any the last few times I've tried because they keep selling out. (Spring fever for container gardeners? Or more people storing food in light of global instability?)

In the past, we've picked up a few 55 gallon barrels from the local bottling company for water storage and rainwater harvesting. We got rid of those when we moved out here, with the plan to go much bigger (and then sold the bigger tanks when we planned to leave here.) With the inability to find buckets, I suggested to my sweetie that we try cutting the big barrels in half to create two big planters. He liked the idea and I stopped by the Kalil bottling company in Tucson. These are food grade barrels previously used to hold the concentrated syrup for sodas and other drinks. They currently charge $13 per barrel, up a bit from what I paid the first time several years ago.

While waiting for the paperwork to be completed there, I noticed huge stacks of 5-gallon buckets. I asked about them and found out they were for sale, too. Their price is slightly higher than Eegee's at $2 each, but, more importantly, they have plenty, and lids if you want them. My vehicle smelled like a sickly sweet soda factory on my way home!

Like the ones from pickles and pepperocinis, these buckets still have a strong syrupy smell even after cleaning. However, plants don't care. For just forty dollars, we've got enough containers now to do a decent-sized garden. Even better, the soil will be free, made from a mix of my finished compost and leftover dirt from planting trees and bushes. I hope the garden will produce enough that I can get back into canning and preserving food.

Do you container-garden on a budget? Where do you find containers?

Weekend Warrior? No, Weekend Gardener!

2011-03-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

I am so tired! I spent some hard hours out in the yard today. We want to make sure our trees do well so we followed the planting instructions from the local nursery, which recommended a nice BIG hole filled with a 50-50 mixture of the dirt from the hole and compost. This is probably because much of the dirt in this area is poor, like that in the yard of the house we rented in town, as well as because caliche is common here.

Caliche is why we bought the drop bar that I used today to loosen the soil before shoveling. Oh, wait, that's not true. We bought this particular drop bar because our dog peed on it while we were wandering around the flea market. However, it's been really handy over the years and is kind of cool since it's actually a drive shaft from a Model T.

Anyway, back to today's gardening. I dug two holes, each about two feet deep and two feet across. While I mixed some of the dirt with some unsifted compost, my sweetie lined the bottom of the holes with hardware cloth and then put chickenwire around the sides. This is to discourage pocket gophers, voles, and round-tailed ground squirrels from gnawing on the tasty roots of the young trees. The roots will push through the wire, actually breaking the soft wire welds as they grow, and over time the wire will rust in the earth providing iron nourishment for the plants. When the roots are bigger, they will be less susceptible to destruction by the critters.

I didn't use as much compost as recommended because we have really good alluvial soil here. I didn't hit any caliche either while digging. In fact, the soil was great until about a foot and a half down where I hit the sand and rock layer. The drop bar mostly just made it easier to scoop out loose soil rather than having to push hard on the shovel. I tossed some of the compost and dirt back in the hole, my sweetie put in the trees (an apple and a peach today), and we filled in around them. We also folded some chickenwire over the top to discourage the hungry rabbits and wrapped the bottom of the trunks with the expanded aluminum sold to put on top of gutters to keep debris out.

Since we mixed compost in with the soil from the holes, there was quite a bit of dirt leftover. I sifted all of it (including that from the fig tree planted last week) so my sweetie will have good dirt to mix with my sifted compost for the container garden. The rocks and gravel were used to fill in a low spot along the road to hopefully keep rain from running down our driveway. We've got a couple dozen 5-gallon buckets and I hope to pick up another dozen so we can grow lots of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, and whatever else my sweetie's got germinating inside.

I'm exhausted from today's work and looking at a bunch of pots with plants that still need to go in the ground. My plan is to dig one hole a day; when my sweetie gets home from work, we'll line it with the wire and get something planted every day. I hate formal exercise so this is a great way to work my muscles!

Were you a Weekend Warrior in your garden today (or yesterday)?

Digging in with Fruit

2011-03-05T17:25:00.002-07:00

Today we spent about a month's food budget (which admittedly has been high lately due to stress-eating) on fruit. We didn't go to the grocery store or farmer's market and load up a basket with fruit. No, we went to a 20 acre local nursery and got plants.

Wait a minute, some of you may be thinking while scratching your heads. Didn't she say they weren't going to stay where they are for much longer than a year?

Well, yeah, but that was last week (or month?) and life changes. We don't actually know how long we will stay here, but with the chaos rocking the world right now, climate change bearing down on us with every season, and peak oil sneaking into everyone's consciousness lately, we've decided to hedge our bets. We may not have the option to move on from here when the time comes, especially since some commitments (family, job) will keep us rooted here for a while.

Fruit-bearing plants are a long-term investment, unlike a single season's tomato or lettuce crop. We may not harvest anything this year, but eventually these plants will yield tasty and nutritious food. If we are still here, we'll get to eat it, both fresh and preserved. If we're not, we hope the plants will increase the attractiveness of the property to potential buyers. It seems like a win-win situation, even though we'll have to skimp on the food budget for a few months to compensate for the money we spent today.

We focused on getting trees, berries and grapes that should deal well with our summer heat as well as our colder-than-Tucson winter lows. Some of the trees will be low-water use once they are established while other plants will need more water. We hope to use harvested rainwater and gray water for a good portion of the plants' needs.

Right now, I've got to go dig some holes. Luckily, the soil is pretty easy to dig in here and we didn't get so many plants that it's going to take all that long. We do have to allow a few extra minutes to line the holes with chickenwire to discourage the pocket gophers, though. We've been told the little buggers can kill a tree in a single night.

Sorry Bees, No Blooms for You

2011-03-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

This morning, I ripped all the blooms off the rocket (a dandelion) in my yard. No, I don't hate flowers nor do I hate bees. However, I hate that my stupid dog eats bees.

Polie is obsessive-compulsive when it comes to eating bees. As soon as he hears or spots any bees, he will zone in on them with the intention of eliminating them from this world. He will chase them down and even leap way up in the air to catch them. He is oblivious to everything else going on, including me yelling at him to stay away from the damn bees.

The problem is that when he eats them, he invariably throws up about an hour later. This reaction does not stop him from trying to eat bees, I suppose because the hour delay keeps him from making the connection that eating a bee makes him sick. And I absolutely cannot keep him from chasing the bees outside. He's possessed.

On Tuesday morning, he ate two bees. Hoping to fend off a serious bout of vomiting, I gave him a diphenhydramine pill. (An acquaintance who is a vet had mentioned I could try that.) He didn't throw up but that afternoon he started snorting in the reverse-sneeze way that dogs do and trying to hack something up. This was so severe that he was almost crouched on the ground with the effort. This continued off and on through the night, although he never did hack anything up. His energy was low and he was obviously miserable.

By yesterday morning, we were pretty concerned and called our vet. She ended up giving him a couple of shots, steroids, to get him over the reaction. The tech advised us that the Benadryl might have worked if we had given him more (1 mg per pound of body weight*).

They had no real suggestions on what we could do to stop him from going after the bees in the first place, which would be my preference because we certainly don't want to drive him all the way into town (which also means hubby has to take time off work to wrangle the other dog) and pay them almost a hundred bucks every time he eats multiple bees.

Today I bought a large bottle of generic diphenhydramine, just in case. If you have any suggestions, however, on how I can discourage this behavior, please leave a comment.

Calling him does not work; he doesn't seem to hear me. Treats are totally ignored. Putting him on his leash doesn't stop him from jumping to try to get them. Short of only taking him out with a muzzle on, I'm not sure what to do. We'd like to try the super-soaker toys we've seen people use at the dog park, but the stores aren't stocking summer stuff yet. Any ideas?

*Please note I am not a veterinarian and you should not treat your animal based on what I was told. Ask your vet or do your own research!

Low Tech Solutions

2011-03-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

I think sometimes people gravitate towards high tech solutions to problems simply because they are sexy, exciting, and new. However, low tech solutions often work just as well and are immediately accessible to almost everyone, without the hefty capital outlay.

For instance, keeping warm in your home. We are looking at this issue ourselves right now. There is already insulation under the house. The ceiling appears to be well-insulated based on how long this weekend's snow remained on the roof after it had all melted off the trees and the ground.

The two problem zones are the doors and the windows. With one warped door and the other door frame out of square, we're facing expensive and time-consuming repairs. The windows are double-paned but of the absolute lowest quality. There is no way we can afford to replace them and my idea of putting cardboard up last summer to keep out the heat had the unintended consequence of discoloring and warping the blinds.

One cheaper solution to the heat lost through the windows in the winter is covering them (with something other than cardboard). A couple of years ago, I haunted thrift stores, yard sales, and church rummage sales to acquire quilts at inexpensive prices. It may take a while, but I hope to have window quilts installed before next winter.

There is, however, an immediate solution to reducing the amount of energy used to heat our house: more clothes. Layering clothes is a great way to stay warm when outdoors and there's no reason not to do it indoors. As this very good article points out, too, one doesn't have to wear layers of heavy and bulky clothing. Thermal underwear made from the new synthetic fabrics actually have a better insulating value and are much lighter weight than cotton or wool. I know the materials are made with petrochemicals but this seems like a much better use of them than simply burning them to stay warm briefly.

Another area that could use a low tech solution is food. There is significant upheaval around the world right now and much of it is a direct result of people being hungry. Food is a basic need for all of us but many go without. This is only going to get worse with climate change, peak oil, and increasing economic instability.

Rather than looking to some high tech solution to world hunger, Dr. McDougall proposes a much simpler and immediate solution in his current newsletter, one that we could implement right now. It would not be a popular solution with many people, but it would help feed the world's hungry. And this, in turn, would help reduce the difficulties in transitioning to a lower energy world as oil runs its course.

What low tech solutions to problems do you use in your home?

Keeping Weather Records

2011-02-28T10:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend, after a long search of all the hardware stores, I finally found a min/max thermometer. I don't know why it was so difficult to find one, other than perhaps there are few of us left that want an honest-to-god old-fashioned thermometer rather than a fancy digital one. I prefer to avoid gadgets that need batteries if possible.

When we lived out on the land, I kept weather records because it was fun and because they are useful. It was shocking to review them at the end of the hot summer and see that we had over 50 days that had been at least 100 degrees. In two and a half years, our record high was 117 degrees, on a day when Tucson was a couple degrees cooler. This was surprising considering we were higher in elevation that Tucson.

We also got cooler temperatures than expected in the winter, perhaps because we were just a mile or so up the bank from a river where the colder air settled. Our record low was 12 degrees and we spent many nights in the RV bundled up and huddled together sleeping when the inside temperature dropped to the low 40s. The oddest, and most inconvenient, weather trend we noticed was a 35% higher chance of rain on weekends than weekdays. This was just one of several factors that slowed our homesteading plans down.

I don't know what happened to the min/max thermometer we had when we lived there, but I'm glad to have one again finally. We put it outside yesterday evening so that we could start keeping records here. We have had some inkling of the outside temperature from a digital inside/outside thermometer I picked up on sale months ago. It was originally used in the unsuccessful fridge/freezer conversion so that we could maintain the right temperature in the fridge. When I finally accepted that the appliance was not working as hoped, I was left with the thermometer. We put it outside and have noted the cold winter temperatures with interest.

There's just one problem. When I arose this morning, the digital thermometer read 20 degrees out. The new min/max thermometer read a current (and low) temperature of 25 degrees. That's a pretty big difference and I'm not sure which one to believe. They are located very close to each other so conditions are pretty similar. I do have one other standard thermometer that I suppose I could put outside to give yet a third reading, but I'd like to have just one that I know is reading the correct temperature!

On another weather note, our inch and a half of snow on the ground and then later snow flurries yesterday melted down to .3" of precipitation in the small glass tube rain gauge. I'd prefer to have one of the larger metal ones that is probably more accurate but I haven't been able to find one of those locally either.

Getting back to the point of keeping weather records, they are very useful for gardeners, although obviously there are annual variations. And of course, we must also keep in mind that climate change means even more variation and not just towards warmer temperatures. More extreme and severe weather may be on all of our horizons. My weather records will be useful but they will not give a predictable and reliable dates for the first early frost or latest hard freeze anymore. It will be up to us to stay on top of day to day weather and protect our garden and adapt our gardening methods (and timing) as necessary.

Winter Wonderland

2011-02-27T09:35:00.001-07:00

We woke up this morning to a beautiful snow-covered landscape.

Don't the desert mesquite trees just look gorgeous covered in snow?

Just for Wendy, here is a picture of our bamboo.

The dogs seemed unfazed by the white stuff.

Although they did seem more playful this morning.
Note the bench with the chard garden to the left.

Check out Angel catchin' some air! Not a single paw touching the ground. Don't believe me? Click on the photo and see.

One Step at a Time

2011-02-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

Now that we've decided to do a bit around here, I find myself wanting to do everything all at once. That isn't possible, of course, so I try to slow down and think things out logically. Some tasks can be done whenever or concurrently with other tasks, but other projects must be done in a particular order.

Before we can put up rain gutters, for instance, we have to get up on the extension ladder and clean the roofing tar off the fascia still up there from when we ripped the porch out. Then the fascia needs to be painted to match the current house color. We're considering getting seamless gutters put in and having a water harvesting tank installed at the same time. Before we can call for estimates, however, we've got to research tank sizes and find a place to put one that won't get the county's panties in a twist.

With our planned garden strip in the yard, it's the same thing. While it's exciting to think about what to plant, first we've got to clear the miscellaneous items stored in that space, such as the extension ladder that is needed to reach the roof fascia. We'll have to stretch some chicken wire to keep the dogs out, put shade cloth up on the fence to keep the sun and wind from destroying the new garden, and, oh yeah, we'd better put down a solid layer of hardware cloth to try to keep the pocket gophers and ground squirrels from eating every damn thing we plant. And I need to fit a trip in to the local sandwich shop's corporate office to load up on 5-gallon buckets for planting. (They cost only $1 each, which is far cheaper than pots, and the white color is cooler in the summer heat.)

As I look at all the projects we want to do and look at the calendar to see how much time we have before the real heat hits, I get overwhelmed. I have to remember to slow down and just tackle one thing at a time. And try not to get ahead of myself.

Yesterday, I got out the shovel and the drop bar to start digging the hole for the fig tree. I fetched my sweetie an hour or so later to ask for help putting it in the ground. It's planted and happy, and we have several buckets of leftover soil to mix with my finished compost for the strip garden.

Today, we went to the local hardware store and spent a few minutes talking with the young man in their garden section. He's an enthusiastic gardener and was able to give us some good advice on plants that will work in our area. We get colder than Tucson but still quite hot in the summer, so what works in town doesn't necessarily work for us. For instance, the fig variety we got is not one of the two most commonly sold in town. We needed something hardier. Ours is a Texas Blue Giant and should cope with the cold quite well.

While we were there, he pointed out the pineapple guava trees they had. We'll need two but we only bought one today. He strongly recommended we buy the other one from another nursery so we can avoid having two identical clones; otherwise we won't ever get fruit. Once established, these are supposed to need very little water.

I still want to get a couple of nut trees and maybe some peaches, but first I need to get the one pineapple guava in the ground and find it a partner to plant, too. It's tempting to go to the nursery and bring home a forest of tree, but I know better. One step at a time will get me there. I'm rather clumsy so if I try to leap in with both feet at the same time, I'm likely to fall down.

Dare We Dream?

2011-02-23T07:14:00.003-07:00

After the extreme disappointment over the shocking news of zoning restrictions on our land last year, we're not quite ready to dream again. For now, we are just living in the present.

Once we finally finished all the work required by the county, we had to consider our plans for the future. They were uncertain, and they have changed several times. At first, because we couldn't do hardly anything we planned to do here, we intended to sell and move as quickly as we could. We cleaned up outside, sold all the things we wouldn't be able to use here, and planned to put the house on the market this spring.

Then we thought, well, maybe we should wait a year so we don't have to pay back the government's first time homebuyer's credit. If we could hold out another year, we wouldn't lose our shirts even more. Unfortunately, when I received the tax reminder about this from the IRS, I realized I had remembered the information wrong. The requirement is three years, not two. We really aren't sure we want to stay that long.

One factor complicating our decision was, and still is, my sweetie's mother. She lives in the state and has some health problems. While she has wonderful, supportive neighbors, she still relies on us for long-distance transportation, as well as emotional support and the occasional fix-up in the home. Our moving away from the area would sadden her deeply and add additional difficulties to her life.

So, to meet our desires and still be available to help her, we considered the idea of living in an RV. We could do temporary work in different areas for a few years to help us find a new place to live, yet still be able to come back to help her out. We both loved this idea and began decluttering in earnest. Downsizing from a prepper household to just what can fit in fifth wheel trailer was not going to be easy, but we made significant progress. We put a number of boxes in storage for a big spring yard sale.

With the recent rise in gas prices, however, we started thinking this might not be such a wise plan. Granted, our expenses would be lower so we could probably afford to pay a little more for gas but if rationing was instituted, we'd be screwed. Also as the economy worsens and budgets everywhere are strained, the possibility of finding work could be significantly reduced.

Then, at the beginning of this year, my husband's work situation changed and he committed to a yearlong project. Even though we can't do what we want on our land here, it does not make sense for us to sell it now, have to repay the entire homebuyer's credit, and then pay rent in town instead of building equity here. Our home is in a low enough price range that it should not suffer terribly from falling home values. Having at least another year here also gives us time to do more of the little fix-up projects that will make the home more attractive to potential buyers when we are ready to leave.

With all of this uncertainty, and because we are so battered and bruised from this past year, we lost all momentum for doing much of anything. Items set aside for the big yard sale remain in the rented storage unit and tools from the shed (now gone) are stacked on shelves in my living room.

Considering we bought an entire acre so we could have a huge garden, our current garden is practically non-existent. (Thank you, bureaucrats, for this.) We do, however, have a tiny bit going on. We've enjoyed lettuce grown in the kitchen for the past month or so. We're pretty sure our ultra-dwarf apple tree survived the hard freezes. I don't know about my asparagus, though, especially since I didn't mulch them before winter.

All this debate about urban homesteaders has kind of fired us up. Although we still don't expect to stay here for the long run, we've decided to go ahead and do a few things. We already have a couple of experimental beds set up with a big brush pile on the bottom, aged horse manure filling in the gaps and covering it, and we will put a top layer of mixed aged horse manure and compost before planting when the danger of a hard freeze has passed.

Recently, my sweetie planted chard in a box and buckets out front. Seedlings are already poking up through the dirt. This week, I purchased a fig tree that we will plant where the washing machine drains its graywater. Because figs produce relatively quickly we might actually benefit from it while we still live here.

We can't fence garden beds on our acre but I pointed out to my sweetie that our fenced yard for the dogs is probably not much bigger than what many people gardening on city lots have available. And it is the only part of our entire acre that is not subject to the zoning restrictions. The problem is that it is the dogs' yard and we don't want to deprive them of the space to run around and play. However...they don't need all the space.

We are going to fence off a strip along one edge of the yard to do some container gardening. We might even try to squeeze in a small chicken coop. I dropped by the CSA yesterday while I was in town and spoke with a lady who had previously offered me her excess chicks so we just need to make our decision and build the coop if we want to go that route. If the county has a problem with this, they will not get easy cooperation from us again. They will get a big, unpleasant, and very public fight.

Edited to Add: I supposed I should add that we will, of course, continue to live our low-impact lifestyle. We keep our energy and water use low. We combine errands and try not to drive too much. I'm trying to figure out a way to get my bike out of storage and on the property here so I will ride it instead of driving for local errands. I frequently shop at the farmers market and cook from scratch. I haven't done any food preservation in quite some time, but look forward to picking that up again this year.

Death of a Homesteader's Dream

2011-02-21T12:40:00.002-07:00

This is Part 3 in my series on our adventures with homesteading, or as I prefer to call it, living a more self-sufficient, sustainable, and environmentally responsible life. You can read about our 2 1/2 years off the grid (almost 20 years ago) here and about our years of less self-sufficient years where we still did a little here and there in this post. Both would be helpful to read before reading this one so that it puts this story in context, especially emotionally. (And yes, I know they're long. I'm wordy but I try to make my words count...)

Anyone who has been following my blog for the last few years will perhaps remember our long search for a place to settle down. The more we read about peak oil, climate change, and the global economy, the more concerned we became. Finding a place where we could settle down and essentially homestead seemed critical to our long-term survival. Also the more we read other homesteading blogs, the more we wanted to enjoy that lifestyle ourselves.

We wanted a place where we could, among other things:

modify a house to be as energy-efficient and low-water use as possible
get a couple of solar panels for emergencies (we knew we couldn't afford a whole system)
set up rainwater harvesting off the buildings
do landscaping and contouring to slow rainwater flow across the land for use in gardens
grow as much of our own food as possible
learn the edible and medicinal plants in the area - read about my wild harvesting here
get chickens for eggs, meat (for the dogs), and fertilizer
experiment with aquaponics, wicking beds, and other reduced water use gardening methods - again, we planned to feed the meat (fish) to our dogs
find a bikable community to reduce driving
transition to using mostly manual and human-powered tools instead of power tools
form relationships with our neighbors and barter where possible

We didn't have much money to spend on a place so we were thrilled when, after about two years of searching, we happened across a place north of Tucson that had sat empty for a couple of years after being foreclosed upon. We weren't thrilled about buying a foreclosure or settling for a manufactured house, but we knew by then it was really all we could afford, and heck, being able to get under the house easily would make it that much easier to super-insulate and plumb for graywater.

The good things about the property were that it was in a somewhat rural area close to several small communities and not too far from Tucson. We could bike in the area and my sweetie could still commute to his job in the city. The area was about 750 feet higher in elevation than Tucson which meant slightly cooler temperatures and the possibility of more rain, especially with the proximity of the mountains. There was a medium-sized wash running right through the middle of the property so we knew there would be water available to utilize; we planned to plant trees on top of the banks and stabilize the banks themselves with desert-adapted blackberries. There were broad expanses of relatively flat areas that would work for gardens; one in particularly excited us with the possibility of turning it into a grain field. The soil was alluvial, a great mix of sand and dirt, with a bit of clay deeper down.

In the neighborhood, many people had animals. Lots of chickens but more importantly lots of large herbivores. A number of people had one or more horses, and one place, not too far away, had horses, a cow, a goat, and several donkeys ... and a huge pile of manure just waiting for me to ask for it. The composting possibilities were exciting!

The property was just under an acre, so there would be plenty of room to put in a shed. I had dreams of a greenhouse, an outdoor kitchen, clotheslines (finally!), and maybe even an outdoor shower. Water came from a community well, which seemed a more secure bet in the long run than the water company.

The Purchase & The Move

Buying it was very stressful. Within the first two days of listing, there were three offers on the place, including ours. This resulted in a bidding war and sense of urgency in the purchase. We won, but ended up paying more than 10% over the asking price. We knew it was worth it, though, as this place had almost everything we'd been looking for. We explored the neighborhood and saw that many people had animals, sheds, and corrals, but no gardens.

We were so excited when we closed on the house. This was it. Finally, the last place we'd ever live. The place where we could do everything we'd dreamed about. A place where we could weather through changes brought by peak oil, climate change, and even economic downturns.

My sweetie bought a used motorcycle to keep the commuting gas costs down. We rented a storage unit and started moving the stuff from our rental house garage into it until we could get a shed.

Moving was a chore as I'd acquired a lot of used canning jars and a lot of compost. But, with help from a few friends, we managed to get it done. Moving right about April 1st again should have warned us of the trouble to come, but we were excited to finally get to move forward with plans we'd been formulating for years. It took a few months to get unpacked and organized, sorting through our storage unit to find things we needed.

Because it was a foreclosure and had sat empty for a couple of year, we had some problems to repair and a lot of clean-up on the property. Shortly after moving in, too, our dog was diagnosed with two cancerous masses that had to be removed. Since one was on her foot, we had to build her a long gently-sloped ramp so she could get in and out of the house.

By the time we were somewhat settled, the hot weather had arrived and outdoor projects were put on hold. We still needed to move our belongings from storage, though so we bought a shed off craigslist. It was a good size and already built. All we had to do was hire a tow truck driver to move it for $250. Even with that expense, it was cheaper than building one ourselves. We got it moved into a good location, convenient to power, and unlikely to flood in the summer rains. We began emptying out the storage unit, although it was quickly clear that everything would not fit, especially since our Xtracycle bikes are long.

The Trouble Begins

About this time, the first of several disasters struck. My nephew died unexpectedly. This was devastating, not just for his loss, but for the lifelong pain I knew it would cause my sibling. Losing a child is very, very difficult, and I knew they'd been very close in the past few years.

Not too long after this, about the time I'd gotten through most of the grieving process, we received an official letter in the mail. Uh oh. That's rarely a good thing and this time was no exception. The county zoning department sent us a notification that our lovely porch spanning the entire front of the house was a code violation. What?!

I was to call and discuss it with the gentleman that dealt with violations. I called and found out that it had been written up by a field inspector in February. Upon further research, I found it this had happened just a few days before the house was listed on the market yet nothing had shown up in the disclosure paperwork. As the current owners, this was now our problem.

The problem, it seemed, was that the previous owners had built it without a permit. No problem, the zoning guy told me, just apply for a permit retroactively. We'd have to pay more, but it would clear the violation. When we got the paperwork, I started filling it out but had to call him several times with questions. The average citizen cannot easily access building codes so we really didn't know if it was built to code. The roof looked questionable as it was attached to the fascia of the house, something not allowed in the covered deck plans they sent as an example. (Apparently there are so many tornadoes - *snort* - in Arizona, they are worried one will blow the whole roof off.)

We sweated our way through the site plan - a drawing of exactly what's on the property, including the offending structure - and the application. When I went to file it with zoning, I was told it had to be approved first by the flood control department since our entire property lay in the floodplain. We knew that but didn't know they needed to approve anything and everything we wanted to do. It seemed like just a formality, although we would also have to get approval from them for our shed, too.

At the flood control district, our application triggered, for some unknown reason, an "administrative review" of our entire property. They sent us a five page letter of problems that we had to address. At this point, it was just a notification but the implication was that if the issues were not addressed, by the dates specified, we'd be taken to court.

The death of our dream of a homestead began that day but we didn't know it. We still thought we could get through this process relatively unscathed. Ha! Anyone who followed my blog this summer and fall knows the months of anger, disbelief, and depression that followed. Although their letter barely addressed the porch, I'll address it first.

The Porch

By this point, we decided it would be best to have professional help, even though we were perfectly capable of remodeling the porch ourselves. There were other issues in the letter to address (including the shed, the engineered pad the house was on, and allowed property use). We hired a general contractor through a friend of a friend. She came out and hemmed and hawed. There were other problems with the porch besides where the roof was attached. The floor was "spongy." The supports underneath were not evenly spaced. But, she said, she'd go talk to them. See if they could waive the code to allow it since the porch was overall solid.

She reported back that the porch was a no-go. The roof was definitely out of code and due to the high placement of the windows on the house, there was no way to move it down to attach to the side of the house as required by code. That was the least of the problems, though. Supports underneath had to be evenly spaced so that the sheets of plywood fit perfectly from one support to the next, rather than leaving parts of each sheet hanging off past it. That was not something that could be fixed. It would have to be entirely redone, which would mean removing the entire existing covered porch and rebuilding it ... after applying for a new permit.

We didn't have money for that but we still had to get rid of the current one. It was solidly built, it would have held up just fine, but it did not meet the official requirements of the bureaucracy so we had to tear a 600 square foot raised covered porch off our house. We were determined to do this responsibly, though, so we dismantled it rather than just sawing it apart. We sold the railings, the custom-made wrought iron T-brackets, and the 4x4 roof supports. We gave away the 2x4s, the plywood, and the 4x4 porch supports (dinged up by their removal). We recycled the thousands of nails and screws removed by hand. In the end, the only thing that went into the landfill was the rolled roofing. It was simply not reusable nor recyclable.

Needless to say, doing it this way took a whole lot longer than it would have taken to take it apart for the trash. I had to get several extensions on our deadline. Besides dealing with the other issues - far more grave - from the letter, we were also dealing with my sweetie's mother's health issues.

She'd gotten some poor diagnoses on the health of her lungs and then slipped in her home, breaking her hip. She was brought to Tucson for the emergency hip replacement and following physical therapy. My sweetie had taken two weeks off work to finish up the porch removal and instead spent every day at the hospital. So, when the zoning guy told me on the phone that he supposed we could get another extension because we were cooperating, I was hard-pressed to remain pleasant. When he added, "We're not trying to make your lives difficult; we're here to help," I had to bite my tongue, hard, to avoid exploding at him. At this point, we couldn't afford to piss them off since they had so much control over our lives.

We finally got the porch removed, cleaned up the pad, and built a small set of new stairs to get into our home. He cleared the violation and, in his mind, figured our lives would be just hunky-dory as a result of all his help.

The Pad

Yeah, right. All their help included a notification from the flood control folks that, sorry, they couldn't confirm that the pad for the house, permitted by them in 1999, was built correctly. We'd have to do that by either having them come out to inspect it (I'd rather invite a vampire into my home!) or hiring a civil engineer to write a letter confirming it was done to their specs. They included these specs and it was immediately obvious that we had a problem. We hired an engineer who confirmed that we would have to have some work done and he recommended an excavator to do it.

To the tune of 4,000 big ones, we got to have the pad upgraded to include a 3 foot "toe down" along the front and side of the house, and have the pad in the back brought out to the ten feet required. A toe down is an angled slope extending into the ground. To get the three feet required meant the guys had to dig a five foot trench, and they had to do it carefully because Blue Stake never bothered to show up to mark where the electric power came in. The toe down had to be lined with something like landscape cloth and then big rocks before being back-filled. For them to have access to the front yard and side, we had to remove half our wrought iron fence and two small mesquite trees, perfectly situated to provide future shade. The fence posts were, of course, set in cement. (More hard labor.)

By the time they finished, we didn't have the time or energy to put all of the fence back up. The extended toe-down also made it almost impossible to replace the fence where it had been along the side and it couldn't be moved further out easily for reasons to be divulged soon. We decided to close in a much smaller portion of the yard and sell the leftover fencing. We wanted to get this completed before having any inspectors out in case they decided we needed more permits to replace what they had made us remove.

I don't know if it is true, but the guys working for the excavator also told us that the county had not required toe downs like this back in 1999. Apparently, the county was making us bring our pad up to current standards under the guise of saying it didn't meet the 1999 requirements. Nice.

The Wash

This is where the story becomes really heart-breaking. The letter from the flood control district informed us that our site plan was inadequate and they included a sample one of our property, along with a few problems they noticed in our plan.

Unbeknownst to us, there is a 75 foot "erosion hazard setback" from either side of the wash due to the amount of water that can flow through it during the monsoons. Anything built within this area must be approved by them and be built to withstand terrific flood conditions. For instance, a support for a wall would have to be something like 12" on each side and set in a deep, reinforced hole of cement. The bottom of any wall or fence would have to be a foot off the ground to allow water to pass through.

Oh.

Hm, that would be a bit of a problem for fencing in the gardens we had planned. After all, the reason they need to be fenced is to keep out all the critters that want to eat the tender, tasty plants. These are small critters like rabbits, quail, ground squirrels, and pocket gophers to whom a fence with a one foot gap at the bottom would be like an engraved invitation to a succulent buffet.

Looking at the map, we discovered that almost our entire property, other than the pad where the house was and the small fenced front yard, fell within this setback zone. We also had to contend with 30 foot wide road easements on two sides of the property. In other words, we would not really be able to do diddly-squat with the land that we bought, the land that we thought we owned. Sure would have been nice for the realtor to have let us know about this, especially considering he knew our gardening plans and had years of experience in the area.

It gets worse.

I know, you're wondering, how can it get any worse? Well, not only was the setback an issue, apparently this was a "special" wash that had been designated a riparian area in the early 90s. As a result of this designation, nothing man-made was allowed within 50 feet of the wash. SAY WHAT?! Every single property along this wash in our area has structures, in some cases, HOUSES, within 50 feet of the wash. Every. Single. One.

But, the county decided to pick on us. We wouldn't even be allowed to build inadequate gardening fences at all. I asked and was told that gardening was fine in this riparian area, provided we didn't remove any of the native brush or trees and didn't fence it. In other words, we could plant trees and that's about it. No gardens, no aquaponics, no chicken coop, no outdoor kitchen, no greenhouse, no shed.

The Shed

That's right. The shed was also an issue. Because it was within the erosion hazard setback, we had several choices. We could elevate it two feet off the ground, cut holes in the floor and sides for "flood vents", or move it. That summer, we had two and a half inches of rain in one hour. The shed had not flooded even though it was only sitting on 8x16" blocks. In fact, it had been perfectly situated to avoid being flooded. The only other place we could move it to had been ankle-deep in water during the big rain.

We debated about elevating it, but by this time we were extremely discouraged (and angry) about not being able to use our own property the way we bought it to use. We decided there was no point in staying on land that couldn't be "homesteaded" and made initial plans to leave. In the meantime, we had to wrap up all this stupid zoning crap. When I called the civil engineer to come do the final inspection on the pad so he could write the letter clearing up that issue, he wanted to also be able to tell them the shed was gone. Suddenly, we were under pressure to get rid of it and fast.

We posted it on craigslist, and eventually managed to sell it for two-thirds of what we'd just paid for it a few months before. To empty it out, as well as raise the money to pay the excavators, we had to sell a lot of our stuff - a good portion of my sweetie's tool collection, for one. When you're selling in a hurry, you don't get good prices. Brokering the shed deal was a nightmare, but it was a sad relief to see it get loaded up on the tow truck (again) and leave the property. Inside were the two 275 gallon water tanks we'd purchased for rainwater harvesting; we sold them to the same guy that bought the shed.

Could we have fought this?

Some people have not understood why we didn't fight this. We considered it but it would have been a losing battle. We had hired the general contractor and the civil engineer, both of whom talked to all the officials involved at length. They would not budge on anything required of us, even though there are numerous people in this area also in clear violation of the codes and even former owners of this property. In fact, the contractor felt so bad about our situation she didn't even charge us for her services.

Could we have sued the realtor for doing such a crappy job? Why didn't he do better research or help us to find out these issues? Maybe we could have sued, but we would likely have lost and spent every last penny on court costs. This is a conservative state (as you may have figured out from the recent news) with conservative courts.

What about the title company? Shouldn't they have disclosed at least the code violation? Alas, we found out that their "due diligence" covers only the title search. They do not search any other records. We were screwed there, too.

Could we have fought the county? Again, maybe, but we would have probably lost. And we didn't have the funds. This is a very pro-developer state where the individual Joe Shmoe has little power. Consider the cost for them to go after us in the first place. They did not receive one penny from us and they have lost money directly and indirectly as a result of their actions.

Our cash went to the civil engineer and the excavator. The county received no sales tax on the used porch materials, shed, and tools we had to sell, plus those people didn't have to go buy any new materials they might have purchased (and paid sales tax on). In fact, because I filed for an adjustment of our property value, they will now collect less property taxes from us. The accessed value of the porch was over $10,000!

What did this cost us?

Money. We figure in direct and indirect costs, we lost tens of thousands of dollars as a result of this baloney.

Time. We spent months dealing with the bureaucracy and getting rid of our belongings (including the porch) that could have been spent developing a better homestead.

Effort. The physical effort to remove the porch was intense, although the sledgehammer therapy had some benefits.

Trust. This was yet another lesson in a series of lessons we've gotten that you just can't trust a lot of people. (The "urban homesteading" community sure found this out with the Dervaes action!) People who seem to have your best interests at heart often do not. We learned we have to look out for ourselves, especially in any business transaction. This cynicism eats away at us, but we don't want to be screwed again.

Friends. I had several friends who apparently decided they did not want to deal with my anger, frustration, and depression during this summer and fall. To those that were there for me, thank you for not pulling your support when I needed it most.

Dreams. The biggest loss was that of our dreams. We are so beaten and battered now, driven away from our dreams once again by bureaucratic nonsense, that we don't even know what to strive for next. This is where the heartbreak comes in for me from reading all these blogs where people share their pictures and successes as urban homesteaders. We want to be there with you but have almost given up all hope of that ever happening for us.

I suppose this just became a 4-part series as I do not have the energy after writing all this to talk about our future plans and small hopes to still eventually do what we really want to be doing. I know this post was probably incredibly draining to read, but trust me when I say, it was far more draining to live.

The Years In Between Homesteading Efforts

2011-02-20T16:45:00.005-07:00

This post picks up the story again after we left our land and life off the grid. We felt broken after running into the bureaucratic wall and decided to move north. We spent a year in Colorado in a rental house. While we did not garden there, we were required, as renters, to maintain the yard. To avoid the disposal or hauling costs of dealing with massive amounts of deciduous leaves in the fall, I started a compost pile. I cannot say we really did much else initially that would qualify us as "urban homesteaders."

However, I did spend the year reading and learning about living more frugally. If you put all the books I checked out of the library in a stack, it would probably have been at least four or five feet high. I checked out every book I could find on frugal living, being a cheapskate, saving money, being thrifty, doing without, making it myself, and so on, and then I hit up the Inter-Library Loan system for more. After a few months, I was just skimming new books because I'd read all the tips before and could only find a few new ones in each book.

These books led me to cutting our expenses everywhere possible. I turned the heat down to 55 degrees while my sweetie was at work during the day and down another ten degrees at night. We were very conservative with our water use. We cut out cable TV, a luxury we'd permitted ourselves when we moved after the disappointment of leaving the land. I cancelled our trash pick-up service and reduced our garbage output to a single kitchen trashbag per month; we drove that out to the transfer station ourselves, along with all of our recycling and any tree trimmings for the city compost and mulch program. Through our efforts to save money, we lowered our environmental impact.

We got healthier, too, when I started thinking outside the box about ways to save money. Taking care of ourselves physically was one way to reduce medical and health costs, both in the short term and in the long run. Following Dr. McDougall's program went a long ways towards improving our health. I shopped the farmers markets for fresh, local produce and cooked almost everything from scratch. Some of what we practiced definitely fit into the lifestyle of an urban homesteader, even though we did not grow our own food.

From there we moved back to Arizona. After fixing up an old 1917 house, I worked on the yard. I removed the dead rose bushes and transplanted almost a dozen live ones to my mother-in-law's house. (I hate roses and she loves them.) We planted a small vegetable garden that was totally unsuccessful. The soil drained the water too quickly and the sun baked the plot. However, we did enjoy eating fresh peaches from a large, old tree in the back yard and shared chiltepin peppers with friends. Life moved on and so did we.

Our next move, also within the state, found us in a unique earth-bermed house. We had incredibly low energy bills thanks to the added insulation and even had some tropical plants in a protected courtyard. However, the gardening bug had not bitten and we spent our time on other pursuits, such as making arts and crafts for sale (created with predominantly used and salvaged materials), and learning how to make sushi. Sadly, the nearest farmers market was very inconvenient to get to so I rarely went there for our produce.

When we tired of being in the rat race in the big city and tired of the conservative attitudes in Arizona, we decided to head north once again, this time to Oregon. I have loved Oregon since spending a summer there with friends when I was a teenager. I loved it again when we moved there. We rented an apartment with a beautiful view overlooking a tiny wooded copse but didn't try to do any gardening on the tiny little balcony. We spent a lot of time walking and biking along the Willamette River, and actually started to bike more than drive while we were there.

As sometimes happens, though, the bloom can fade when you get to know your love a little better. Winter in Oregon sucked, big time. For months, the sky was covered with an oppressive dull gray blanket of clouds. It drizzled all the time and the sun only peeked out for, I think it was, three or four days all winter. It also snowed multiple times, the first time in a dozen years there. Now, in southern Arizona, snow is a delight. It falls, it's pretty, and then it evaporates that afternoon or the next day. In Oregon, it snowed, and then it rained, turning it all into a big slushy muddy mess. This froze overnight into dangerous ice which was again rained on. This cycle continued for days on end and we soon got fed up with wiping the mud off the dog's paws.

The lack of sunlight, too, was quite an ordeal for us desert folks. I had successfully quit drinking coffee in September but took it up again mid-winter as a way to combat the blues I was suffering. We had looked into settling in Oregon but decided the winter weather was too dreary to contemplate living there forever.

So, it was back to Arizona for us. We rented a house in Tucson, pulling out of Oregon on a brilliant sunny day and arriving in Tucson on a stormy rainy one. How's that for irony? I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise considering we arrived on April 1st.

We spent a couple of uneventful years here before I started reading blogs and renewing my interest in living an environmentally responsible life. I started my own blog in 2007. If you are new here, feel free to explore some of the things I've posted about in the past, using the tags on the left. I've written about many components of homesteading in the city, such as our gardening efforts and compost, our successes in water conservation, lowering our energy use, bicycling for transportation, and converting to the use of more manual tools around the house, workshop, and yard. On the food front, I volunteered with the local CSA for three years, took up canning, cooked with my solar oven extensively, and learned to make my own liqueurs and vinegars.

We both read lots of homesteading blogs and talked for several years about finding our own place to do this whole-heartedly. Last year, we finally found the perfect place in the price range we could afford, bought it, and moved our houseful of belongings, garden, and a ton (that's 2,000 pounds!) of compost.

Then we found out it wasn't quite so perfect after all, but that's a story for Part III tomorrow.

Memories of Homesteading

2011-02-19T09:30:00.002-07:00

The tremendous pulling together of people that call themselves "urban homesteaders" to resist the trademarking of this lifestyle by a single family has resulted in my exposure to many new bloggers and folks interested in creating a sustainable and self-sufficient homestead. In some ways, this has been wonderful; in others, it has been heartbreaking for me personally.

Let me explain, especially since a few people unfamiliar with my blog may be reading here. I'm going to have to back up a bit to give you the full perspective. While living at home in my youth, I fondly remember a big garden out in the back. At times, I think up to 1/4 acre was cultivated with just about everything that would grow in the area. There were fruit trees, such as peaches, apple, pear, and apricot. There were pecan and almond trees. There was a small trellis of Concord grapes, which my mother used to make the most delicious homemade grape jelly imaginable. There were so many strawberries, we actually tired of them by the end of the season. Months later, though, we always enjoyed the tasty strawberry jam on our morning toast.

The vegetable garden produced quite a lot of what went on the dinner table: summer squashes (zucchini & yellow crookneck), tomatoes (cherry, plum, big tasty ones), peppers (jalapenos and green chiles), onions, greens (spinach, collards, mustard greens & more), cucumbers, winter squash (pumpkins and banana squash), and more that I can no longer remember. We ate them fresh out of the garden, prepared for the table, or however my mother preserved them. If you've only known store-bought ketchup, you haven't really lived. She made all sorts of pickles. The freezer was always crammed full with pumpkin pies made with either pumpkins or banana squash; we could not tell the difference. Roasted green chiles, and I think jalapenos, could always be found in the freezer, too.

We did not go so far as to have livestock. I'm not sure why, but my guess would be that my father really didn't want that much additional work. It also would have been difficult to manage with the long summer vacations we took, hauling a tiny little trailer behind the station wagon. I don't remember knowing anyone who owned chickens, actually, but I do vividly remember when my folks bought half a cow. The cuts filled up the full-size freezer. The purchase proved to be a poor choice in the end as my mother had no idea how to cook the more expensive cuts.

When I left home for college, that was the end of the delicious food from the garden and preserves from the cupboard. I was too busy with classes to even consider doing any of that myself and, quite honestly, I've never really enjoyed gardening. I became a regular consumer, buying from grocery stores. I still cooked from scratch as cooking and baking is something I have always loved to do.

Years later, I found and married my sweetheart. In the early years of our marriage, we bought 40 acres of somewhat remote, undeveloped land. There was nothing on the property other than a road going around two edges for access to neighboring land. No water, no power, no phone. Our plan was to build a straw bale home with solar power, graywater use, composting toilets, and so on. We cleared, by hand, a quarter-mile driveway to a spot where we could park a 25 foot RV that would be our temporary home while building the house ourselves. We gradually acquired the entire collection of Mother Earth News magazines and read them voraciously.

Things did not always go smoothly on our homestead. After paying quite a lot of money to have a well dug, praying the water would not be too deep for our solar-powered pump, we discovered finding the right kind of pipe for the pump was not easy. We ended up at an irrigation supply store 100 miles away. We were relieved when we dropped it all down into the well and it worked. Well, except for a leak where the pipe was connected to the pump.

We set about pulling everything back up to fix the leak. Now, keep in mind that 180 feet of pipe (flexible), 180 feet of thick electrical cable, and the well pump was heavy. In the process of hauling it up, the safety rope snapped and some of the cable fell, wedging itself firmly between the pump and the big well pipe. It took three long nerve-wracking days of fishing with a long rope and hooks to snag the cable, pull it free, and pull up the pump.

Once that was fixed, we had running well water when the sun shone on the two small solar panels. We'd fill the water tank in the RV and use the water sparingly. We had power in the RV, thanks to the generator and using the solar panels and a trickle charger to keep the batteries charged. We could run lights and low-power items off the battery but needed the generator for air conditioning (in the 100+ degree summers). We had phone service, kind of. This was in the early days of cellphones when they were big bulky things. Due to the surrounding mountains, the only way to get a signal was to stand on the roof of the pick-up truck's cab. Needless to say, we didn't use it much. (And, no, we had no Internet service either. Or TV.)

We knew we were capable of building our own house, but we didn't have much money. We quickly learned that trying to pay as you went meant everything happened very slowly. While working on a rock and cement outbuilding, we also began working on providing some of our own food. A nice chicken coop housed four chickens which produced plenty of eggs. My compost pile yielded rich soil in just a month's time thanks to inputs (outputs?) from the chickens and boxes of discarded produce I picked up from the grocery store.

I also gleaned the food that was still edible from the discarded produce. It was time-consuming but there was a lot in there that could be eaten, especially if one didn't mind cutting out a few bad spots on the apples and pears, rinsing the slimy radish leaves off to salvage the good radishes in the bunch, picking out the good cilantro leaves from a wilted bunch, and so on. I made a lot of fruit compote, dried herb and celery leaves, and we ate a lot, I mean A LOT, of radishes. I figured 10-25% of each haul was edible for humans, another 25-40% could go to the chickens, and the rest went into the compost.

I finally started digging a plot for our garden. The soil there was hard and rocky. I was naive and didn't know that one should always wear firm-soled boots for shoveling and only push on the shovel with the ball of one's foot. I wore my tennies and often pushed (stomped, even) down on the shovel with my insteps. Two weeks of that led to years of pain and medical treatment for plantar fasciitis. (I've written about that journey here.)

We ended up growing lettuce in a big metal tub - the inside spin basket from a broken washing machine we salvaged from a nearby abandoned survivalist camp. (We found old literature there that indicated they were another sect like the Branch Davidians that were involved in the Waco siege. Thankfully, this place had obviously been abandoned for years, though.) Sadly, with all the other tasks on our list of things to do, we never did get a garden put in the ground there.

After two and a half years, we still were living in the RV. We had a small fenced yard around it, a 10x12' shed holding most of our belongings, the small rock/cement/block building we'd finished where we stored food (in barrels to protect from the mice) and supplies, the chicken coop, compost pile, and the lettuce garden. We'd also salvaged a 250 gallon metal water tank from the camp, patched the bullet hole in it, and used it for water storage. The plan was for this to eventually hold harvested rainwater.

One task that took a fair amount of time away from planning and building was dealing with the refrigerator. The refrigerator in the RV died so for a while we had to live out of an ice chest. We looked into replacing the RV fridge but the cost would have been over $1,200. We decided instead to order a compressor for around $700 and build a chest refrigerator ourselves. We built the box out of heavy plywood, filled it with six inches of foam insulation, and lined it with Formica for easy cleaning. The usable space was 8 cubic feet and there was no freezer section.

Due to the construction, the lid to this baby weighed over 30 pounds. That was a wee bit heavy to hold up while rummaging around for dinner, so we built a counterweight system. We had built a little gazebo cover over the fridge since it had to sit outside and the hot sun shining on it would have made it work harder. We mounted a pulley on the beam overhead and used a gallon jug filled with sand and water as a counterweight. Using a gate hook, we could latch the lid overhead to keep it out of the way while inside the fridge.

How did we power it? We put the well's solar panels on a wheeled cart so we could move them between the well and the fridge. With a bank of deep cell marine batteries, we could charge them up for the fridge and then wheel the solar panels back up to the well to pump water as needed.

In case those who have successfully given up your refrigerators wonder why we didn't just live without one, remember that we lived in the desert with two months of temperatures 100 degrees or higher. It got very hot inside the RV anytime I was away because I couldn't leave the generator running, so food would have spoiled in an afternoon. (And no, I never left our dogs in the hot RV either! In fact, we frequently spent hot summer days hanging out at my mother-in-law's house 20 miles away.)

All of our plans came to an abrupt halt when we drove the 100 miles to see the state Department of Environmental Quality office about getting permits for our graywater system plans and composting toilet. Arizona was not friendly towards alternative systems at that time and we were informed we would have to install a septic system, at great expense in our rocky ground, even if we would never use it. In addition, getting the permits approved for graywater would take six months (at best) to two years (more likely).

We went home devastated by the news and finally decided that we just couldn't hang in there that much longer. We were worn out, broke, and I was still having a lot of pain with my feet. We sold the fridge to our neighbors (who were living out of an ice chest occasionally emptied by their dogs); gave them the water tank, compost and the chickens; sold the composting toilet to my sibling (who is still using it); sold the RV; and put the land on the market. We were out of the homesteading business and back into a rental house while we regrouped and reconsidered our dreams.

Tune in later for Part II which will talk about what happened after leaving the land. Part III will then review the past year of trying to homestead again and talk about where we go from here.

Mistakes Were Made...but not by me!

2011-02-16T18:19:00.006-07:00

This is the title of a book I've begun to read by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. I haven't gotten very far into it yet, but you can read the link I supplied for a little more information. The book discusses cognitive dissonance and self-justification, and can help one understand seemingly completely irrational behavior and the inability of most people to admit when they've made a mistake.

Talking about mistakes, Crunchy Chicken pointed out a big one made by (what used to be?*) a big player in the sustainable gardening movement. Read the comments, follow the links, and use a blog search engine to find posts about it. (Click "Search" to refresh the search. New posts are going up frequently!) I think these folks will find that they made a pretty big mistake. The backlash online is happening fast and furious. Kinda makes me want to get myself comfy in a chair and read through my book!

*By the time this is all over...

Being Sick - Are You Prepared?

2011-02-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

I thought we were pretty well-prepared for emergencies: a little extra food in the pantry, some stored water, hand-crank flashlights and radio, solar oven and rocket stove for cooking, camping toilet, and so on. We don't take many OTC drugs, but I have a few bought on sale, with coupons, just in case - ibuprofen, some cough syrup, flu and cold medicine. You know, just the basics. I've also got books on natural and herbal remedies but haven't got the supplies on hand to make most of those.

My sweetie gets sick more often than I do because he is exposed to more people through his workplace. My exposure to people is generally limited to retail establishments (no, I don't spend all my time shopping) but I am very careful to always use the hand wipes now supplied by most stores to clean my hands and the bar on the grocery cart. In other locations without carts, I clean my hands once I return to my vehicle. It took a while, but I also successfully learned to avoid touching my face, especially my eyes, nose, or mouth, before washing my hands when out in public.

These habits have done a remarkable job of keeping me well for years. Being around someone who had a really bad cold, though, this year did me in and I finally succumbed. This was not an emergency and should not have been too difficult to deal with. Rest, keeping hydrated, and eating healthy food should have taken care of it.

The thing about emergencies, though, is that they are not predictable. How could I have known that when I finally did get sick, it would be at the same time the vehicle got a serious oil leak and was undriveable, that we'd have a broken pipe due to record cold temperatures and I'd be without water for 48 hours (and then laundry ability for another week), and that my husband would also be sick at the same time?

Theoretically, this is what emergency preps are supposed to address. Well, I found out ours were lacking. I've written about how we've successfully made it through a weekend with our water, electricity, and gas turned off (see posts under emergencies tag), so I knew we were perfectly capable of dealing with the lack of water. We have bikes and feet so dealing with no vehicle isn't the end of the world, although we've not been riding at our new home nearly as much as we did in town.

What I didn't take into account, however, is that being sick saps ALL your energy. I wasn't sick yet when the water was first turned off, but found I'd not thought about the use of stored water, either. We put a bit of bleach in the bottles to prevent algae from growing. Bleach tastes nasty! It's easy to deal with; just open the container and let it sit 24 to 48 hours - the chlorine will evaporate out. I had to scramble to find water bottles from the vehicle and packs for us to make it through this period, though.

With the lack of water impacting food preparation - not enough to wash many vegs or dishes - I turned towards my frozen food and easy meals off the shelf. Even though we got our water back relatively quickly, I was now sick and my sweetie had not recovered yet either. The need for easy food continued but my supplies were running low. Normally, if we were faced with this situation of both feeling like crap and not having easy food on hand, I'd run to the store for some frozen or prepared food. That wasn't an option with no car and no energy to bike.

I know, I know. You're thinking how hard could it be to boil water for pasta or cook some rice or something. Think back to the last time you were really sick. You simply don't have the energy to lift a pot of water for pasta or even measure out the rice. And the fuzzy brain that comes with illness doesn't help either. What we really needed was someone to go run errands for us, take care of us a little. Sadly, though, we don't know any of our neighbors that well here and we're now 25 miles out of town so it's hard to ask friends down there to come all the way up to drop stuff off (and risk getting sick).

Thanks to the whole not being able to think clearly issue, too, I forgot about two things that would have helped me get through the worst part of the cold faster - my neti pot and my steamer. I'm doing those now because I'm still not over this, but starting it a week ago probably would have helped a bit.

What have I learned from all this? I've learned I need to do some organizing and additional preparation for this possibility in the future. Rather than telling myself that my backpacker sample packs of dehydrated vegetables and beans will get me through any emergency, I need to take the time to assemble some of them into soup packs, and then store them in a convenient and accessible place in the pantry. I need to go ahead and stock some convenience foods we normally try to avoid, such as instant rice, ramen (or any quick-cooking) noodles, canned soups, and maybe more frozen food. I need to keep at least one large bottle of water in the house filled with fresh water, changing it regularly, so there is always something to drink.

I also need to finish organizing my medicine cabinet. I just tossed what I had on the shelves months ago and never finished organizing it. Grouping the items for colds together, including the neti pot, would have helped me see what we had. I need to stay on top of expiration dates (only loosely followed) and restock as necessary, and look into what natural and herbal remedies I could have on hand. Shelf-stability is obviously important since we don't get sick all that often.

And, of course, I need to get back in the habit of biking and walking frequently so we're able to deal better without a vehicle, although being sick would still put a real crimp on that. I am getting to know the neighbors better and have gotten a few phone numbers recently. I hope to network more in my community so that I have people to call on in a similar emergency.

Have you ever gotten to test your emergency preparations when sick? What worked and what didn't?

Oh, that reminds me of one additional thing on the list: replace the camping toilet. A leaking toilet when you have no running water and you are sick is NOT fun...

Lemon Dessert Scramble?

2011-02-14T21:45:00.002-07:00

When your spouse suggests you call your latest attempt at a pretty dessert a “scramble,” it is time to accept that making attractive desserts is simply not your forte. Sticking to making tasty and easy desserts that don't have to look nice - such as chocolate chunk cookies, pudding, and ice cream - might be advisable. Quit trying to make anything that involves frosting.

I used to be able to make a decent cake. Not a particularly beautiful one, but one that could be taken to a potluck without embarrassment. I got creative one Valentine's Day and made a heart-shaped cake by baking half the batter in a square pan and half in a round pan. After cutting the round part in half and turning the square part a bit so it was now a diamond, the two half circles went on either side at the top of the diamond. Voila! A heart that looked presentable once the whole assemblage was frosted.

In past years' efforts to declutter the kitchen, I gave away my spring form pans. I used them very rarely as I'm fairly lazy when it comes to cakes and generally just frost a single layer baked in a 13 x 9" pan. On the few occasions when I wanted a layer cake, I cut the 13 x 9" cake in half and stacked the halves. Not elegant, but fine for home consumption.

That was my plan today, but with some additional twists to make the cake more special. Bryanna Clark Grogan has a scrumptious looking vegan recipe for a lemon cake with lemon curd filling and a "buttercream" frosting. I made my cake from a mix, but made the filling and frosting from scratch. I baked the cake in a 13 x 9" pan with the plan to cut it in half for a layer cake of sorts, but then I was going to cut each half horizontally to fill with the lemon curd.

Yeah, right. This worked out even worse than the ugly Christmas sugar cookies. The first problem was the cake did not come out of the pan cleanly. We consulted and decided it might still be okay if I just kind of flipped the one side over so the bottoms were in the middle together. It didn't work. The cake crumbled and the top stuck to the baking sheet I had flipped it over onto.

It was pretty much a complete disaster but I tried to smear frosting on the sides anyway and put dollops of frosting on the top so the middle pieces would still get a little of it. The cake continued to crumble as I worked and, on the cut side, the frosting simply rolled right off. I did the best I could with the mess and then lifted up a "piece" for each of us.

It tasted okay but overall was disappointing. The mess in the kitchen was disproportionate to the resulting dessert. I hate wasting all that time and effort to make something that doesn't turn out. Next time I'll just make a lemon pudding cake in a quarter of the time (with a third of the dirty dishes) and we'll be happy with a messy and tasty cake.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Trying to Tame a Painful Cough

2011-02-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

My sweetie is a nice, generous, sharing kind of guy. What's his is mine.

In other words, I now have his cold. Oh, joy. Lovely. Thanks ever so much, honey.

For the past two days I have been racked by painful coughing. Dry, unproductive coughs that feel like someone is raking a rough wood rasp across the inside of my throat. My voice is hoarse and actually gone if I try to speak in a high register. In my normal register, it breaks and sounds awful but, strangely, seems to work fine in a deep register. Whatever....in any case my throat hurts.

I have been sucking on lozenges all day and downing cup after cup of "Throat Coat" tea. Both help quite a bit, but only while I'm consuming them. Once they're gone, I'm right back to coughing.

I hate cough syrups and have mixed feelings about whether one should really try to totally tamp down the body's response to illness. Some things I've read indicate that suppressing cold symptoms just makes the cold last longer. The taste of commercial cough syrups is also pretty awful and after a night of terrible heartburn when I tried a night-time cold syrup, I'm a bit leery of taking anything else.

This morning, I remembered a remedy I'd read about and tried in the past. What I like about this "cough syrup" is that almost everyone will have the ingredients - onion and sugar - to make it in their pantry. And it actually works for me as well as, or better than, the chemical-laden options from the pharmacy.

Simply dice an onion and toss it with sugar to coat (generously). Pile this into a sieve and place over a container. Leave it for a few hours.

When you return, sweetened onion juice will have dripped through to the container below. Take a spoonful just like you would regular cough syrup. It doesn't taste great but it doesn't taste as bad as you might expect, either.

I'm still coughing a bit but at least the onion syrup is a change of pace from the lozenges and tea. Now if I could just get someone to hand-deliver some homemade chicken noodle soup (or a vegan version of it), I'd be a happy camper. Not having a working vehicle has been a challenge, especially since I'm running low on really easy-to-make meal ideas. Cooking when sick has never been something I enjoy, especially the washing up part.

Yes, I know I'm whining. I hate being sick!

One Down*, Two To Go...

2011-02-05T14:37:00.000-07:00

*Well, one down ... sort of. My sweetie is still quite ill but managed to identify the several places where the cold temperatures caused pipes to burst, went to the hardware store, capped the pipes, and got the water turned back on. So, technically the leaks are not really repaired yet BUT we do have running water finally and he'll hopefully feel up to the repairs tomorrow.

We still need to get him well and figure out where the oil is leaking from in the vehicle. Hopefully the second one will be a simple repair rather than one of those really awful (read: expensive) repairs. The vehicle is old for this day and age - 12 years - but still runs relatively well and serves our needs adequately. My sweetie is a little older than that, but also still runs relatively well, and serves my needs more than adequately. His repairs won't be expensive; he just needs the chance to rest and heal.

I surveyed our water containers once the tap was running again and determined that we used a total of 8 (that's E-I-G-H-T) gallons of water in the past 48 hours....for two adults and two large dogs. Granted, I did no laundry but we stayed hydrated, cooked, washed dishes, and kept ourselves clean. I think that's pretty remarkable myself. Not that I'd want to live that way all the time, but it is doable if necessary.

It Comes in Threes

2011-02-04T15:17:00.003-07:00

I'm sure hoping the old adage about trouble coming in threes is true. We've got no running water. When I headed out to get some of the portapottie tank fluid (that helps break down the solids), luckily I stopped to talk to the postman....after which I discovered my vehicle was leaking something in copious quantities. I got home okay but can't head back out until that's repaired. My sweetie came home from work early but not because he got the time off due to yesterday's long hours. Nope. He's sick. He was already getting sick before spending hours in the cold last night and now he is burning up.

Please keep the noise down so he can get some sleep and recover. I'm hoping to at least get running water back tomorrow afternoon and that the vehicle is an easy fix, but this depends on whether one afternoon and night's good sleep will get him over the hump. Sssssshhhhh!

Emergency Preps in the Office

2011-02-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my post last night about not having water, my sweetie was tied up late at work yesterday. For a while, it looked like he might even have to spend the night. Luckily things finally got fixed and he made it home by about 10 pm, cold and exhausted.

As he was unwinding from working a 13 hour day with barely enough time to eat lunch, he mentioned that he would have been okay if he had needed to stay. He would not have been particularly comfortable, but his office had heat, thank goodness. Back from his days of bicycling into the office - even during the rainy season, he has clothes there so he could have changed. I think there's even a shower in the bathroom and he has a couple of towels available.

With the space blanket he keeps in his desk, he could have slept there using a towel for a pillow. It would not have been fun, but it would have been possible and that's what one needs to look for in dealing with emergencies.

He keeps a gallon jug of water in his office all the time so he would have had water available if pipes burst and he lost water to the building. (Pipes were bursting all over town yesterday and probably more did last night.) He keeps a few tea bags on hand and this morning he scoured the pantry for snacks he could take to keep in his desk. I'm sure he'll snack on some of the popcorn and Clif bars he ended up taking with him, but as his emergency supply runs low, he can just replace it with new goodies. I sent a couple of bottles of Gatorade with him today, as well.

I don't know whether his office has first aid supplies but he keeps a basic first aid kit in his pack. There are also urgent care centers and a hospital close enough to deal with major injuries. Considering how much ice is probably on the roads this morning from broken and spraying water pipes, I'll bet those places will be busy today. Under normal conditions, Tucson doesn't get much ice on the roads except possibly on the bridges so I doubt any steps were taken to deal with it. Plus, the location of the icy patches would be random. It's going to be another cold day here so that ice is unlikely to melt. Let's hope folks take it easy on the roads today, especially with all the out of town visitors here for the annual Gem Show.

It doesn't take much to be prepared for an unexpected night spent in your office if you are stranded by the weather or by work emergencies. Take a look in yours today and see whether you have a little extra drawer space in the desk or file cabinet to stash a few supplies.