Simplicity and Frugality

Fruits and Veg...Thrifty?

2012-02-18T12:09:00.002-08:00

OK, running a bit of an experiment here. Partly because I am a fat lard and partly to see if it really is cheaper in the mid-run to eat healthy.

We know it's cheaper in the short run to eat crap...the dollar menu is ...well.. a dollar. So if you can get one or 2 or 3 items and pack in 1000 calories you're going to feel more full and make it through the next several hours. However, by the end of day 2 of eating the dollar menu, you're going to feel like crap and realize that you'll ultimately spend more. BUT if you live somewhere without easy access to fruit and veg, without space and ability to store them (e.g. roach infested inner city apartment complexes are rarely near a good produce market and you can't store things without them getting ruined), then the savings of shopping for fresh fruit and veg may indeed NOT be there.

In the long run, when you consider health care costs it's always better to eat as healthily as possible.

But what about the mid-range. Weeks or months?

I'm trying to eat a minimum of 4 servings of veg and 3 servings of fruit per day. In the short run, I'm too stuffed with salad to eat much more at lunch so that is good. But, organic salad is not available in my home town and I'm only in the big city once every two weeks or so. That means that I run out of organic salad in one week and have another week staring me in the eyes. Organic salad is also expensive. Hence more root veggies. They are healthy, store well and taste good and are fairly cheap. I've also been buying...industrial fruit and veg at the local store. I could probably get over the pesticides but I really resent all the plastic packaging.

After 1 week in, I've spent more on groceries than before. But that is partly due to coming to the end of most of my winter stock of veggies other than the squash. Still have quite a bit of lovely squash. And partly due to not having enough stored whole or frozen fruit and being largely out of dried fruit. It was a bad year for fruit last year and it's showing. I have some slightly soft apples left but those need to be in a salad or cooked or they are pretty unappetizing even though perfectly consumable. A few dried pears left. And quite a bit of plum sauce...must find more uses for plum sauce.

I think when more fruit and veg is in season and if I can get the sprouter going again full steam, it will be thriftier in the mid range to eat lots of fresh fruit and veg.

Household Expense Book 1978 Pt. 2

2012-02-05T17:16:00.000-08:00

Another installment in this ongoing series:

Reminder: I was thrifting (shopping at thrift stores) last fall and found a budget book. One that you record expenses in each day and total up for the week/month/year. I knew it was old but thought it was blank. It was 25 cents. So I got it. I like to do a money flow check up once or twice a year so figured the 25 cent budget book would get me through about 6 years. Seemed like a good deal.

When I got home and was putting my purchases away (the budget book and a puzzle of a Cezanne still life, 25 cents) I flipped through the book a bit more thoroughly and found that a few pages were filled out.

It was done in September and October 1978. Quite interesting. I noted that I pay less in rent now than the book's owners (we'll call them "they") paid on their rent/mortgage in 1978. So, I thought I'd put the expenses in the blog and think them through in writing rather than just in my head.

Here goes:

Totals for the week beginning 9.18:
Meats 0
Groceries 26.50
Dairy Products 1.50
School Expenses 2.00
Church-Charity
Laundry-Tailor
Drugs-Medical Care
Beauty Care
Household Help
Entertainment 31.50
Beverages 5.00
Cigarettes-Tobacco 10.50
Carfare-Parking
Household Purchases 15.00
Wearing Apparel 5.00
Gifts 7.00
Telephone
Gas 43.00
Electricity
Heat
Rent Or Mortgage
Insurance
Taxes
Auto Expense 0.50
Vacation

Total for the Week: 147.00

It appears that the "Gas" is being used to record "gasoline" rather than furnace fuel as it has a daily entry.

They did better on groceries this week! Looks like the main shopping was done last week with supplemental shopping this week. Another 1.50 in dairy. Either that's milk or this family eats insane amounts of butter.

Once Again, I'm a bit taken aback by the Entertainment cost of 31.50. That's more than 20% of the entire week's expenses.

The Cigarettes-Tobacco is 1.50 per day. Must still be smoking a pack a day. Is the current price of a pack of cigarettes still the same as the price of a gallon of milk? I don't buy either.

Their budget was lower this week but there still seem to be cash leaks for cigarettes and entertainment.

2012-02-03T20:34:00.001-08:00

So today I was learning to pressure can. I'm pretty sure I've got it now because I doubt there are ANY more things I could have done wrong. I'm also pretty sure that I need to buy someone a new pressure cooker. It's not good.

There were three of us and we were under the impression that one person knew how to do this. BUT what we ended up without was a canner. So we borrowed a pressure cooker...without the canning insert. It was determined through unclear means that that didn't matter. It also seems the seal wasn't good and the thing boiled dry...long before we opened it so the bottom is warped.

The jars of meat didn't crack or anything, but I don't think they got up to pressure and therefore not up to temperature. Sigh.

It wasn't very frugal though I suppose gaining skills that are supposedly simple is ultimately frugal. However, ending up owing someone a pressure cooker is definitely NOT frugal. Though perhaps the lesson was ultimately cheap as I will trust my own instincts above committee choices from here on out and it's always good to be reminded to do that.

I did get to spend the afternoon, at work, in the company of two very amusing people and that is always worth it.

Dang It!

2012-01-28T18:13:00.000-08:00

Another 12 day gap. How does it happen? It's not like I have TONS of things going on. Well, quite a few but last Saturday I was done doing everything I'd booked for the day by 5pm and that included a nap and 2 hours reading books...so clearly I COULD have blogged. But the inspiration wasn't there. No, that's not it. I don't have any inspiration today either. Well, maybe a little.

Anywho, here we are. The topic du jour (other than "Dang It!") is: Accidental thrift.
So it snowed. I snowed alot. Like a super lot. Not like a few years ago when we had 3 feet in Plummer by Christmas, but like 12 or 18 inches over about 5 or 6 days. I don't like shoveling and it was drifting back over any tracks or shoveled bit anyway. Then the city crew plowed the street and there was a berm about 6 feet wide and 2 feet deep between the car and the road. Of course then it rained and coated the berm, and everything else...Thanks Yaktrax!...with ice. A quarter inch of ice. So I didn't drive. Eventually they plowed to within 6 inches of the back of my car (and left a GIANT snow pile in the yard but whatever). I put salt on that and a mere several days later the car was free again.

For about 10 or 11 days I didn't drive at all. I always walk around town but I know I would have found SOMETHING to do out of town if it hadn't been a giant pain to shovel the car out. So, I stayed home. I cooked from scratch and went to the local market rather than running to the Moscow Co-op for the bits and pieces to fill in around the ingredients in the house.
Turns out, there is a new much more liberal, policy on which produce is past prime and marked down. A crazy liberal policy. I got a total of 10.1875 lbs of perfectly fine produce for $4.37! Much of it went into the freezer and the rest got eaten. The 3lb 2oz bag of bell peppers was the toughest to consume quickly. Half ended up sauted and frozen for future use, most of the rest are now stuffed with blackbean sweet potato chile (garnet yams were in the reduced bin despite being fine...perhaps just weren't selling), and the last bit were consumed just sauted. I'll put the recipe below because it was awesome. There was also a head of cauliflower, 2lbs 3oz, for 99cents, and a bag of salad for 99cents. Not a bad selection.

Here's the recipe for sauted bell peppers I got off www.vegweb.com that was amazing and I'll be eating often from here on out:

3 T olive oil
5-6 cloves garlic, minced
4-5 bell peppers (any color of sweet pepper), sliced into thin strips
splash of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper if you like

Heat the oil over medium heat in a skillet large enough for the peppers to be in a single layer.
Saute the garlic until is just begins to carmelize
Add the peppers and stir frequently. Saute until they are al dente, or more if you like them soft.
Throw in the balsamic vinegar and remove from heat (or turn it off if you're using an electric skillet).
Stir to coat.

Delicious as is, or as a sandwich (hot or cold). Season with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper if you like.
Something about the vinegar and the toasty garlic on the peppers was just right.
You could probably add some onion slices if you cared to.

So basically, being lazy about digging the car out saved me gas and grocery money.

A Thrift Miracle!

2012-01-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

I wasn't even in the market for new boots...but there they were. At Goodwill in Mosow, ID. Keens size 10. I usually take a 9.5 but I tried them anyway and they fit. Awesome. There is no visible wear. There is (or was) however, some visible poo on the soles. I studied it a bit closer once I got the boots safely home...15$ for boots worth well over 100$ had others in the thrift store giving me the stank eye...I was already carrying around a pair of carhartt pants marked 4$ that also showed no wear (well, very very little). I was afraid of being attacked for hogging the best stuff. It's a cut-rate-throat world there.

At home I found that the poo was not dog poo as I suspected, but had berry seeds in it. That is more likely bear poo. So here's the story I wrote in my head: Some woman decides to try hiking and buys very nice boots. The first trip out she steps in bear crap and figures "not doing this again" and dumps the boots, poo and all, at the thrift store. It was dried and not smelly so it wasn't fresh. Perhaps the Mr. begged her for weeks to go again and she finally "lost" the boots to avoid another trip to bear country.

I wore them to the radio show yesterday and got home with sweaty feet. They are waterproof and must have insulation as it was about 25degs out and my feet got sweaty. Cool.

My other boots are a year old and still in fine shape. Normally I would not get new boots so soon, but it's not like they will go bad on me and you can't find thrift boots on demand. I've never found thrift boots before, in fact. If they had been the least bit stinky or oddly worn, I would not have gotten them. I did put some anti-fungal powder in there just to be sure I don't catch anything. Of course I've been bowling and those communal bowling shoes are much more likely to give me a rash than thrift boots.

The carhartts are a bit snug, but they'll break in and be slightly more comfortable in a year or two. Or so I hope. They are getting fashionable with the younger set, hipsters mostly, so I expect the thrift supply to increase.

Household Expense Book 1978 Pt. 1

2012-01-14T14:44:00.000-08:00

Household Expense Book 1978 Pt. 1

This will be a bit of an ongoing series.

I was thrifting (shopping at thrift stores) last fall and found a budget book. One that you record expenses in each day and total up for the week/month/year. I knew it was old but thought it was blank. It was 25 cents. So I got it. I like to do a money flow check up once or twice a year so figured the 25 cent budget book would get me through about 6 years. Seemed like a good deal.

When I got home and was putting my purchases away (the budget book and a puzzle of a Cezanne still life, 25 cents) I flipped through the book a bit more thoroughly and found that a few pages were filled out.

It was done in September and October 1978. Quite interesting. I noted that I pay less in rent now than the book's owners (we'll call them "they") paid on their rent/mortgage in 1978. So, I thought I'd put the expenses in the blog and think them through in writing rather than just in my head.

Here goes:

Totals for the week beginning 9.11:
Meats 34.00
Groceries 72.05
Dairy Products 4.50
School Expenses 67.00
Church-Charity 10.00
Laundry-Tailor
Drugs-Medical Care
Beauty Care 2.50
Household Help
Entertainment 17.00
Beverages
Cigarettes-Tobacco 10.50
Carefare-Parking
Household Purchases 3.00
Wearing Apparel 32.00
Gifts 5.00
Telephone
Gas 43.00
Electricity
Heat
Rent Or Mortgage
Insurance
Taxes
Auto Expense 38.09
Vacation

Total for the Week: 341.14

It appears that the "Gas" is being used to record "gasoline" rather than furnace fuel as it has a daily entry.

The fact that Meats accounts for 34.00 of the total 110.55 for food for the week surprises me. I guess it is much cheaper to eat vegetables, even dairy.
Dairy Products are a series of 3 entries of 1.50. I wonder if that was the price of milk.

I'm also a bit taken aback by the Entertainment cost of 17.00. Perhaps this was a special night out. Or there are kids involved.

The Cigarettes-Tobacco is 1.50 per day. That must have been the price of one pack.

To me, this seems like a pretty steep budget for a week in 1978. Perhaps there are children involved here and perhaps these folks did not live in a 30 year old trailer. On the other hand, the expenses for several lines are empty that would be pretty serious expenses for most Americans these days. E.g. Beverages. Many of our citizens spend a great deal on pop, alcohol and bottle water among other things. I myself recently had a 3.00 a week kombucha habit (then I got kombucha starter and have been producing my own with mixed, but thrifty, results).

Best Books of 2011 (GUEST BLOGGER)

2012-01-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

This is our first appearance of a guest blogger. This post was written by Sally Perrine, one of the cohosts of Peace Radio, aka DJ Sally P, activist, community leader, and staff member at Moscow Public Library. Somewhere in there she has a spouse and lovely grown kids.

Sally gets her books at the library as well as an independent local bookstore, both of which are excellent choices for frugal types.

Sally’s Booklist – Best of 2011:

Nonfiction
Running the books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian, by Avi Steinberg (ANF). I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which features two of my favorite issues – prison (and its reform) and librarianship. Steinberg was a rather rootless young man – the early chapters were very funny and dealt with his angst about his place in life – when he took on the job of librarian in a tough Boston prison. From then on, his connections with the prisoners who sought out the library as a reprieve, as a distraction, as a place of hope, provided this reader with enjoyment. Here’s a snippet from a review by Elif Batuman: “Whether he is discussing Sylvia Plath with a fragile prostitute, compiling recipes for a gang member who aspires to his own cooking show, or helping a garrulous pimp write his memoirs, Steinberg is unfailingly thought-provoking, witty, humane, and above all, relentless in his pursuit of a good story.”

Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That is Breaking America, by Matt Taibbi (ANF). OK. This one will bum you out! Taibbi likens the American economy to a giant casino that regularly cheats the majority of its players out of their life savings while enriching a few players. He has the ability to explain complex issues in street language without being simplistic. Taibbi is a great investigative reporter (I learned a new word reading his work – autodidact), and it’s been fun following his career as he directly investigates issues, then afterwards goes to experts for explanations of what he’s seen and heard. This story is extremely depressing, dealing as it does with “too big to fail”, and he’s pretty pessimistic about the outcome.

My Reading Life, by Pat Conroy (ANF). Read-aloud wonderful, this book about books is a total delight, with as many laugh-out-loud moments as it has powerfully emotional reminiscences. Conroy, as he has done in all his books, reflects on his childhood as the son of a marine fighter pilot, and describes the ways in which books saved his life.

Day of Honey, by Annia Ciezadlo (ANF). Co-titled, A Memoir of Food, Love, and War, this book follows Annia through her life as a newly-wed journalist in Baghdad and Beirut, focusing on the people she met along the way, and their daily lives. She loves to cook and to eat, so much of her writing focuses on markets, restaurants, and the various kitchens that she pieced together in these war-torn cities. You’ll end up loving her, her husband, and his eccentric family. The book ends with recipes!

The Company We Keep: A Husband and Wife True Life Spy Story, by Robert Baer and Dayna Baer (ANF). Very interesting inside story about the CIA; some aspect of the work itself covered, much about the toll spy work takes on personal lives. Intriguing look at this most secret of US activities – overseas espionage.

Heart of the Monster, by Rick Bass and David James Duncan (ANF). This book, apparently hurriedly put together in response to the Megaload/Alberta Tar Sands situation in the NW, is a dream to read. Duncan, especially, is one of my favorite writers (his book, The Brothers K, is one of my all-time favorites), and his love of the environment in this region is tangible. Mixing fact and lyrical prose, this book will break your heart. Or inspire you to activism!

Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan, by Jamie Zeppa (ANF). Beautiful account of a young woman’s journey from Canada to Bhutan. Feeling a bit adrift, Zeppa decided to teach for a year in Bhutan, and came to love the country in ways she hadn’t felt for her native land. A year stretched into 3, she taught young children, college age students, lived in several small villages, and found that the pace of life in Bhutan suited her so much that she was overwhelmed on her return to Canada. Lyrical writing, descriptive phrases that brought thiew as seen through the eyes of one of the sons from a blue collar household in rural West Virginia. Essential reading. This and his previous book, Deer Hunting with Jesus.

Dirty Secret: A Daughter comes clean about her mother’s compulsive hoarding, by Jessie Sholl (ANF). This nonfiction account reads like a novel – and follows a daughter’s journey with a hoarder mother. Full of good information about the neurological and psychological traits of hoarders (I share some of them!), and the difficulties they cause for their loved ones – and others, of course.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, by Jon Ronson, (ANF). An odd little book (Ronson’s previous book was “The Men Who Stare at Goats” - made into a movie), ostensibly about the Hare Test for psychopathy, but mostly about Ronson himself, the process he uses to put together a book, and his own nature, which is characterized by high anxiety. There were some very funny bits about his reactions to meeting the people he interviewed – many of whom had been diagnosed as psychopaths. I did learn some stuff about the history of psychiatry and the current usages of various diagnoses.

The Big Burn, by Timothy Egan (ANF). Read this one in a gulp. The guy’s an amazing writer! And I learned a lot about this area, the people involved, and the politics of the times. The 1910 Fire, of course, is what this book is about – the fire that devastated the forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana and the effects of which can still be seen. Anyway, strong recommendation to anyone just wanting a kick-ass read – with really solid info about our local history.

Here Comes Trouble, by Michael Moore (ANF). I’ve read all his books, I’ve seen all his movies, but I still learned a lot about this man. The first chapter deals with the repercussions following his Oscar-winning speech 4 days after the bombing of Baghdad. He received some serious death threats and attempts on his life – so much so that he put himself on house arrest for a couple of years, and had to hire Navy Seals for protection for awhile. Then he followed up with an account of a number of conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, which did a lot to pull him back out into activism. This book is full of little gems like this, and stories showing his life-long activism and courage.

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, by John Wood (ANF). Inspiring account of one man’s effort to bring libraries to third world children. Wood, on a hiking trip in Nepal, visited a school in which there was a locked-up library with books that the children couldn’t read. He vowed to return with books. It snowballed, d/t his efforts and entrepreneurial skills, and to date he has brought 10 million books to kids in 5 countries. His website, Room to Read, provides additional information. (I learned about this book from a NYT editorial written by Nickolas Kristoff)

Vultures’ Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores, by Greg Palast (ANF). Fierce, angry book about the problems caused by the financial elite, not just in this country but worldwide. Palast is a true investigative journalist, and he brings us along as he travels to Alaska, Equador, Central Asia, and elsewhere uncovering the crimes that have brought this world to the brink of ecological and financial disaster. Reads like a thriller.

Feynman, by Ottaviani & Myrick (YANF). Graphic novel version of an autobiography of physicist, Richard Feynman, whose personal life and teaching skills were as impressive as his scientific skills. Great illustrations. And you might learn some physics as well!

Fiction:
Faithful Place, by Tana French (AF). OK, I lost an entire Saturday with this one! Another across-the-desk recommendation, this extraordinarily compelling family saga/ crime novel pulled me right in and didn’t let up until the end. Set in Dublin, this character-driven novel features detective Frank Mackey, who returns to his birth home after an absence of 20 years to revisit the disappearance of his girlfriend. They were planning to run away, get married, and start a new life away from the poverty and alcoholism that had trapped them both. Smart, occasionally funny, amazing character interrelationships, and an acute sense of place combine to make this one of the best novels I’ve read – maybe ever.

The Monk Downstairs (AF). I liked this book on so many levels. One, it was a flat-out love story between two adults - very lush and sexy. And, two, it was an exploration of the ways one can live a life, the finding of the balance between contemplation and action. And, three, it was so beautifully written that I wanted to just savor the experience. It made me feel good about the human experience.

An Irish Country Doctor, by Patrick Taylor (AF). This guy’s a wonderful writer. Love to bask in the essential goodness of the story of 2 rural G.P.’s in Northern Ireland - village doctors practicing their art and science among delightful characters. Mainly escapist fantasy, but Taylor knows his history, and inserts bits of heartbreaking reality about poverty and political unrest. Very compelling story, this.

The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross (AF). This book is just fun. Well, apart from the Nazi werewolves and approaching Armageddon. But Stross has crafted a story that combines madcap “saving the world” theatrics with mundane office place bureaucratic nitpicking. Very funny, in a Bill Murray, Ghostbuster sort of way.

The Complaints, by Ian Rankin (AF). Classic Rankin (minus Rebus), this police procedural, set in Edinburgh, “stars” D.I. Malcolm Fox, a cop who investigates other cops. Fox, his sister, Jude, his co-workers, people a complex, character-rich story, that holds interest as the story twists and turns. Very satisfying to read a novel featuring characters who depend on intelligence and their knowledge of human nature rather than force. Rankin’s a master!

Moonlight Downs, by Adrian Hyland (AF). There are so many similarities between this book series and the Steig Larssen series; both written by a man featuring a (weirdly) strong, physically small female protagonist, who rushes into danger, righting wrongs with little or no sense of her own peril. Emily Tempest, the main character in this series, does not have the awful past experiences of Salander, but is equally rash, tough, and brave. All in all, a satisfying read, set in central Australia among the indigenous people there.

Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull (JF). Recommended by a 9-year-old, this fantasy kept me enthralled throughout. Main characters were a brother and sister, each exhibiting different aspects of courage and character – the younger brother’s recklessness getting everyone into danger (and advancing the plot nicely), the older sister’s caution and intelligence getting them out. The story is populated by fairies, satyrs, trolls, witches – all gathered into a refuge to prevent their extinction. Very fun read!

Red on Red, by Edward Conlon (AF). I was pretty engrossed in this novel – loved the characters, and the story of two NYC cops proceeded in an unhurried, organic pace. Written by the author of the NF bestseller, Blue Blood, Conlon, who is a detective with the NYC Police Dept and a Harvard graduate writes well and knows his stuff. Very visual; I felt like I could “see” the terrain and the situations as they unfolded.

A Darker Domain, by Val McDermid (AF). Fascinating Scottish police procedural featuring 2 of the most appealing female leads in my memory – Detective Karen Pirie, and journalist Bel Richmond – both smart, tenacious, hard-working. The story moves from 1960’s Scottish mine country where the battle between unions and the owners rages, to the present, and is full of the social commentary, social justice themes that I most enjoy.

The Redbreast, by Jo Nesbo (AF). This one made me think. I had to go back to the beginning to reread the first part, and mark the pages that gave specific names in order to keep track of the characters. A Norwegian thriller that moved 50 years into the past to WW 2 and Norway’s part in that war, and then into the present following some of the main characters and their descendents. Fascinating, and a worthy “successor” for Steig Larssen fans. And this guy’s still alive and writing!

Unwind, by Neal Shusterman (YAF). Author recommended by my son,Alex, this young adult sci fi novel was excellent! Provocative plot (difficult or “unwanted” teenagers are harvested for their body parts) and wonderful courageous characters make this another important teen read and an author to follow!

When Will There by Good News?, by Kate Atkinson (AF). Fascinating crime novel/family saga that touches on the repercussions of early childhood trauma and the ways in which it affects people many years later. After a truly appallingly violent first chapter, the book proceeds to explore the lives and characters of the protagonists – the chief detective and her old friend and former colleague approaching the mystery from a couple of perspectives, and a wonderful young character, the resilient orphan, 16-year-old Reggie, whose love and courage lead to a conclusion. Excellent novel!

I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive, by Steve Earle (AF). Singer-songwriter, Earle has written a wonderful novel that reads like one of his songs. Set in a poor area of San Antonio, featuring heroin addict Doc, the ghost of Hank Williams, and Mexican immigrant, Graciela, whose magic healing touch transforms everyone she meets. As Howard Mosher says in his review of this novel, “If Jesus were to return tomorrow to twenty-first-century America and do some street preaching on the gritty South Presa Strip of San Antonio, he’d love Earle’s magnificently human, bighearted drifters.”

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak (YAF). Australian author, Zusak, has tackled the war, the holocaust, and has cast Death as the narrator in this far-ranging, troubling, compelling novel. Main character, Liesel Meminger, is orphaned at age 9, sent to a foster home, and lives out the war years with her dad, who she loves nearly immediately, her mom, whose brittle personality and angers take her a little longer, her best friend, the irrepressible Rudy, and Max, the Jew who wanders into their lives and lives in their basement a la Anne Frank for a time.

Bright’s Passage, by Josh Ritter (AF). Bright’s Passage, set in WW I France and West Virginia, features main character, Henry Bright, an Angel, and assorted other and sundry characters. Surprisingly dark in tone, given the joyful presence of its author during his musical appearances, the novel starts with the death in childbirth of Henry's 20-year-old wife, the birth of his son (the “Future King of Heaven”), and the forest fire that started after Henry, on the advice/demand of the angel - speaking through his horse - burns down his cabin. The story twists and turns, moving back and forth from the horrors of the war to the present. It’s a beautifully complex novel that ends with an affirmation of life.

Blue Heaven, by C.J. Box (AF). An “Everybody Reads” selection for 2011, this thriller, set in N Idaho, is a non-stop adrenaline ride, and starts off with 2 kids in peril. A story of contrasting cultures – rural Idaho vs inner-city Los Angeles – and a very clear good vs evil clash, this is one scary book. (One of the transplanted L.A. cops ruminating on the people in the small town that he moved to, “They’d never know in his heart he thought of them as jaded Europeans thought of Americans: as childlike, boisterous, loud, too insular to appreciate what they had, to unsophisticated to realize how easy it had been for them.”)

The Informationist, by Taylor Stevens (AF). Described as “smart, sexy, fast-paced” by Vince Flynn, this thriller has a main character very like Salander from the Steig Larssen books – kind of impossibly strong and brave, and damaged from childhood abuse. A page-turner, with some really appealing characters. My favorite was the African mercenary, Francisco Beyard – a tough guy with a tendbacklinksMode=ON

Solstice/Christmas

2011-12-24T16:23:00.000-08:00

Cripes! It's been a month. I've been busy but not that busy. I've actually been working on puzzles I got from thrift stores. 1$ total for 3 really good puzzles. The first one was missing 6 pieces. The second, missing 3. I'm hoping the pattern is 3 fewer missing pieces each time, not that this last one will be missing 1.5 pieces (half the number of missing pieces each time).

Solstice report:
We had a LOVELY day on Solstice. It was bright and cold and sunny and crisp. Warm enough to be outside but cold enough to be wintery.

Christmas: OK, it's only Christmas Eve but close enough.
My plans: Stay in jammies all day and eat and do/finish the puzzle while watching videos. Should be the perfect day. So far I've received MANY tins and boxes of tea as gifts and am on a bit of a tea binge. I've had about 5 cups today. Didn't even bother making coffee. It's all delicious. I'm making the most of the lemon and lime slices I dried. So far, they are good in all the kinlibrary or through a cheap rental to stay with the theme of thrifty):

Sordid Lives. It's not about a holiday but it is about family dysfunction and features Olivia Newton-John as a trashy country singer.

A Christmas Story (obviously)

Atanarjuat. Not about Christmas but set in the snowy icy north, and hypnotizing.

Pieces of April. Also not about Christmas. It's about thanksgiving dinner and family dysfunction (wait...is a theme developing?)

Fargo. Still not Christmas. It is set in North Dakota and Minnesota in the winter and features perhaps the most dysfunctional family of all on the list!

Clatterford (all three series). A Brit-com about life in a small town. A Christmas special is included, I think in series 1 or 2.

Two Fat Ladies (all series). More about food and one show features Christmas dinner.

That should get us all through the holiday.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T17:21:00.000-08:00

I've had a lovely Thanksgiving. An actual harvest dinner, though the 'harvest' was a bit thin.
I took the last 4 carrots out of the garden. One was a surprise as I hadn't even planted carrots there! An immaculate carrot. Well, it was only about 3 inches from the square I planted carrots in so I suppose it's not really a miracle, just a stray seed. Onions that I'd picked and stored earlier. The last of the parsley. Some kale that is still alive and slowly producing. Some of the lime thyme that is still looking pretty hardy. I added garlic and spices and a couple of sunchokes.

I also planted a bit. Some walking onions and most of the sunchokes. Had to tear out some of the mint that came from starts from Sally (Hi Sally!) because it was taking over too much real estate. It will probably like being torn up a bit.

I also made a nice apple crisp with local apples, organic oatmeal and local honey. Very nice.
As a treat (and because I didn't have to work so had plenty of time) I made a bit of vanilla hazelnut milk ice cream. Excellent.

I know it's a bit late to be planting, but everything has been so late I thought I might as well put them in. I did forget to put the garlic out, but it will still be warmish next week so I'll try some then. about 1/2 the square foot garden will be pretty much planted once the garlic is in.

Tomorrow I'm off to visit family.

Thrifty Thoughts

2011-11-18T17:39:00.000-08:00

So, once AGAIN I am pleased that I saved my money and spent some of it on tires. I went to the casino (11 miles away) for lunch with a friend. She drove. She also has good tires. In those 11 miles, we saw five new looking vehicles in the ditches. It is slick out there today, but we went slow and had good tires so we were fine. Even the most expensive tires are cheap compared to getting the left side of the car repaired after you hit the far side of the ditch (or is that the right side of the car? Whatever).

We, the members of the food coalition, found out this week that we are not alone in our admiration of the mighty (cheap) legume! We hosted a legumes cooking competition with the local community health program and expected 20 entries...there were 56!!! The featured legume was lentils, but we took entries that had any lentil, pea or bean as an ingredient. In a town of 800, 56 entries is amazing. We also had maybe 100 people show up to taste/eat/enjoy the food. Almost 15% of the local population at one event ... an event organized around beans ... is impressive. I think it will be an annual event. We're putting together the recipes in hopes of putting out a little cookbook. Is there any cheaper source of protein than beans, peas and lentils? We also had mostly new attendees who had not been at our previous events so that was also cool.

Amazingly, the black bean brownies were VERY good. The beans replaced the dairy, but not the eggs or sugar or chocolate and the brownies featured chocolate chips. These were devoured in minutes. The chocolate lentil muffins...well, they are good, but using 100% whole wheat flour and cutting down on sugar did change the flavor along with making them healthier.

I entered my Middle Eastern Lentil Soup, but rightly did not win any prize. Oh well...next year. I will be adding the lentil apple spinach berry salad to my repetoire of dishes along with the brownies. I sent the rest of my soup home with a coworker who agreed that it was much better on the 2nd day.

Here is the recipe for my entry. It comes from the "More with Less" Cookbook that Jonny (Hi Jonny!) gave me.

Middle Eastern Lentil Soup

Put in a pot and bring to a boil:
1 cup lentils (I use red or yellow but all taste good)
4 cups water
1/2 tsp cumin
Once it boils, reduce heat, cover and simmer until the lentils are fully cooked. About 30-40 minutes depending on the type of lentil.

Heat in a skillet:
1T olive oil (butter, margarine or another oil works fine)

Add
1 Onion chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
Fry until just yellowed but not browned or carmelized.

Add
1 T flour (white, whole wheat, anything that will thicken the soup will work)
cook just a minute or two.

Add the onion mixture to the soup and stir. Bring just to the boil. Remove from heat.

Just before serving add
2T Lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste (sea salt and fresh cracked pepper are best but anything will do).

Put some lemon juice, salt and pepper on the table for people to season their own bowls too.

It is excellent reheated the 2nd day with new lemon juice added just before you eat it.

Thrifty Entertainment

2011-11-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

Last night I actually went to a concert...a real one. With musicians and everything. I haven't been to a concert since Sally's performance with the Potlatch Community Band.

This was just as much fun. It was Indigenous (google them). A band founded by a couple of Native American brothers from South Dakota. They do blues-rock or rock-blues. Excellent stuff. It was only 10$ for an entire evening of entertainment. We didn't know it came with dinner so the group of us going shared dinner at one person's house. Very lovely and relaxing.

The drive home however....not so relaxing. I rode with Sally and John (hi) as far as Potlatch, then drove from there. It was just the right/wrong temperature so the little pass at Marsh Hill (which you can see on the Idaho Transportation Dept traffic cams website) was nasty. The rain turned to giant blowing snow flakes which reflected even my low beams right into my eyes. The high beams were hopeless. I started following the yellow lines and the white lines just ahead of the car and eventually slowed to about 15 miles per hour. Then the lines disappeared and there were no visible car tracks. So I followed the rumble strips that were still pretty visible beside the car. Then those disappeared. I could pretty well see where the road became ditch and judged my path from there (an admittedly meandering path at best). Then some car tracks appeared, but soon they clearly crossed the mid-way point between the ditches so I stuck with the ditch as a guide. I didn't stop because there was no where safe to stop. I just kept creeping along. Once off the hill the weather cleared up. If I had known I would have stayed at J&S's. But alas, I didn't know.

BUT I did have the snow tires on. Expensive snow tires. It's worth being thrifty elsewhere to afford those snow tires and the concert and meal with friends was well worth the trip and the 10$.

I also noticed that the last 2 "potluck" type meals I've been too have been much better proportioned than most. Usually there is WAY more food than is consumed but at the last couple there was just the right amount. I think that is thriftier than having too much.

OK, not the most thrilling entry, but I'm trying to do them more often.

BUSY!

2011-11-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

OK, how does it get to be so long between blogs?

First, Subaru owes me a car. Say a newer model used car. One of my relatives (Hi Marcie) bought one and now my mother (Hi Sher) is considering one.
Mine has 267000 miles and is still running well (well, it was 20 minutes ago so I assume it's still running).

Second...I've been busy putting apples in jars and fermenting things on the counter. The first batch of kombucha was acceptable. I'm hoping for an improvement on the second batch which I started last night (along with the third batch). The vinegar that is brewing smells pretty boozy so it might be going through a hard cider phase before it gets to vinegar.

Third, someone asked what my oddest frugal practice is. At first I thought that I didn't have any odd practices. But I spent the morning with a "normal" person. She was trying to show me the fancy face washes and shampoos available at the local spa. They are lovely but I almost said "I don't wash my face or use shampoo" and realized that that is pretty wierd. Then she invited me to a fashion show. I noted that I don't buy my clothes retail. She said I could come for the wine...don't drink much wine. Turns out, I've got many odd habits that are overtly or accidentally frugal. Which is the oddest though? Who knows. Turning the water heater off every other day during warm weather? Shutting things off at the breakerbox when not in use (to avoid the constant "ready" light electrical usage? Changing all bulbs to CFLs? Waiting for thrift store clothes to go on sale because 4.99 is just too much for a shirt? Spending more on my shoes for the year than on all other clothes combined (bad shoes are not frugal)? I can't choose. It all seems logical to me but I suppose that is no defense against "odd."

Apparently I'm Strange...

2011-11-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

So the custodian at work, a nice young artist who makes ends meet by cleaning up after us, decided to sit down today for a chat. He said "I want to know more about who 'Jill' is." He concluded that I'm "interesting."
I think he means "odd" but I'm ok with that. He wanted to know if I kept house like I keep my office (messy)...uh, yep.
Why do I drive an old car when I have a good job. Do I have kids, pets? What do I do with my free time?
It was sort of amusing.

He was most interested in the radio show and that I have no debt. We'll see if he comes back for more information.

The other odd interaction...well, one of them...this week was a call out of the blue. On Saturday or Sunday I was at the office while I waited for apple butter to thicken up in the crock pot. I needed to leave the house (trailer) so I didn't chop up any more apples or try to dry anything else. I needed a break. My cell phone rang. A local number so I picked it up. It was a woman who lives in a DIY strawbale home, sells milk that she squeezes out of the cow with her own hands, and basically kicks my butt in all things self-sufficient. She had called the local extension agent for advice on some jam she was trying to finish on the stove. She wanted to add grapes to the plums, but was using sur-jel, which is finicky about amounts of fruit and sugar (according to the package). I advised her to go ahead and try it as long as she can tolerate slightly runny jam if it doesn't jel up fully. I also advised her to try Pomona brand pectin next year since it can be used for any size batch of jam/jelly and it is not dependent on sugar to thicken (sur-jel is sugar dependent and size touchy....just like me).
I was pretty flattered to be a local jam expert. Then I just felt sad for the county that I might be their best bet on this. I've only made jam for a few years, though admittedly I make enough to count for several years' experience each fall.

Back to the apple butter. I called Sher (Hi Sher!), or "Mom", for her recipe since she makes excellent fruit butters. She was with Gram when I called so I thought "great, 2 generations of advice." Here is Sher's recipe:
Peel core and cut up some apples.
Cook then down a bit on the stove and then in a crock pot on low.

How long? Until it's thick enough.
Do you add sugar or honey? Yah.
How much? Enough to make it as sweet as you want it.
Do you add spices? Yah.
Which ones? Cinnamon and cloves.
How much? Quite a bit.
Do you add lemon juice so it is a high acid food for canning? I don't remember.

Then she noted that she uses that hand blender I got her to make it a good consistency.

I asked if, since I'll be blenderizing it anyway, I could leave the skins on. She didn't know and asked Gram. Gram said I could do whatever I want, but the skins won't cook down like the apples will.

So, armed with that incredibly precise recipe I gave it a shot.
I had a box of mixed pie apples from the farmer's market. Johnagolds, Granny Smiths, and some random varieties of small tart apples. For the first batch I peeled them (used the peels to make apple peel vinegar that is still brewing on the counter). I chopped up the apples and cooked them in a stainless steel pan on the stove for a while (until I got bored which is what I thought Sher would do). Then I put it in the crock pot with some honey, cinnamon and nutmeg (I was out of ground cloves or at least I couldn't find them). I put the crock pot on low and got back to it after work the next day.
It is DELICIOUS! I served it at a community breakfast and when I casually asked if anyone would like to take the left over 9/10ths of a pint, one woman nearly knocked me down lunging for the jar.
Good recipe Sher!

For the further 20some halfpint jars of apple butter I've put up, I left the skins on. I just took a whole apple to the big holes on the cheese grater and had at it. I grated down until the seeds started to show. I also went ahead and put it right in the crock pot. Then I put a big scoop of honey on top, put on "a lot" of cinnamon and nutmeg. Then I put the top on the pot, put it on low and came back the next day. It was also excellent and tasted more "caramelly" than the 1st batch.

For the 3rd batch I tried quartering and coring the apples and throwing them in the crock pot with honey and spices. It was the lowest amount of labor, but I couldn't get as many apples in the pot as with grating or chopping. I think it also used the most of the apple.

For all recipes, I stuck in the hand blender (stick blender) and ran it around about an hour or 2 before I put it in jars and into the canner. The blender adds some air so it's good to do it a bit early. I just do it as I turn on the stove because it takes that long to get the canner boiling. It is SO EASY. It's even easier than jam.

Since most of my jam this year is crap (really) the winter is going to be apple butter heavy.

Consumer Society Sadness

2011-10-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

OK, maybe I'm pretty dang far from the mainstream, but really?

(actual Spokane headline)
Crowds Camp Overnight For Trader Joe's Opening

Camping out overnight for a new store? Really? A chainstore?
I don't get it. Did you have nowhere else to spend your money? Did the lure of cheap wine overwhelm you?

I like Trader Joe's. Nothing against them. I am also mystified by folks who camp out for the store openings the day after Thanksgiving. "Thanks for this bounty, Lord. Gluttony finished. Now, I must sit in my overpriced SUV in a parking lot waiting to participate in greed." Perhaps you could stop at a strip joint on the way home and participate in lust. I wonder how many people will be killed this holiday shopping season in Walmart stampedes. Perhaps Apple will announce a postumous i-something release and humpback nerds across the developed world will crawl over each other for the first overpriced prize.

Meanwhile, I'll be home self-righteously weaving a tube-top out of plastic grocery sacs I find stuck in the shrubbery by the public library.

Updating

2011-10-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

OK, not much is going on and yet I'm super busy. What the Heck?
Well, maybe alot is going on.

Bookclub read Zeitoun which was wonderful and horrible. It's about a family after Katrina, non-fiction. Makes me very glad to live in a non-hurricane prone area (at least until global warming brings the ocean up 2500 feet). It does bring up an issue or two though. One person in this non-fiction book was arrested for having a large amount of cash on hand. But having a large amount of cash on hand is EXACTLY what we are told to do in an emergency. Instead of congratulating him on his preparedness, the "homeland security" worker arrested him and jailed him and his money was never seen again. Hmmm....I guess I'll have cash on hand and take my lumps. Other people were arrested for having nothing. Both were seen as suspicious. Perhaps we need to look harder at our "homeland security" and perhaps we need FEMA and security agencies separated again.

Anyway, next we're reading, at my suggestion, To Kill A Mockingbird. Aside from the main point of the book, there is quite a bit about frugality and simplicity in there. The people Scout, and apparently Atticus, respect most are those who've made conscious decisions about how to live their lives. That's pretty central to simplicity and frugality.

As for homelife...it's that time of year when I take an inventory of my panty (meaning the front bedroom, cupboards and shelves in the kitchen, and the space under the bed where I store my home-canned goods), then fill in for the winter. I'm doing OK and hopefully by the end of October will be all set for winter. Last winter I was so set, I put on like 20lbs. Good work! (maybe too good...). I ordered another 4gallon bucket (48 lbs) of honey. It went up 20$ this year which still isn't bad for a year and a half of sweetening. I also bought a pint of their buckwheat honey. It's as dark as black strap molasses but delicious (molasses is a tad bitter even for me). It's also super thick but that may be the temperature in the house rather than the natural consistency of the honey.

I, on the recommendation of a young friend, bought a 20$ space heater so I can keep the furnace off longer into fall/winter this year. So far it's working. It will add 5 degrees to the living room in about an hour. The difference between 50degrees and 55 is pretty significant. The tough part is getting up in the morning. It was 49 in the bedroom this morning which makes it hard to get up. The good part is I can heat the bathroom in about 20 minutes and be able to take a shower without fear of pneumonia. I need to re-borrow the volt-meter from the library and see what this little bugger is pulling. It HAS to be cheaper than turning on the electric furnace.

On that topic, I cleaned the furnace out, put in a new filter and got it ready for the new season.

I've got one last batch of onions to dehydrate, then I might be done for the time being. I also have onions and potatoes from the CSA which should store pretty well into winter and about 5 garlic bulbs from my garden (woohoo!). I need more garlic. I've been buying winter squash for storage as well. Have 5 right now. Maybe 10 more to get me through winter. Tons of dried tomatoes, with some left from last winter. I dried a few more (meaning 3 pints dried) sweet peppers. I have plenty of medium and hot left from last year.

The next task is to harvest the remaining marble like potatoes from my garden, throw on the horse poo and chicken poo on the half that will be fallow for the winter and some worm poo on the half where I'll put in walking onions and garlic.

Great Flick!

2011-10-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

So I just watched Forks Over Knives

A researcher who has nothing to gain from this outcome, estimates that we could cut 70% of our healthcare costs by eating healthy as a nation. It makes me wonder what it would take to convince people to do that. I'm not eating healthy right now (by my own standards and admission). I'm eating too much prepared food, too much restaurant food, too much candy. Time to go back to mostly whole veggies that I prepare at home. Not as much fun at the food someone else cooks without messing up my kitchen, but I think I'd better.

I know this stuff. But the movie is a good refresher. The filmmakers took a few "normal" Americans...you know: overweight, on diabetes meds, heart disease, high cholesterol, etc...and put them on Dr. Esselstyn's diet. One of the filmmakers decided to go on the diet too. In 12-22 weeks, people reverse most or all of their issues. I need to look up the two main Doctors but they seem pretty honest about presenting their conclusions. One lost money and prestige at his research university by changing his position on the consumption of animal products. I don't think he'd have done that if he didn't think he'd done good research.

Perhaps the bit that will be most controversial is that we're eating too much protein and that leads to cancer, especially liver cancers. And even more especially, liver cancers in kids. Yikes! I've been eating more meat products and eggs. Apparently it doesn't help if the meat/eggs/dairy/fish/etc is organic (though the toxins in industrial versions also cause other problems). Too much animal protein is just a problem no matter what.

Or perhaps the most controversial bit will be that there is no one issue or nutrient or magic bullet. It's a whole system. If you want to lower your cancer risk, then eat a whole food plant based diet. Don't expect tomatoes to be "the answer." Or spinach to be "the answer." The answer is to eat a variety of whole foods...plants. Sort of a no brainer but not a "standard American diet."

I'm better off than many Americans because I don't do dairy. Small favors.

An interesting point was made about the marketing of dairy as a source of calcium. If that worked, there would be no osteoporosis in the U.S. As a nation, we consume enormous amounts of dairy as milk, cheese, yogurt, etc. And yet, osteoporosis is on the rise. My gyno is always telling me to eat dairy. I've given up explaining why I don't and just say "uh huh." It looks like we can get plenty from a veggie based diet and if we get a bit of sun and the vitamins that help us absorb and use the calcium, we don't need the massive doses of dairy or supplements. So there.

As usual, some of the best info is in the extras. The US has (or has had) contracts with fast food establishments like Wendy's and Subway to market cheese! Jesus...or "Cheezuz"! My tax dollars went to subsidize the marketing of the double cheddar bacon burger. I'm not making that up. It also went to put cheese on the two Subway sandwiches that used to come without cheese as a standard ingredient. My taxes also went to making sure that "cheeseburger" is the default burger! I suspect this happened about 2-3 years ago. That was when I started having more trouble with the accidental cheese when I'd ordered a burger. I wonder if this is why there is default cheese on salads now. It used to be that only speciality salads like caesar and chef's that had cheese. Now even when I order a salad with no cheese listed on the menu, it shows up with feta or parmesan on it. I've been thinking the lesson was to specify "no cheese" but perhaps the better lesson is to prepare my own food.

The movie is a tad preachy. That isn't a surprise, but it isn't as entertaining as Supersize Me. It is however more encouraging than that movie. Eating a healthy diet, even after years of a bad diet, can cure diseases and the something-thelial cells in our blood vessels can actually recover pretty quickly IF we stick to a whole foods plant based diet.

Again, this isn't new. As Michael Pollan said, "Eat food, mostly plants." This movie just clarifies that it should be whole foods, not processed foods like veggie burgers or almond-cheese or soy-milk. Eat the veggies, the almonds and the soybeans.

It's thrifty too. It can be flat out cheaper at the grocery store partly because 500 calories of plants will make you feel so full you feel bloated, while 500 calories of fatty food will leave you hungry and you'll eat more. You have to buy that "more" that you are eating. Also because you aren't paying for the processing and often aren't paying for the packaging. That's good.

One participant in the film who was on 9 meds a day, pointed out that he saved 150-200$/month by going off his meds. That's pure profit. You can buy a lot of veggies for that much money.

It was pointed out that poor folks often don't have access to whole foods so the movie is also encouraging for those of us trying to get fresh, whole, fruit and veg into food deserts.

Here's a scary bit from the flick. In WWII Germans occupied Norway and confiscated all livestock and farm animals to feed German troops. From 1939 (when the Germans got there) to 1945, the Norwegian cardiovascular death rate drops 20%. As soon as the war is over, it's right back up again to pre-war rates. Bizarre.

I was ready to revamp my diet anyway. I found that when I eat 2lbs of greens a day, 1lb raw and 1lb cooked, I feel better. Not the first few days because there is quite a colon cleanse at the start, but after that, I feel much better. So I bought lots of greens and veggies at the co-op today. I had bruschetta for supper...a bit heavy on the bread but at least it was fresh baked rustic bread with local wheat flour, salt, yeast and water as the only ingredients. I'm expecting a final CSA delivery this week too. That will be more veg to eat. Now if my officemate would just stop with the chocolate in the office! It is so delicious....and as they explained in the movie, many of us have a low-grade addiction to foods especially sugary-fatty-foods. It's the same brain receptors as opiates. Damn it. Oh well. Avoiding eating too much chocolate is a pretty bourgeois problem.

I'm not sure whether a whole foods plant based diet would cure the world's problems, but I'm positive that if everyone had the option of a healthy diet that was built on whole foods grown in sustainable ways, we'd be way better off than we are now. And I wouldn't have to buy bigger pants.

Cheap Entertainment!

2011-10-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

So now I'm in Missoula at another cheap conference. Sadly, the keynote speaker for this conference could not make it due to a health issue, and I'm not interested in the pinch-speakers so I probably DID pay 25$ for a banquet I won't attend. That's a bummer, but wasting 3 or 4 hours of my life on something that I would find mindbendingly dull just to "use" the 25$ ticket would be worse.

Anyway, the cheap entertainment is not at the conference. I left after my paper and hanging around just enough to be seen and kiss some professional-butt...I mean networking. My friend Jeanne's (Hi Jeanne!) daughter goes to school here and is a very nice young woman. She treated me to lunch in the cafeteria. Then I treated her to a dinner downtown. Then she treated me to roller derby! The roller derby was a double header so for the price of the ticket (which she paid...she's quick) we got over 4 hours of entertainment! The roller girls were great. There were some excellent athletes, and some who were on the team just to use their giant butts to block the skinny jammer girls. The jammers are sort of the quarterbacks or forwards. Then there is a pivot, who is sort of the main guard. Then there are the slammers. Some of these were BIG gals. Big butts. And yet, never once did the DJ play this:

I think that showed great restraint on his part. The jammers tend to be pretty skinny, even wiry. They slip through the bigger gals to get points. I totally want to do roller derby now.

We spent part of the evening discussing great names for roller derby teams.
For the older set: The Menopause Mob (the name my siblings and I use for Mom and her friends...Hi Mom). On that team, my derby name would be Polly Estrogen

Or: The Betty Crackers (we'd wear our tights very low). On that team my name would be The Plumber

Or: The Golden Ragers. My name: Mick Jugger

Or: The Mother Loads. My name: Saggy Maggy

Or...well, you get the drift. I think it was 10$ a ticket (I'll find some way to slip the girl some $$). 4 hours of entertainment for 10$ is a pretty good price. Some of the profits went to boob cancer research too so we not only had a good time, we helped save the world.

In reality...I'm a big chicken, a bad roller skater, and I don't like getting hurt so I probably won't pursue the whole roller derby thing.

Tomorrow morning we plan on going to the conference again....HA! Kidding. I sat through my session, since I was pressed into being the session host, and 1.5 other papers. I just cannot listen to people talk about fragments of fragments of fragments of information in 20 minute chunks. Especially when it comes to the joy of pointy rocks. I just can't do it. Ultimately, the minutea (spelling?) do not help me in my job. Big picture stuff is really where it's at. Big new areas of significance? OK, I can use that. Slight variation in sourcing methodology for chert? Don't care and can't use it. Does it make me self centered that I can no longer sit through those papers? I used to GIVE those papers back when I was in the tenure game. No more.

Anyway, enough bitching about conference papers. It could be worse. It's in a nice building and if I'm ambitious I could put on my name tag and get some breakfast rolls and a coffee. But I'd have to walk quite a ways to get it so probably won't.

Rather than going to the conference, we're heading over to some outdoor markets. It might be a tad chilly, but there will be goodies and interesting people. And we'll be in a good area for some cheap lunch.

OK, it's LATE! Like MIDNIGHT! I'm rarely up this late. Off to bed to rest up for more vacation fun tomorrow.

CHEAP working vacation

2011-10-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

I'm writing to this in Denver CO. I'm here for a conference which will increase my skillz at work. Nice. The registration fee is 0$, so that is pretty thrifty. Flying to Denver from Spokane is pretty cheap as well. And, I can stay with Jonny (Hi Jonny) for free...also pretty thrifty. I thought I would be taking the bus to the conference (which starts tomorrow), but as luck would have it, Jonny's new job is in the same area as the conference so I just ride along and get dropped off in the neighborhood. Such a deal.

To make the most of the trip, I arrived a couple of days early. Jonny had called and asked if I wanted to see a theater production, a "play" I believe they are called. Sure. Then he says to me he says, "Grapes of Wrath or Night of the Iguana?" How could I choose??? The Grapes of Wrath is playing at a local community playhouse that is tragically underfunded. Night of the Iguana is playing at a better funded playhouse in Golden, Colorado. I've been to both theaters before and loved both productions for very different reasons. So, we went to both. The Grapes of Wrath needed to be better funded...and better staged, cast, scripted, scored, and etc. It was a valiant attempt and several of the actors were very good in most of the parts they played (all but the 2 or 3 leads played multiple characters which got pretty confusing given the fairly subtle costume changes available to them). I must say, these were the best fed Okies I've ever seen. Of course, casting this must have been a real challenge since it required not only folks willing to work for free, they also needed to be able to sing, act, do make-up, costuming, set design and construction, and hopefully play an instrument! I was actually impressed with how well it came off, especially that it had been scored by a local bluegrass group who appeared in costume on and near the stage to provide the music. The music was very good. Still, it was too much for the resources the theater had at its disposal, as evidenced by the silent auction going on in the lobby...Star Wars memorabilia anyone? ANYONE?

Then there was the LENGTH of the play. Over THREE HOURS! Our butts were barking by the end of it. There was a "talk back" scheduled after the performance where the audience could talk with the director and actors...but we bolted. As did much of the audience. We had come for some entertainment, not an overnight stay. We got there at 7ish and left at 10:30. Wow.

Last night was "Night of the Iguana" which I HONESTLY believed would be a cheesy horror show done on stage. I didn't know that it was Tenessee Williams. OOPS. Jonny let me know before I got there that it was an real play by a real and respected playwrite. I was a bit scared that it wouldn't be crappy. I do love crappy community theater. It wasn't crappy. But it was SO GOOD that I was not at all disappointed. Unfortunately, we showed up 15 minutes late. Just scheduling problems with trying to do too much on vacation. We thought maybe we'd have to wait for intermission or at least a scene change to be seated and were OK with that. The manager, however, is a pretty intense guy and rather than offering options or sending us away in shame, he chose to focus a great deal of anger and some prize winning stink-eye looks on us. We wandered up to the boarded "box office" in the lovely theater facility above some store fronts in Golden. Then meandered into the lobby/beverage-service area. In there we were "greeted" by a tall, bald, finickily bearded man with actual FLAMES shooting out of his eyes "WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" Jonny cringed and stammered and I just stared, enjoying the show. The flame-eyed man continued to berate Jonny while a meek woman behind him said "Hostager?" (Jonny's last name) and handed ME (the one out of the direct line of fire) 2 tickets and a receipt. The anger-management-manager said that we would be seated off to the side (he had frog marched us out on to the landing to give us more daggery-glares). Fine. He ran to the first side door and opened it, then said, "NOT HERE" and frog marched us all the way through the lobby again to the other side door and stomped in and pointed us toward the ENTIRELY VACANT (other than one old woman) side section. There were a total of 40 audience members so being crappy to 2 of them, 5%, was perhaps not his best plan. We sat down and enjoyed the show. The old lady asked if we wanted to move past her but I said we'd settle in during intermission.

At intermission I tried to go for a pee, dodging the glares of the manager, but there was a massive line at the ladies room so I went back in and chose better seats. The old lady returned from what was apparently a vigorous smoke break, her breath was pretty intense. She was very nice and said that if you come late you can sit anywhere on the side section that you like, then talked about other plays she'd been to. In my head, I'm naming her "Maude" and taking notes for a character in my next film (see below). She had glittery costume jewelry, shiny but dignified polyester shirt and sensible old-lady pants. She was at least in her 70s and reminded me of my Gramma and GreatGramma on my mom's side. Tiny body, big personality. Jonny came back in and sat in front of her. I asked if his big head was in her way and she said, "No, because I'll just move over here" and changed her seat.

The play was wonderful, moreso in contrast to the struggling production of the night before. One actor has TV as well as stage experience. All the actors did excellent jobs and of course Tennessee did a better job with dialogue than the local folks could manage with the Grapes of Wrath. The first play was awesome in its craptacularity. The second was just really good theater.

At the end of Night of the Iguana, the cast bowed to the 37 audience members seated in front of the stage, then the whole cast came to our side and bowed to the three of us. Perhaps they thought we were some sort of rag-tag family troupe with Gramma treated the grandkids to a night out.

Afterwards, we had to walk out through the whole lobby. In hindsight, we should have crossed in front of the stage inside the theater and gone out the far door, dodging the manager's domain, the lobby. But, we didn't. He was stationed at that end of the lobby shaking hands with everyone who went by. The woman infront of me got a full body hug and a thank you. While he was doing that, he was GLARING at me. I waited a moment to see if he'd release his captive and shake my hand, allowing me a moment to apologize for my tardiness and compliment him on the production...but he continued to hug and glare for an inordinate amount of time. So I said "Thanks" with probably quite a dose of sarcasm in my voice, and headed through the lobby and out onto the landing. Jonny waited a bit longer to shake the guy's hand so I check the restroom line again. It was long so I gave up. When I turned around Jonny had joined me, looking stunned. The guy had never released the captive hug-ee and Jonny had had to just continue on. I looked over Jonny's shoulder into the lobby and there was the manager STILL glaring at us! He had crossed the entire lobby, passing people with the manners to show up on time and who were chatting happily about the production, just to GLARE at us with his arms folded. This made me laugh so I headed down the stairs and outside. I didn't bother to look up at the windows but assumed he was shooting eye daggers out the window at us. Jesus. I'm pretty sure he spent more energy hating us for being late than he spent enjoying his successful production! Crazy. I had been thinking of getting Jonny a membership to that theater for christmas because it comes with 2 free tickets and some recognition as a patron of the arts...but now I'm afraid Jonny will be on the black list and get refused or glared at. By the time we hit the street I was laughing so hard I had to stop for a minute and get ahold of myself. Really. All that energy spent being angry and hateful to 2 people who were 15 minutes late for a community theater production? Really? Jonny took it more personally than I did. I figure we can put this guy in the next movie as well (see below).

Our other thrifty (ish) fun has been making our first, well second, film. The true first film was lost to history. Maybe when we're famous it will resurface. Personally, this is my third film since I did make the epic "Killer Beagle" in high school. That has also been lost to history.

Jonny, Gino and I shot a very very short film (it's currently in post production) called "Late September Supper" inspired in part by "Mid August Lunch." It has more in common with the first play described above than the second. Our costumes were what I brought plus Jonny's supply of wigs and glasses and crocs, as well as a few items found at thrift stores on the way to Jonny's house from the airport. I'm afraid that there will be more "outtakes" than actual content. Oh well. We had fun and WE think it is HILARIOUS. It's one major flaw, well, the majorist of all the flaws, is that Angela was not available to join us. As a result, the character she would have played is referred to but never apears on screen. Maybe someday we could have someone shoot her infront of a blue screen and we can cut her in that way.

Other major flaws:

-We had no camera person...no cinematographer if you will.... so each of us filled in. Also, I got the camera Monday and we shot the film Saturday. I had not practiced at all really and didn't know that each time the camera went to sleep between takes/scenes, it moved to a neutral level of zoom. This meant that I am only partly in the frame sometimes. Oh well. Not missing much there!

-Jonny and Gino had not read the script I sent them. None of us was particularly interested in sticking to the script...but still, it's polite to read the script.

-and much much more.

I'll post the flick if it ever makes it out of post.

CHEAP SOLAR!!

2011-09-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

OK, I know that is sideways but I can't be arsed to change it around. I'm getting complaints about not blogging enough. (Hi Sally!)

So that is a picture of the best deal EVER! See the price on it? $8.00. Well, I actually paid $2.00. What is it worth on the retail market?
75$ at ebay. 100$ at amazon. Seriously!
Lots of people gave them bad reviews, but for 2$, what the heck. A few said the charger burned up their devices. I charged my 5 year old phone and free ipod with it. If it burns up my devices, I'm not really out anything since they are old and/or free anyway. A few people at amazon give it good reviews. And they paid RETAIL. Losers.

I found it at St. Vincent de Paul's in Coeur d'Alene. It was in the dishroom. That room was 75% off that day. Cool.

Is it wrong to wait for sales at thrift stores? Does that make my purchases redundant? Thrift AND on sale? I just waited a week for a shirt at Goodwill to go on sale. I didn't want to pay an whole 4$! I mean really. 4$ for a shirt? I'm not made of money. I waited for that tag color to go on 50% off sale. I don't make special trips, just when I'm in town. Sometimes things get sold but oh well. That's just more savings.

At another thrift store in CdA, I got a pair of jeans for 50cents (they will fit as soon as I lose 10lbs....off each thigh), and a shirt for 50cents which will go under the above shirt to make an outfit for an upcoming conference. Everything is "namebrand" for Idaho (columbia, eddie bauer, LL Bean, etc).

I also got 2 pairs of ALL COTTON jeans (you know how I feel about spandex in my jeans) at the CdA women's shelter thrift store. The wealthy middle aged women who just went back to California must have dropped them off. Sadly, most of these women have very short legs. I need a 32 inch inseam MINIMUM and most of the jeans were 28...and then hemmed. Who are these people? Chimps? No, if they were chimps the sleeves would be long enough for me and those are too short too. Anyway, if there are any beefy long limbed women in CdA looking to get rid of some all cotton jeans, you should totally call me. I'll pay up to 3$ a pair.

Green Acres...

2011-09-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend I'm getting a bit of practice at farming. Some friends asked me to farmsit for them. I've done it before with some backup, but decided to try this weekend without anyone else around. If I want to have a farm or otherwise live in the boonies on my own, I should see if I can do this. This is not a totally realistic test because there is a nice house with internet, flush toilet, working well, garden, fence in place, etc etc. But still, there are animals and I'm on my own.

So far things are going pretty well. The first day everything went pretty well. The only difficulties were very minor. A chicken who likes to steal other nests and sit on the eggs for a day, then abandon them...she wouldn't let me get under her to get the eggs out. She pecked me! That bitch. So I got a short hoe from the shed and cornered her with that while I went for the egg. Then on the way out of the coop the rooster came at me with his sharp talons. He had me cornered against the door of the coop! That bastard. I called one of the dogs over and he backed off but it was pretty embarrassing. Those were very minor issues. The dogs and I spent the hot afternoon napping in the living room.

This morning the rooster, who HATES me, came over close to the bedroom window and specifically crowed at me starting at about 5am. At 7:30 the dogs decided they'd had it, and sent one up on the bed to dance on me. That worked. I got up and let them out for a pee. I went and checked and fed animals then brought the dogs in for their breakfasts. They had apparently spent their night plotting to exploit my weak points. First, they went for "groggy before has coffee." There are 3 dogs and they get fed 2 different foods (one is a pup) in 3 different spots and in a specific order. You start with the pup out in the back room. I got her fed and started eating and brought the chubby lab his breakfast. When I turned around, the pup had come into the dining room and horned the lab out of his dish and was snarfing it down! I grabbed the pup and was taking her back to her own food. The lab, who is a piggy, finished his and had half his body down in the giant garbage can of kibble by the time I got back. I hadn't closed it because the third dog still needed her food. I was pulling him out of there when the pup showed up. So the pup and the lab got thrown out of the house. The third dog was being very good. She got fed and ate politely. Then she tried to jump on the couch which is not allowed so I threw her out too. It was like a dog version of the three stooges or that "I Love Lucy" episode where Lucy and her friend are working at the food factory and food just keeps coming at them and they can't keep up. I was Lucy.

The drain plug on the horse/mule-water bathtub got dislodged while I was topping up the water. I don't like to be in the corral when the mule is in there, but they need water and he came over. He kept eating, but I don't want to be found face down in a pink bathtub in the mule corral. I think I have that fixed, but will check again later.

Overall, no disasters so far, and I think if I were more used to the routine, it would be easier. Also, I'm thinking of making cold brewed coffee in the fridge tonight so I have coffee the minute I get up and before I need to deal with animals.

There are a few acres here the owners would be willing to sell me. I'm going to go over there and take a look again today and see what I think. It's too far to drive to work...but who knows what the future brings.

Yet Another Laudry Tip

2011-08-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

This tip is from Gramma. She's done laundry for longer than the rest of us have been alive...starting with fish-slimy clothes scrubbed in a bucket (her brothers and father ran a fishing business in the Mississippi), and ending with a nice washer and dryer set.

She puts a couple of big bath towels (dry ones) in the dryer when drying small loads. This speeds the drying process and saves electricity and $$.

Aunt Chris vouches for the effectiveness of the towels.

Headlines?!?!

2011-07-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, I don't know if I've ranted on this before...but I feel like ranting on it today.

The "headlines" so often seem to be aimed at the stupid and/or fearful. So many times I want to say "No Sh*t." Or perhaps "So what?"

Here are a few plaguing the interwebs today:

Health Tip: Get Kids Moving (Really? I thought letting them sit on their fat butts was the best way to keep them healthy. This isn't news.)

Health Tip: Keep Kids' Lunches Cool (But little Jill Jr. LIKES hot mayonaise.)

Health Tip: Binge Eating May Lead to Weight Gain (Well then, I need a new weight loss strategy. I was SURE that cramming loads of donuts in my fat face would make me lose weight or at least stay healthy. WHO KNEW that eating lots and lots of food in short time spans would make you fat?!?!)

5 Apps With...Lauren Bush: Model, Designer And Philanthropist (How exactly is it news if some rich white chick likes her Ipod? Why not run this in the advertising section?)

Apple To Buy Hulu? (I don't know. You're the reporter. You tell me.)

Laid Off On Wall Street: Lowest-Paid Workers Losing Jobs (NO! You mean the people at the top don't just fire each other???? Are you telling me that the people at the bottom get the shaft? Well, that IS news.)

In Chrysler Bailout, Taxpayers Likely To Lose Up To $1.3 Billion: Treasury (While we may not have know exactly how much, we knew when the bailouts happened that we weren't going to get that back. It was a loser. Not news unless you concentrate on the exact amount.)

Michelle Obama Films 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition', Repeats Target Dress On Thursday (Since when is someone wearing clothes for a second time "news"? I'm wearing a shirt today for about the 100th time so apparently I'm way ahead of Michelle Obama. Why aren't reporters banging on the trailer door?)

This is why I rarely read or watch mainstream news. It used to be news. Then it was "infotainment." Now it lacks both "info-" and "-tainment." I quit.

If anyone has suggestions for a news site where fewer than 1/2 of the headlines are questions or warnings about how I might die from random household items or updates on the current favorite products of celebrities, I'd like to know where it is. The BBC is starting to let me down. CNN is filled with crap in the "health" and "living" type sections and the international news is largely based on asking how serious tragedies in other countries might affect US citizens...then speculating that it's all bad or otherwise fear mongering. I read Dahr Jamail's articles and follow Greg Pallast, but there must be more journalists out there doing some good work. These two guys can't cover everything.

Budgets

2011-07-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

So, the other day a friend called and asked for budgeting advice...how much was a minimal amount in each category (groceries, gas, etc).
Well, I answered and to each his/her own. I have done a budget and probably should be doing it again next month.

First: Check out this bit of advice since this guy is a pro, then read on:
http://www.stretcher.com/stories/10/10jan04b.cfm

It's important to keep spending under control if one cares to live within one's means (which obviously I think is a good plan).

When I started, I did a budget and strove to keep within it. But I also tracked actual expenses and that is something I still do a couple of months a year. Starting with target and goal amounts to spend/save is one thing to do.

Another is being realistic about how much one IS spending/saving (or not saving). Until I figured out where my money was actually going, it was tough to even figure out what my budget categories were. After a few months of tracking, it became clear that some of the lines in the budget book didn't work well for me. So I changed them. I separated the cell phone and the land line. I included a meal out once a month in the entertainment line along with Netflix. And I realized that I spent more in thrift shops for kitchen gadgets and "neat stuff" than was necessary.

So, once I knew where the money was going, I started picking the low hanging fruit. Pretty easy to skip an espresso or two a week and make coffee at home. That's 20$/month ($2.50 per americano roughly twice a week) so 240$/year. Then I started, for other reasons, cooking at least one meal per week entirely from scratch. That cut the "food budget" eventhough it raised the groceries budget. This summer I've slipped from the cooking at home a bit, lots of time on the road make it easy to stop for a sandwich, so will be making renewed efforts to do that again. Cooking at home is way cheaper, but it's also a lifestyle choice anymore. It means taking the time to cook rather than driving to get food. It means more time in the house and alone. I like in the house and alone so that is a good budgeting method for me.

Other low hanging fruit were shopping trips. If I didn't need something, I didn't go to a store. Not even a thrift store. I spent an entire year not shopping other than for groceries or if I had a specific need. Need, not want. Like underwear is a need if the old ones are actually worn out. A new shirt is a want if I still have a closet full of shirts that bore me. The need then had to persist for at least a month. And then I started with a thrift store run to see if it was there. If not, I gave it some more time until it was there.

Washing clothes in cold water is another low hanging fruit. Saves on heating water.
Cutting back on the amount of detergent was easy and my clothes are as clean as they ever were (I've never been that picky and don't buy white things anymore...too many stains).

There's more. I'll make a list some day.

It took years to get this cheap. One habit at a time. And there is much back sliding when my schedule is disrupted.

Once the easy stuff was done, I worked on the not-so-low-hanging fruit. Buying more bulk products. Making fewer trips to town (by now I'd moved to the boonies). Turning down the thermostat a degree or two a week one winter until I found my minimum long term comfort zone (55 degrees). Then, I figured out that in the summer I can turn off the water heater during the day and whenever I'm gone for a few days. If the showers are short (another common area for backsliding ... I loves me a long hot shower), I can go 2 days without turning the water heater on in the summer. The water is hot enough.

I hadn't used a clothes dryer in years...never did use one much after I moved out of the house. When I've used a laundromat the savings was very obvious. Then when I did have a dryer, I just never got in the habit of using it. Never did buy softener or softener sheets. Soft clothes are for weenies. Line dried clothes are often too stiff to be clingy anyway. And since most of what I wash is cotton...that is not probe to clinging. (Aunt Chris sent me a birthday card this year with a reference to someone whose fashion choices are based entirely on what doesn't itch...I thought it was very appropriate). So...what more savings can be had on laundry when one has cut out everything but the washing machine, cold water, and detergent? I went for the detergent. I mix most of it at home. Grate a bar of soap (I like coconut oil based castile soap, it rinses nicely), add 1/2-1 cup borax and 1/2-1 cup washing soda (which is not baking soda...but if you have hard water you can throw in a cup of baking soda too). I use 1-3 tablespoons per load depending on how grubby the clothes are. If they are super grubby or sweaty, I stop the washer for 15 minutes or so during the wash cycle and let things soak. Stains get pre-treated with fels-naphtha or a bar of laundry soap I found at a thrift store a few years ago (it's a big bar). About once a month I wash it all in bulk purchased detergent. And I also alternate with soap nuts. They aren't particularly cheap, but they get all the soap residue out of the clothes and in the winter, my clothes aren't all that dirty.

Getting in the habit of shutting off or unplugging everything but the fridge most days (except in winter when they furnace (electric) and water heater stay on, helped the electric bill so much that a couple of summers ago the meter reader stopped by to ask what I was doing. I don't know what level of "fruit" that is, but it's a more recent habit.

And then there are a few more things. I don't know if these are low or high hanging budget fruit but here goes:
Not replacing things. When something breaks down or dies of old age or gets passed on, I don't replace it for a while and see if I miss it. Right now I'm missing my rice cooker which went to a new home. But I'm going to try cooking grains in the solar cooker and see if I need/want a rice cooker.

Going to the library before the bookstore or amazon.com. Interlibrary loan is the cheapos friend.

Giving more away. Because why not? Why store and keep things in my house if I don't enjoy them.

Driving slower. 10-15% gas savings by going 55-60 miles per hour, coasting down hill, and starting slowly from stop signs. Add advanced techniques like avoiding the brakes by slowing down way ahead of the stop signs or intersections, keeping a very steady speed, and other hypermiling strategies can save 20-30% of gas. I'm not so good at the more advanced especially maintaining a constant speed on the flats.

Walking more and driving in town less.

Not paying for things that can be had for free.

Changing expectations. I no longer expect to get new shoes every year. I no longer expect to get "new" clothes at all (other than bras or undies because used undies would be gross). Used clothes have 50-90% of the lifespan of new clothes for 10-25% of the price, less if you shop at yard sales. Of course, one must be careful not to spend on gas to go get these clothes. I only thrift shop if I'm in a town with the thrift store for another reason.

And pay down debt! Paying interest is a straight loss. If the budget and whatever other techniques save money, putting it toward debt and an emergency fund (to avoid future debt) can be very helpful.

I never was much good at selling things but others have saved/earned quite a bit that way and paid down debt.

There are many many more, but those are the things I wish I had mentioned to my friend who called. I hope the budget she works out makes a good start for her and I hope that she finds which savings/budgeting techniques work for her.

I found that a strict budget does work for me in the short term to start a habit of lower spending, but it's not something I monitor full time anymore. I wonder why strict diets don't work as well for me? Still fat...oh well.

Fire Update

2011-06-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

They didn't evacuate as the winds are blowing the fire away from them. Of course that means the winds are blowing the fire toward someone else. And winds shift. But for now, situation is better than it was.
Thanks to all who expressed concern.

Fire!

2011-06-27T14:20:00.001-07:00

My Aunt Marcie and Uncle Jerry live at Cochiti Lake outside Santa Fe. There is a large wildfire very near by, the same one threatening Los Alamos National Lab. They've named it the Las Conchas fire. It's burned 43,000 acres in 14 hours. Pretty serious fire. They are on notice for "voluntary evacuation" but are still at their home.

She's sent out an email saying that packing for evacuation and thinking about the potential losses is making her evaluate what is important to her. Right now her choice is her collection of original artwork. It is a pretty amazing collection. I hope she can get it packed and stored...or better yet, the fire goes away and everyone gets to stay home and be fine.

Natural disasters suck.

Below is a map of the fire area, the red hashed blobs, from a satellite image of heat sources at 3:55am today. You can see Chochiti Lake is pretty close. The yellow circled "Cerro Grande" fire happened in 2000 and is just there for reference. I got this from
http://www.examiner.com/wildfire-in-national/maps-of-las-conchas-fire-picture

I guess if people lose things in a natural disaster that is "involuntary simplicity."

By Popular Demand...The Canjo

2011-06-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, "popular" here is defined as 1 comment.
Here is a link to a very very very short article on the canjo (cheese-can banjo played in the Potlatch community band concert reviewed a couple of entries back)
http://wsm.wsu.edu/s/index.php?id=857

and a video of the dude playing one of his canjos (he does indeed sell them)

Damn the Torpedoes...I mean pops

2011-06-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

OK, so I don't drink much pop/soda anymore. But still, if I've got stress-gut I like some gingerale and have become quite the connoisseur of high end gingerales.

And now this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/09/sugary-drinks-make-you-cr_n_874346.html
and this:
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/what-happens-to-your-body-after-you-drink-a-soda-every-day-for-a-long-time-2494154/

SO not fair. I've suspected the flavor-shift for quite a while. When I was heavy into the diet cokes fruit and veg did not taste that great. I wasn't much of a fruit/veg cook at the time either and always hoped that was the problem. When I got off the pop, veggies tasted better.

I can only pray that they don't discover that peanut butter cups have the same effect.

OK...OBVIOUSLY they do have the same effect but you have to have SOME joy in life. I'm sure the tightness of my pants has NOTHING to do with increased peanut butter cup consumption. I must have accidentally washed everything I own in hot and put it in the dryer. Of course I have to manually turn on the water one spigot at a time when I do laundry and I don't own a dryer so I admit that the odds of my tight pants being some sort of laundry accident is pretty low.

Back to my honey-vinegar soft drinks and frozen fruit smoothie treats.
But first I better eat up the rest of those peanut butter cups...

And the Band Played On...

2011-06-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

So, last night I was invited to hear a friend's band play. Only this wasn't like a rock band or a garage band. It is the Potlatch Community Band. It was great! I had to force myself not to put on jammy-pants the minute I got home because if I do that, I don't leave the house again. I kept the real pants on...and the foundation garments.

The concert was in Potlatch, ID (just down the road from here) (don't bother asking which road. There aren't that many.). I got there early because I'm me. I got to listen to the last bits getting rehearsed. I must say, it's quite the mixed group. Trumpets, clarinets, flutes, baritone, french horn, saxophones, trombones, tuba, piano, vibes, drums and an electric guitar. Also featured during the concert was a very cool hand made cheese can banjo. It was constructed by a guy who tunes pianos and builds instruments and sings. He was a hoot. The cheese can is from "Cougar Cheese" made and sold by the WSU dairy. The lines are fishing line. I believe I heard him say that he wanted to make something sturdy enough that kids couldn't bust it, but then it sounded pretty cool. He also played clarinet in the main band, soussaphone in the brass quintet, and dulcimer. Sally (hi Sally!) was featured on vibraphone and piano which meant she had to cross the room several times since her instruments were at opposite ends of the altar (it was in a church). She was like both the angel and the devil sitting on the shoulders of the band.

They said they'd been practicing since after Christmas and this was their first concert. It sounded great and everyone had a lovely time. There was quite a good audience! No empty pews. The kids who were gathered in the basement came up for about 1/2 the concert. Snacks were available after the festivities, but I listened to Sally jam on the cheese-can banjo (chanjo? Cheecanjo? Chukulele?) instead.

I think it counts as frugal AND simple since the band is all volunteers, there was no charge, and some of the instruments were handmade (beautifully handmade).

Can't wait for the next concert. Maybe Plummer should have a band. Maybe the Potlatch community band could play the next Plummer Market Event. We'll see.

More potatoes!

2011-05-30T16:49:00.001-07:00

More potatoes have come up. Very exciting.
Today I also planted most of the rest of the raised bed. Herbs mostly and a couple of squash and watermelon seeds. Those take up space but I was sick of planting little squares of this and that.
Most of the peas are peaking out of the ground as well. They don't seem to mind the drizzly rainy chilly weather as much as other things.
The strawberries seem to have given up the ghost. They looked so promising as first and now...nothing.

Thank god for the mint. It continues to thrive and I may have my first cup of homegrown mint tea this week.

My other "excitement" for the holiday weekend...sharpening the mower. Woohoo. Actually, I think it needs a professional sharpening and adjustment and greasing. It's hard to push mostly because it's just ripping the grass and weeds off more than cutting it off.

Still, Pam (Hi Pam) sent me the entire "Good Neighbors" collection so I spent the rest of the weekend watching that and thinking how awesome it would be to have pigs and a goat in the back yard. Partly for the meat and partly because they'd eat and/or trample the grass and I wouldn't have to mow. Maybe an angry sow would keep the riffraff out of the yard.

The Peas Are Up!

2011-05-26T16:44:00.001-07:00

Sorry it's been ages again.

BUT the peas are growing! Of course we had a bit of hail today so maybe the peas WERE growing.

We had a couple of warm days and I put in most of the garden a while back.
Also showing growth are the tater buckets planted on May 1. I find potatoes oddly fascinating. You keep burying the growth and making them do it over. You'd think they'd get sick of it.

They lime thyme from last year is looking great. The mint from Sally (Hi Sally) is doing AMAZING and smelling delicious. The strawberry pot came back and now looks dead. It is a tease.

Some parsely is coming back from last year. I think it's a bienniel so I should probably plant some seeds this year again.

Spinach is up. Some lettuce or chard is up.

And a pot I forgot to label is doing very well. It's radishes or carrots or a green of some sort.

The walking onions suffered a setback when rain crushed the plastic down onto them so now they are open to the air and have to fend for themselves.

On June 1 or so, I'll plant the rest of the garden. I'm cutting back on tomatoes and sticking with the small hot peppers just in pots so I can bring them in when it gets too cold.

That is all for now.

Thrifty Flicks

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

I read some blogs and books about thriftiness, but there are some movies and shows that also make me think thrift and about voluntary simplicity. I'm not always sure why and some have been mentioned before.

TV:
Goode Neighbors / The Goode Life.
BBC series from the 1970s. We used to watch it on PBS growing up and I loved it even then. I think it was the independence. A couple at midlife/midcareer who live in a semi-detached house (like a duplex but you own your half and the half of the lawn on your side) decide to become self sufficient with their tiny yard and allotment (garden plot elsewhere in the town). It's cute and was inspirational to many who joined the "back to the land" movement at the time.

Squarefoot Gardening.
A PBS classic show. I've got a square foot garden that is 4feet by 9feet and did pretty well as far as growing stuff, though the final yields could have been better but I'm learning! Maybe I'll even do the fall garden stuff this year. The series, and book, does recommend buying various fertilizers and soil amendments that aren't organic while I went organic and am not great at co-planting so I think it went well considering.

Clatterford / Jam and Jerusalem.
It's not really about thrift but it's a BBC show, recent, about life in a small village. It does focus sometimes on the importance of community and having local shops and pubs and whatnot. One character lives without a job but she's a load on people so not a role model. Others are farmers who are fairly poor but still managing and providing food for the area. The point is really about the women's guild and just amusing. Maybe it just makes my life in a village seem slightly more charming rather than disturbingly surreal.

Northern Exposure.
Obviously. Many strange characters, quite a few living off grid. NO chain restaurants, stores, or anything else is portrayed. People shop at the local store, make due, eat at the tavern and even have a local radio station and no one really envies the one rich guy. I think this and Clatterford are both respectful of those who don't base their worth on their income and that might be the draw for me. Also both have a lovely dry humor about them.

The Vicar of Dibley.
More with the BBC! One rich guy and a village full of largely poor idiots. There is quite a bit of overt discussion of the importance of community and local folks as well as some overt opposition to development as ruining village life and exploiting the poor.

Movies are tougher...
The food documentaries make me want to garden and shop local and cook and not waste.
Classics are:
Food Inc. (shows the issues with industrial food)
Supersize Me (dangers of eating nothing but fastfood crap...and I remember it was playing in Saint Paul during the fateful college-friends-reunion when I had an EPIC gallbladder attack in poor Bree's bathroom while many friends sat on the other side of the wall listening to me wretch. For hours. Good times.)
Dirt. About soil and the importance of building soil.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John. A midwestern eccentric struggles to farm organically and get along with the locals. I like this both for the food/farming issues and the life of a real eccentric who decides to be who he is no matter what people think (including thinking he was having murderous orgies)
Fresh. Interesting characters talk passionately about growing healthy food and working with, rather than against, the land.

And some that romanticize food and celebrating abundance (promise to get off the food shortly)

Babette's Feast. Babette is poor and comes to cook for spinster Scandinavian sisters. Not knowing she's an amazing chef, they have her soak lutefisk and prepare other grim meals that are part of their community's devotion to food asceticism. Simple food doesn't have to be bad even if you're poor or cheap. Babette serves an amazing feast and all hell breaks loose in a good way.

Like Water for Chocolate. The intersections of food and emotion. I'm not that into emotion, but the food bits are good.

Eat Drink Man Woman. The food in this is extravagant and expensive. Many of the feasts are sort of culinary potlatches meant to demonstrate the wealth of the host, and yet the ingredients are actually not that spending and really enjoying food is part of a frugal mentality...fix what you love and you won't waste it. (Don't bother with Tortilla Soup which is a scene for scene remake that comes off like a 10th generation photocopy...a blurred and distorted version of the original)

Mostly Martha. The GERMAN original. Really, don't watch the American remake. Intolerable I'm sure (haven't seen it). Again, many of the meals are extravagant, but the cook is offended when people waste or send back the food. And it's more of the enjoying food thing. It makes me want to cook, which is thrifty.

Some that make me appreciate what I have:
Silence of the North. Tom Skerrit and the Mrs. move to the north and homestead. She gets to spend the winter alone, in silence, with a baby in a one room cabin with a canvas roof. She has almost nothing. And then loses the rest of it. And yet, things ultimately work out OK.

Trouble the Water (I think that's it) about how bad things got for so many people after hurricane Katrina. Renters got no relief! They didn't lose a house they owned or had a mortgage on thus no assistance! Many people rent because they can't afford to buy so the poorest got nothing. What they did have they lost and no one came to help. The importance of community.
(there are many good documentaries about Katrina and the aftermath that make one happy just to have a roof to sit on if it does flood. Which reminds me...I need to get that disaster kit with potable water put together).

The Lemon Tree. Life on the border of the Palestinian territories becomes even more complicated for a Palestinian, Muslim, widow who scrapes by on the income from her lemon grove. An Israeli official moves in next door and her grove is recast as a potential threat and must be destroyed. Compared to her, I'm a pig in shit.

My Name Is Joe. Don't try to get it. You can't. Scottish flick showing some serious urban poverty and the circular trap of getting involved in drugs because one has no hope, and how drug trade can be some people's only way out of poverty, and yet keeps them on the edge of disaster. It's a pretty amazing film. I have it on VHS but I don't think it's on DVD yet.
Precious. Hey! I haven't been raped by a relative today so life is good! Also haven't had to steal food for my psychotic mother. Even better.

My Life as a Dog. Fantastic Scandinavian classic by Lasse Halstrom. It's semi-autobiographical but they had to tart it up a bit as Lasse's actual childhood was even grimmer than being beaten by a dying mother, abandoned by his father, and left to share a bed with his gassy elderly aunt. In reality, he lived alone in an apartment starting when was in about 4th or 5th grade. His father paid the rent and just wasn't there. Then...he can't have his dog anymore and it gets sad.

These validate going one's own way:
Sordid Lives. It's just damn funny. It's more small town characters ultimately accepting one another while sharing food when gathering for Mama's funeral (she dies when she trips over her boyfriends fake legs at a cheap hotel and hits her head on the sink).

Spinal Tap. Not because it is representing anything thrifty...but because I finally got a DVD player when that came out on DVD. It reminds me of how I make choices to buy or not buy technology. And I've watched that movie many many times. Got my money's worth out of that one.

Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon lives with his grandmother, his uncle lives in a van.

The Straight Story. Not only the greatest film about Iowa ever made, it also shows the sort of odd practicality common among the economically challenged in the flatlands. No license or car? Drive the lawn mower across the state. If it breaks, fix it yourself. Camp in cemeteries and eat hot dogs.

I'm sure there are lots more. But this is enough for now. There are also TONS of excellent books beyond the few that I cite frequently. I'll do another post on some of my recent thrifty reads.

Plummer Gets on the Earth Day Band Wagon...41 Years and 1 Day Late

2011-05-04T18:14:00.001-07:00

(apologies for the delay. I was busy and ran out of free-interwebs time)

Plummer celebrated Earth Day for the first time this year. It was done one day after the 41st Earth Day (it started in 1970).

Still, we're here now so...hopefully an even better celebration next year.
The food coalition I'm in organized the event...though "organized" is not in the sense one would have seen in Iowa. It was a looser event.

There were 3 presentations...I did two of them. Interesting.

The first was a demonstration of how to make a compost barrel from a rain barrel (the woman didn't understand why her husband was a tad peeved that she was using his rain barrel...it was a 40 or so gallon food-grade plastic barrel. Those are going for 50 to75$ in Moscow right now and those are the used ones). Oh well, now they have a lovely compost barrel. Of course she also explained that one did not need a barrel, but watching her pour a bucket of food on the ground and cover it with a bucket of shredded paper would have been less impressive than watching her drill holes in a barrel and then pour the two buckets of stuff in it.

Next was my demonstration of vermicomposting. It was surprisingly well attended. I think about a dozen people came over to watch. The kids LOVED it and they all wanted to hold a worm. I donated the new worm bin (which WAS a hamster pen until Hammy croaked and was a rubber storage tub before that) to whomever wanted it. A young girl jumped up and grabbed it and said it would be the bin for the youth club. She was pretty interested and organized so I think the worms (I put a few in there to get it started) will be in good hands. A colleague from the food coalition brought her own bin to start so I gave her some worms as well. A few more people may be interested in worms but I only have so many at a time. If I give too many away, the food in the bin rots rather than becoming the world's best seed starter.

My other presentation was with the aforementioned colleague. She and I took a class on solar cooker construction a couple of months ago and agreed to do a SHORT demonstration at the event. As it turns out, it has been super rainy/cloudy since the class so neither of us had the chance to try cooking. Saturday April 23rd was a BEAUTIFUL day with lots of sun so the solar cooking went well. I did coffee in a quart jar in a panel cooker and sushi rice in a littl covered pot in another cooker. The jar and the pot were spray painted black on the outside with non-toxic spray paint. That is a tough item to find. I was afraid that things would not cook or clouds would come up so I started the cookers 3.5 hours before the presentation. Uh...there was plenty of sun. The jar of coffee actually pressure cooked for that long. It was quite delicious especially after the woman giving samples of raw milk came over and let people use the raw milk in the tiny cups of coffee (she provided the tiny cups too...she's nice). The rice was basically paste but it was very cool that it cooked. I totally admitted that I'd never actually done any solar cooking and opened the coffee up as people watched. It was impressive when it boiled over the top and I exclaimed "oh my god! It actually worked." A woman high-fived me and several people took pictures of the spewing coffee. The rice was less impressive since it had steamed until it was a solid block of starch, but still...it was cool that I'd left rice unattended for 4 hours and it was not scorched.

Anyway, I had pre-cut a sample of the panel type cooker (a "panel" cooker is any solar cooker that uses flat panels to focus the light on the cooking vessel) with just a 1/2" bit left connection at each corner so I could quickly finish the cut out while they watched. It is a pretty interesting bit of engineering really. It was developed by a woman in Viola, Idaho. (for those in Iowa...that is about the same as Bremer...no gas station, no store, and I don't know if they even have a post office anymore. Not even a bar.) Anyway, take a cardboard box. Pick one bottom corner. Put the top flaps up and put on a little bit of tape so they stand up. From that corner you picked measure 12" along each side of the bottom and 16" up the corner. if the 16" goes up onto the flaps that is fine. Now draw 3 lines. On each side of the corner, connect the 12" marks to the 16" mark at the top. Across the bottom, connect the 2 12" marks. now cut along the lines (cut through both layers of flaps on the bottom of the box). When you get done, you will have detached that corner and it will be pointy at the top. Find the little flap-bit that will fill in a gap in the bottom. Keep that. Flatten the corner you've cut off and cover the entire inside with foil (glue it with any all natural glue...e.g. elmer's school glue (cut this with water to double the amount of glue), rice paste, flour paste, whatever) and rub it smooth with a clean and dry cloth. Clean off any glue schmears.

Let dry. If you covered the "crack" between the bottom flaps with foil, cut it open again. Now fold it back up into a box corner and put the whole thing in a turkey size oven bag. That's it. That's what boiled water and made the coffee. Actually, I had an oven thermometer in there and at one point the temperature got up to 250degrees. I was impressed. I made an extra reflector to set in front of the box-corner-cooker and propped it up to reflect more light into the cooker. I don't think I needed it.

The other cooker we demonstrated is made from a sheet of poster board (the flimsy stuff) and an aluminum foil turkey roaster. Cover one side of the poster board with foil. Let dry. Bend up the side rims of the turkey roaster and attach the bottom corners of the poster board to this with binder clips. Then use something to raise the cooking pot about 2inches off the bottom of the roaster. I already had my wire trivet in use keeping the coffee jar off the bottom of the panel cooker so I used a roll of tape. Put the cooking pan (already full of whatever you are going to cook) in an oven bag and twist the bag shut (I blew the bag up a little so there was a bit of airspace around the pan). Put on the trivet and fiddle with the poster board so light is mostly reflecting onto the pan. That's it. It's almost fool proof. Someone did let a pole fall on it at one point and that screwed up the cooking for a moment. I spent most of the day saying "could you step to the side so you're not putting a shadow on my cooker."
My landlord was at the next booth promoting a potential local credit union which was cool. He thought my antics were quite amusing.

We're thinking of having another festival/market later in the summer. I should find something to sell. ....Any ideas? Perhaps books from the "free books" bin at the recycling center?
Envelopes cut from those books? Notebooks make from recycled paper? Biscuits? Jam? (it probably won't be late enough in the summer for jam).

And now...I must go try to make my potatoes chit so I can get them in the ground...well, in the buckets.

Free Hotel Night in Exchange for a Sternly Worded Email

2011-04-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

So, I gets back from the Santa Fe and stays the night at the Ramada by the airport in Spokane. I didn't plan on that but getting back on a delayed flight meant it was nearly 1am when I got in. I was too tired to drive so stumbled across the road and rented a room for MORE than it cost me for a night in the grand suite in Santa Fe. I get up and try to use one of those tiny coffee makers they leave in the rooms of industrial hotels. Well, the water ran out as fast as I poured it in and the coffee maker would not turn on. This was after getting to move the bed around to plug in the lamp upon arrival (it was that or take a toe off trying to find the bed in the dark as no other lights are accessible once one is in the aforementioned "bed"). On checking out, shortly after NOT having coffee and deciding that using the hair-trigger-between-scald-and-freeze shower was not going to happen, I said, "The coffee maker didn't work." or something like that. The response: ......... [insert sounds of crickets]...... Nothing. Not "please get a complimentary cup of coffee to go from the restaurant." Nothing. I stared a bit and got "Sorry." Oh well..."sorry" perked me right the f up...didn't it. (nope). Nice. That covered it. Especially since on the way out to Santa Fe I stayed at the same place (6am flight) and found that the coffee maker was unplugged. I had to move it across the room but at least it worked when I plugged it in. I wish I'd taken a photo of the nest of cords all going into the same outlet using a conglomeration of power strips and extension cords and one of those things that turns 2 outlets into 6 outlets. Very safe. After I get home and HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE, I sit down and compose a sternly worded email to Ramada stating that while 100$ rooms aren't much to some people, given that I just rented a 100$ APARTMENT with breakfast included IN SANTA FE, I thought that for the same price in Spokane I could at least expect a cup of coffee. I went on for 2 paragraphs about how the last 2 stays there have not been worth the money but based instead on my wish to not drive between the hours of 1am and 4am and that in the future I would strongly consider sleeping in chairs in the airport since I knew I could at a minimum get a decent cup of coffee. Today I get a voucher in the mail for a free night's stay at that hotel. We'll see. I only stay there when I'm flying in or out.

Relatively Thrifty Vacation

2011-04-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

Vacations are optional. The thing about being frugal is that I choose where I spend my $$. I like to spend some on vacations. Of course, my vacations are fairly thrifty affairs compared to some (people who go on Carnival Cruises spend WAY more money than me) and not so thrifty compared to others (people who pitch a tent in the backyard and wash up in hose water spend less than me).

This vacation was a long weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pam (Hi Pam) and I went to surprise our mom (Hi Sher) and her sisters (Hi Chris and Marcie).
Pam cost me big bucks on the flight by saying 'if we wait until tuesday the price will go down'...it went UP for me. Oh well.

We spent 4 nights at a B&B, Casa Pacifica for a total cost of 460$ (there is a 15% hotel type tax so the room rate was 100$/night). I'll stick the link to the place in here when I'm not on dial up.
It was a lovely room. Really it's an apartment with a loft for the bed and a good size deck.
Breakfasts were wonderful and healthy and generous. Every day you get a fruit plate. This is followed by a full breakfast made according to your dietary restrictions or preferences. The first morning we had banana pancakes with bacon. Pam doesn't like bacon so I got double.
The second day Pam got asparagus and I got more bacon with our omlettes. 3rd day was french toast made with texas toast type bread (thick!). It was amazing. I think the meat was bacon again.

The last day was even more impressive than the other three. We had "chorizo eggs". Pam had hers without chorizo (mexican sausage) and asked to eat light. So as Linda (the owner) served us she said, "Here is your one sad scrambled egg." I got 3 or 4 eggs scrambled with chorizo mixed in and red chili sauce on top! it is my new favorite breakfast and I'm not a fan of recognizable eggs (I prefer them on french toast, hidden in pancakes, or chocolate cake). Sides were toast and black beans. My beans came with no cheese. I needed a nap after that meal but alas, no rest for the wicked.

We arrived on March 31st and made our way with a rental car (thanks Rob) from the Albuquerque airport to Santa Fe. Pam did a very good job driving in the morass of construction and bad drivers that is NM. After checking in and being stunned at the size of the place we were getting for the price, we went to whole foods to stock the kitchen a bit (full kitchen with side-by-side fridge freezer, full size front loading washer and dryer, gas stove/oven, dish washer, double sinks and about 1 acre of counter space). We didn't end up cooking there much, but you need snacks and ginger ale for a nice vacation.

Then we relaxed. We didn't want to do too much running around since the old ladies were out and about in the same town and did not yet know we were there. We did go out for dinner at Tomasita's. It was delicious. We scoped out some jewelry at the vendor outside the restaurant (for those unfamiliar with Santa Fe...folks who make their own jewelry sell at tables or off blankets on the sidewalk around town, by restaurants, along the plaza, or wherever...this is NICE stuff, not junk made in a factory).

On the morning of April 1 (get it?) we started walking towards the old ladies' rental. We knew the street and general area of that street from the information Chris had sent. But, we didn't have the specific address. We were looking for Marcie's car. We couldn't find it. So, we stood somewhere we thought was pretty close, and I called Sher's cell phone. I said we were having something delivered and needed the exact address. Sher said they were headed out to Albuquerque shortly but I said the delivery would be there in 10 minutes. She was suspicious but gave me the address anyway. Turns out Pam and I were about 30 feet from their door. We had to go down a sort of alley/culdesac thing. I rang the bell and heard "well that was too fast" or something similar. Sher opened the door and the dramatics commenced. Marcie as of course the most dramatic. All were good sports about us crashing their vacation.

Their rental was a condo but really a new adobe home with 2 bedrooms, 3 beds and 2 bathrooms. Really nice. Lovely patio (but it was so windy when we were there that sitting on the patio was not in the cards). They also had a kiva fireplace where Sher showed off her girl scout skills.

Our rental had more "cache" and theirs had more class and convenience (e.g. they could park right in front of the door and get to their place without climbing a long exterior stairway). Something for everyone.

I, of course, had packed my travel clothesline and enjoyed doing the odd load of laundry and hanging it outside or in the room. (It seems odd saying "room" since it was an apartment). Pam guided our exploits with her ipad (very handy mapping options on it).

So for the first day, we joined the ladies in Albuquerque for some shopping and then had dinner with them at the Range Cafe in Bernalillo (burn a LEE yo). Delicious.

The next day...what did we do? Oh, shopped the outdoor vendors on the plaza, bothered Marcie at work, and had dinner with Marcie's husband, Jerry, at the Amaya restaurant in the Hotel Santa Fe. Jerry was not informed ahead of time that we were there so we got to surprise a second person. Pam had gotten over heated during the day (it was WARM and SUNNY...gorgeous) and came to dinner a bit late. I was forced to order dessert in French as the restaurant hostess, Sophie, is french. She did a great impression of a french instructor, while being helpful. She reminded Pam and I a bit of Julie Ferrier's "Prof des Artes Plastiques" (she's on youtube but don't watch it at work...there is a bit of nipplage).

On Sunday we met Marcie at the shop for a chat and also ran into Gerald Nailor Jr., artist and governor of Picuris Pueblo. Then we headed out for shopping and lunch on Canyon road. WE lunched at the Tea House which offers organic light meals with vegan options (always nice for the nondairy folks). There I learned that one can dehydrate slices of citrus fruit for a delicious addition to ice tea. I would have known this already if Jonny (Hi Jonny) hadn't taken my dehydrator cookbook. Or if I wasn't stupid. One or the other.

I REALLY wish I could have stayed longer. On the way home my flight was delayed (all southwest flights were delayed) and I didn't get in until after midnight. I was too tired and disoriented to drive. I considered driving a ways away from the Spokane airport to get a cheaper room, but I could barely stay awake to walk. So I checking into the airport Ramada...I'd parked the car there before leaving anyway. Well, I get to the room and have to move the bed out to plug in the reading lamp. It was either that or shut the light out by the door and then grope my way to the bed trying not to lose a toe on some unseen obstacle. But I thought "oh well"...still, the room cost more than the apartment in Santa Fe! In the morning I woke up and got a pot of coffee going. Well....I poured the water in and it promptly ran out the bottom, onto the fridge, behind the entertainment center and on to the floor. I mopped up with one of their shiny white towels. The coffee pot would not turn on. No coffee. The day before I'd been in a great and reasonably priced room in Santa Fe, served good coffee and a big breakfast in a lovely kitchen with dogs coming by to say hello (I like dogs). This morning I got no coffee and no breakfast. Oh well. Vacation must be over.

Still, it was a pretty good deal for a vacation in Santa Fe in easy walking distance to the plaza.

Long Between Posts..

2011-03-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been ages. I ran out of free internet at the house (OK OK..."trailer") early in the month and haven't had time to get online elsewhere and post. I have a few posts written so there may be an onslaught early in April when the free internet timer resets. For now: I have leads on 2 pieces of land. Many options and much to consider. It's hard to pick between bare land where I could do exactly what I want, and land with a house on it that would need a lot of re-doing (or "undoing" may be more the term...getting rid of the electricity and whatnot) but I could live in while I did that. The land with the house on it also has an option to rent it and see if I REALLY want to live out in the boonies (it's only a mile from town) without power, collecting water, and having chickens and bees. So...we'll see.

Cheapest Movie Rental Deal EVER

2011-03-10T20:38:00.001-08:00

The selection is unreliable. The price is right.
The Goodwill in Moscow, Id is selling out many many VHS movies for 49cents. I still have a working VCR (knock on wood...) so I can take advantage of this.
It's an extra good deal if the colored tag deal (50% off of a particular color price tag) applies to the movie I want. Generally, I won't buy the movie if it's the full 49cents. I wait until it's half off for 25cents (they round up that last 1/2cent those greedy thriftstore bastards).

For a quarter, I buy the movie. Bring it home, watch it a time or two, then take it back. No late fees. No membership to buy. No corporate policies to investigate and see if they are in line with my environmental goals (admittedly, Goodwill is moving into shiny new box-like stores but I'm not ready to boycott them yet).

I've gotten most of the Anne of Green Gables series. Star Wars. A Beautiful Mind. Il Postino. Shirley Valentine. Tracy Takes On... and much much more.

Most go back. I haven't watched Il Postino yet and may hang on to that one...it is a classic and considered one of Marcello Mastroiani's best. I'm also hanging on to Shirley Valentine because it's cute and funny and has some of my favorite lines.

Occassionaly I find a DVD worth having but those go for $2.99 so even half off, they need to be pretty compelling. Another thrift store sells them for $1 but their selection is mostly self-help and exercise. Their donation clientel are not my people.

Cheapest Movie Rental Deal EVER

2011-03-10T20:38:00.000-08:00

Baking Soda and You...

2011-03-06T12:53:00.000-08:00

I joined the Dollar Stretcher site (under my usual screen name) and find that it helps me recognize some of the things I now take for granted but are actually quite thrifty, apparently.

Someone asked what homemade items we make and how long it takes.

I ended up with multiple uses for baking soda and vinegar that I've been doing without thinking. Just goes to show that once I get a habit, it becomes automatic (if only I could acquire the habit of NOT eating a loaf of bread as soon as it comes out of the oven).

Here are the uses I'm making of the baking soda and vinegar.

Baking Soda--
-tooth powder (use it straight)
-"shampoo" (mixed with water)
-sink cleaner (put in wet sink, let it sit a while, scrub with citrus rind if I have it or a scrubby if I don't, rinse with water)
-tub/tile/turlet cleaner (like the sink cleaner only use a toilet brush on the toilet)
-bug-bite-anti-itch (make a paste and apply to the bite area)
-drain cleaner (put a big dollop in the drain, add vinegar, chase with hot/boiling water). This one makes a cool "volcano" to entertain you while it works.

Vinegar
-conditioner (dilute apple cider vinegar)
-drain cleaner (see above)
-plumbing delymer (fill plastic bag (salvaged from somewhere) with bit of vinegar and strap around the offending showerhead, if it's a faucet head then you might have to take it off and drop in bag or bowl of vinegar) ((Hint: use this vinegar to clean the drain rather than just chucking it out)
-softener (if my towels are getting SUPER crunchy from no softener and having to hang them inside, I might throw a bit of vinegar in the final rinse water)
-floor cleaner (dilute in water and wash floor with old socks and sweatshirts in the ragbag)
-toilet tank demold-ifier (this is in the beta phase but I'm hoping it will kill the mold that lives in the upper toilet tank)

A Day OFF!!!

2011-02-23T13:56:00.000-08:00

So, I was SUPPOSED to go to Missoula and meet Jeanne and Mariah (Hi Guys) BUT then I read the weather and road reports and while I could GET to Missoula, it didn't look like I could get back in time to be at work friday. If I'm not at work Friday I better be on my death bed because John would have to give presentations to 8th graders all day on his own and he would be pissed.

SO, I didn't go. I'm pouting. And I took the day off work anyway. It's always fun to be home when everyone else is at work. Like a snow day. Speaking of that, the storm only got apparent in the last couple of hours. It was fine this morning. Now we've had 2 or 3 snow downpours so I feel better about not going.

It has given me time to declutter the house a bit. Started the project this weekend after reading several blog posts by frugal types about how clutter costs you money. You lose crap and buy replacements or forget that you even have something. In cleaning out there has been one find that I had "replaced"...a humidifier. DOH! I think I got the replacement for 15$ about 5 years ago so it's not like it was a giant cost, but tucked in an unlabeled box in the bottom of a closet was a bigger, better humidifier that I totally forgot I had. Oh well. I've also found a few gloves, sox, and odds-n-ends. I won't need to buy a pen or pencil again before I croak.

And I've so far gotten a total of 3 big bags and 2 boxes of stuff to donate and a few boxes of things to sell possibly (0r donate when I don't get around to selling). I also took all the extra dishes and made a set of 10 place settings (minus cups/glasses) including cloth napkins to use for meetings where we serve food. I'm sick of watching the groups I'm in here promoting sustainability and etc chucking dozens of plastic or paper plates, bowls, and sporks. At least now we'll have a start on a good set of dishes to use. And by just using mine and taking them home to wash, if I ever DO have a dinner party, I'll have plenty of place settings.

If only Angela were here to help me with organizing the stuff I AM keeping. I've been bad at that in the past. The first stab will be to group like with like (one box for office supplies, one for correspondence supplies, one for financial records, etc) and write the date last sorted on it. It will be better than it was.

Things I've Stopped Doing to Save Money and Increase Life Satisfaction

2011-02-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

So, in reading my thrift-spiration books (e.g. Compleat Tightwad, Tightwad Gazette, Ultimate Cheapskate's Guide to Life...etc) I came across multiple remarks that it's often more a matter of NOT doing things that doing things that characterizes a frugal lifestyle. Picking and choosing what TO spend money on means making many choices about what NOT to spend money on.
Here's a list of things I don't do anymore (some I do occassionally but not much really) that occurred to me. I wonder how much $$ this adds up to in a given amount of time.

-Using the dryer. I like hanging laundry up.
-Using shampoo/conditioner.....my hair looks better
-Using toothpaste...my teeth are whiter
-Drinking water from plastic bottles...tap water is cheaper and less toxic (usually)
-Paying dues to professional societies...I had no respect for them anyway and I don' need to use them to network anymore (this was between 1k and 2.5k/year!)
-Turning the heat up...I don't like to sweat
-Buying dairy (except butter)...can't eat it anyway so that wasn't really a money saver, it was more of a sinus saver
-Eating meat at every meal or even every day...beans are cheap and keep forever and peanut butter is delicious.
-Buying salad dressing...I almost never managed to finish a bottle before it went bad whereas oil and vinegar kept separately last for ages and can be used for other things.
-Buying overly processed foods (except candy)...I cook mostly from scratch and enjoy cooking more than heating up a bag of something. I DO occassionally get a pre-fab Amy's Cheeseless
-Pizza or go out to eat and have tater tots. It's good not to go too far with these things.
-Throwing out food scraps...almost everything goes into compost or gets reused. Greasy waste does get thrown out (actually, set out by the road for the stray dogs to eat in the hopes they will get the craps in their owners' yards) since it will interfere with the compost and attract dogs/cats/pests
-Washing the kitchen floor...that's not frugal, it's just lazy and I should really do that again. It's been like 6 months.
-Buying new clothes (except undies, socks and footwear though in reality, all of my socks have been gifts in the past few years)...there is more choice at thrift and the prices are so so so much better most of the time. Occassionally I'll need to make an exception for a specialty item like super sturdy pants for outdoor work if I can't seem to find the size or quality at thrift after a few trips AND if the pants can be had on sale. Shirts have not been a problem neither have "dress" clothes. Dress clothes can be found at any christian based thrift store, worn for one event, and returned.
-Buying household cleaners...use vinegar, borax, washing soda, or plain old soap.
-Buying new furniture. The last purchase was the couch in a box for about 400$. I got that because I wanted something that could be transported in a car and the couch disassembles easily into various flat pieces of wood, a set of covers and several pieces of foam. It won't get me in "House Beautiful," but I wasn't really a candidate anyway.
-Paying to exercise. I don't pay for yoga classes anymore. I get them free at work and in reality I don't go much.
-Paying full price for office supplies. I find TONS of them at thrift stores or just lying around (pens and pencils you find lying around). Odd but true. File folders, binders, paper, notebooks, clips, staples, pens, pencils, white boards...all at thrift. I almost never use a printer anymore so I haven't bought ink in 2 years.
-Drinking pop. I just quit buying it in quantity. Every now and then I'll have a can or bottle for a treat but once out of the habit, it mostly tastes too sweet. I'm attempting to make home-made gingerale or ginger beer (the first attempt tasted like bandaids someone had peed on so we'll see...).

Attempts at Decluttering

2011-02-10T19:33:00.000-08:00

This is not my actual home (but it could be if I bought NEW furniture to pile up in the kitchen...):

I'm a 3rd generation pack rat on both sides of the family. It may go back further. The records are buried under piles of crap.
Mom pretends she's not a packrat but my sister (Hi Pam) called and told me that Mom had gotten Pam's tutus and leotards out for the little cousins to play with. Uh...Pam wore those when she was about 6 til she was about 10. She's 38 now. The folks have moved and been through 2 major floods. Pam was not an award winning ballerina. These are not the early togs of Maria Tallchief. She wasn't bad. But still. 28 years is a long time to store mounds of tule and spandex. I wonder if it still "spands."

Fred...well, isn't he the one who pulled copper pipe out of one house to store in the next?

Mom's mom's apartment is packed to the gills with stuff. Nice stuff. But packed. On the paternal side. When the tornado hit back in the '80s Grampa Wagner's canceled checks ended up in Wisconsin. Grampa had been dead for more than a decade and these were not the last checks he wrote. They were decades old when he croaked.

So, it appears that both nature and nurture program me toward packrattery.

Part of the packrat motivation/justification is that it is thrifty. It is. To a point. But when I can't find crap because it's lost in piles of other crap, that's not thrifty. For example, when I needed to "tidy up" so the landlord could fix something, I took clutter off the counter and shoved it in a box and put it in the storage room (the front bedroom). At some point after that I gave up looking for a favorite kitchen tool, this wooden dough scraper. I asked for one for the holidays. I didn't get one because they have disappeared from the kitchen shops. Last week I'm sorting through boxes and go through the "tidying up" box. There, among some junk mail, a few small bags from the co-op with spices in them, and other counter top detritus, is the missing dough scraper. Why the junk mail didn't go right in the recycling? Probably the bin was full that day or I was in a hurry so I set it on the end of the counter. That wasn't thrifty (though now I can take the cash I got for christmas earmarked for that and buy some new undies...woohoo). Neither was letting the spices age and get bland. It's only a couple of bucks, but I'm sure there are other things in other "tidy up" boxes. Time for another major decrapification. I used to do some when I moved every year or so. Staying put for a few years is working against me.

I'm making decrapification efforts but it's a long road. When I was in Iowa last fall, I went through about 13 boxes in Pam's basement. I cut it down to two. I've gone through 4 boxes last week in the trailer and took 2 plastic bins of stuff to recycling and a smaller box to Goodwill. Some of what went to recycling was books to the free bookbin. I tried to take back more books to the bin than I've taken out of the bin. From now on, more has to go out of the trailer than comes in (except for food...I'm not tracking outflow on that).

In theory this process should work. I'm not sure it will go so smoothly in practice. I DID bring 6 candles, a VHS tape and a DVD back from Goodwill (the VHS is "Shirley Valentine" and the DVD is "All About My Mother"). The total bill was 3$ which would be good just for the candles. And I need to put an equal volume of stuff in recycling or donation bins. Should be easy. I'm culling the VHS collection. As much as I enjoyed that 25cent copy of "Ice Castles"...I don't really need to watch it again. It's just as horrible (in a good way) as I remember. I have two VHS copies of "All About My Mother" which can now go to the library or Goodwill along with the "Anne of Green Gables" series I got for 25cents a while back. That will be 7 VHS tapes. That should balance things out.

I did find an entire box of baking pans I forgot I had. Some of them I've never seen before so I think Sher (Hi Sher) slipped some in while packing for my move (thanks for packing me for my move, Sher).

Stupid News

2011-02-08T22:12:00.000-08:00

OK, this EVENTUALLY gets to frugality and simplicity but the topic inspiration comes from criminally stupid "news" headlines.

I often swear off mainstream news for this sort of reason.
But, then I'll get back on one of the main "news" websites and look at the "health" or "family" or "parenting" "news" links. (Apologies to the grammar/punctuation nazis out there for the abuse of " ").

Some recent headlines decried that a "restrictive diet" could prevent 340,000 cancers in the US PER YEAR. That's fine and "good news." So I read it. That's when I realized it was stupid. The "restrictive diet"? Well, that's a diet of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and other whole foods. How is that "restrictive"? That is a normal human diet. Why use the word "restrictive" instead of "healthy" or "normal"? Is it REALLY that tough and restrictive to actually eat food rather than processed sugary high-fructose-corn-syrupy crap? REALLY? Are Americans that lame? Well, yes, many of them are but reinforcing the view that eating real food is some sort of special diet is stupid. (the frugal/simple bits: It's cheaper to eat that way, simpler to cook from scratch than to work extra hours to pay for crap, and it is both frugaler/simpler to stay healthy than to get treated for preventable cancer) (disclaimer: may or may not have had a chocolate sandwich for lunch last week...that's a candy bar in bread...but not having that would not make my diet "restrictive")

Then there was the headline announcing that the rise in the last 40 years of childhood obesity in the US is due to bad habit not genetics. NO SH*T? Really? There hasn't been a sweeping change in genetics in a country of 300million people in 40 years? Really? Because such a sweeping genetic change in that short of a time in a population that large is impossible. So, this is not news. This is stating the obvious. Turns out that if kids sit on their butts staring at screens (TV, computer, game thingy, whatever), rarely go outside and play, eat crap including lots of sugary processed snacks, have no P.E. classes, and don't go to bed at a decent hour; then the kids get fat. This is not news. (The frugal/simple bits: cheaper to send the kids outside to play than to buy them video games, pay for TV, etc. Cheaper to feed them real food...see previous rant...than crap. Cheaper to keep them healthy than to have a fat unhealthy kid).

When did the obvious become shocking? I put on some tonnage this winter. It isn't news and didn't need research. I quit moving around and ate lots of bread. Not news. Not a surprise. Not particularly frugal either. So today I bought more real food to restock the pantry and fridge and as a side benefit, it's hard to stay fat on greens and fresh fruit.

One last stupid headline rant: The above "restrictive diet" also cures about 78% of ADHD in young boys. BIG SURPRISE. This goes along with the "shocking" "news" that kids who get less screen time, play outside more, participate in strenuous physical activity, etc, have lower rates of ADHD and some with diagnosed ADHD no longer need meds. Jesus people. This was on The Simpsons years ago. Bart was diagnosed and the doctor wanted to give him meds. His parents ask if there is another way. The Dr. says that the only other treatment is regular exercise so Marge and Homer go for the meds.

Pantry Inventory Update

2011-02-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I've bought groceries for me finally. Not bad. It's the first real groceries since 11-2-2010.
There is still quite a good stock in the "pantry" (you know, under the bed, in the front bedroom/root cellar, shelves in the kitchen and in the cupboards). But, alas, I was running too low on flour to keep the sourdough starter going. I COULD have ground up the remaining wheat berries and rye berries in my new antique hand crank coffee grinder and kept the starter going for a bit, but I would not have had enough to make a decent bread. And grinding wheat or rye in a lap style coffee mill takes forever. It's good to know I COULD do it, but also good to know I didn't need to. (This is not my actual grinder but a very similar one from the interwebs.)

So, what's left: I still have a big jar of black beans (about 2 quart size), about 6 cups of dry lentils. A cup of dry green split peas and a bit of white rice. Just cooked up the last of the wheat berries yesterday to go with some dahl made from some of the split peas.

I'm out of onions, only 2 cloves of garlic left, and have eaten the last squash that was ripe enough to eat. The other 3 may get ripe by May but we'll see...must remember that they take a longer season to grow and ripen. Aside: the hubbard squash was hard to open. I ended up doing a samurai chop with my big chinese steel cleaver. This was scary as the squash had to stable flat spot and I had to hold it with my other hand...I still have 2 hands and 10 fingers. Gramma told me sometimes her dad would take a hatchet to the hubbard squash late in the winter. Next time I will make a little pit in the yard to hold the squash and avoid endangering my appendages. It was not great just as roasted squash...kind of pasty and stringy even though undercooked. So I added a couple of apples (which I had to buy) and a fried onion and garlic (had to buy the onion) and some chicken bouillon and made soup. The soup was great.
Done with Aside.

Last week I cracked and bought fresh apples even though I still have dried apples, cherries (2 years old) and plums. Reconstituted dried fruit is fine, even still dry it is fine. But I just got sick of the same texture all the time. I've finished all the fish in the freezer other than the stuff that was buried and is too old and too freezer burned. That will get buried in the yard or garden...maybe under where I'm going to plant the rhubarb or in the raspberry patch. I also lost a box of quince. They almost got ripe and then shriveled when the "root cellar" got a bit too warm when the outside temp went up to the 50s and I forgot to totally shut the heat vent in there. A few days in the 60s and they went bad. Oh well. Good for compost and I'll plant a few.

All the garlic in the root cellar lasted fine and onions were good for several weeks in there. I'll stock up on more next year. If anyone has wooden food crates lying around, I would love them for the root cellar/front-bedroom. Having things on newspaper on plastic counter is not ideal. The counter sweats a bit which can compromise the food.

I still have plenty of spices, though ran out of sea salt so will stock up on bigger quantities when that is on sale. Hard to keep up with baking soda too since I use it for everything from cooking to hair washing to cleaning the toilet and clearing drains. I think 5lbs a year would be good (it also takes boot marks off the floor really well and soap scum out of the tub). 2 gallons of vinegar have lasted.

I'm also a bit starved for greens and last week bought some kale. This week chard. Those don't store so a cold frame and/or a late planting will be necessary in future. Sprouts help, but they aren't the same as greens or salad.

The coffee lasted! I ran out yesterday. My tiny tiny new coffee maker, one demi-tasse at a time, helped as did caving in and drinking some of the battery-acid the IT folks at work make. It's there and we have to pay for it out of our work budget so I might as well indulge. I've been having about 1/2 a cup a day with a bunch of ice to dilute the acid (it really is crap....when the sun is up more and I can wake up on my own I'll give it up again).

Basically it looks like I had plenty of proteins and whole grains stocked up.
For veggies...I need more variety in texture. Dried tomatoes and onions are delicious, but they don't have the same flavor or texture as canned or stored fresh versions. To make a decent soup base you really need to fry an onion and some garlic. You can get by sometimes with just fried garlic, but sometimes you really need the onion. Dried tomatoes are never the same as canned or fresh. Fresh are not really an option here in the winter without some sort of insane investment in hydroponics/greenhouse/power/plastics....so I'm going to try more canned.
I am very pleased with the results of the tomato dust. It makes a very good tomato sauce or paste. Though still with a very different flavor than canned or fresh. I'm going to make the effort to can some pints of tomatoes or tomato sauce next fall.

Dried fruits are quite good. They last indefinitely in closed jars. I've got 2 year old cherries that still make good additions to everything. I've used them to soak up the extra juice in cobblers and crisps made from frozen fruits. Frozen fruits tend to release a ton of juice. The dried apples crushed up make an apple sauce acceptable for cooking into other things. I haven't tried rehydrating the apples to put in a pie or cobbler on their own but I might. They are also good just as they are. Several breakfasts have been dried apples and a handful of nuts.

Speaking of nuts. I need more to get through a winter without buying new. That's another item I had to restock a bit. This is mostly because I use them to make "milk" for cooking and adding to coffee. If I didn't do that, I would have had plenty. I'm still in search of a local nut source and if I can get land I think that hazelnuts (which should grow here) would be a good niche crop.

The honey is lasting fine. I've still got half a bucket in the bucket and a few quarts on the shelf.

I've got a bit of oatmeal left and may stock up more on that or other grain flakes next year to allow for more breakfast bars.

I'd also like more sour-flavorings. I'm out of lemon juice and lime juice. There is no local source for any of that sort of thing. I'll keep planting seeds but will never have enough production to supply my sour needs. (Mostly because I've never had a seed grow beyond the twig stage before dying...I even bought a started myer lemon last summer at the farmers market for 15$! That's a lot of money for me....and it croaked immediately. oh well. Cheaper to start my own and watch them die.

BUT the plums planted in the yard are doing well! I checked them yesterday and the starts are still growing. A few more years and there will be plums. Woohoo! I have an offer on quince suckers from a colleague's yard and will try to get a cherry start from the neighboring grove where I "glean" (ok, take without permission which is stealing) pie cherries and crab apples.

back to the pantry...
The other spices have lasted with the exception of basil, oregano, and parsley. Will get more of those next year or plant more. The parsley in the garden is still sort of green but there is so little I don't want to "harvest" any. The mint is still looking productive as is the thyme so I should have plenty of those next year.

The peppercorns just ran out. A bit more of that would be good. I wonder if I can grow that...

That's probably more of a pantry update than anyone is interested in.

Interesting Frugality Item

2011-01-31T14:08:00.001-08:00

Ever wondered how much value you are getting from your library use?
Check out THIS LINK.

On my first estimates, I "save" over 1800$/year by using the library. Actually, libraries. I'm an active use of 2 locations and many more via interlibrary loan. It's not that I would have bought all the books or movies. Or even rented all the movies. So it isn't really "savings" but it does mean that I've gotten about that amount of value for free. I suppose I'll be donating some $$ to my main libraries this year since I now know waht I'm getting out of it.

This will be a short post (from the Plummer Public library computers actually) as it is a gorgeous day and I have comp time built up so I'm headed outside.

2nd TP or Not TP Survey Results

2011-01-24T15:46:00.000-08:00

This person didn't request anonymity but let's call her "Gram" just to maintain her privacy.

So, "Gram" had quite a bit to contribute. She grew up during the 1920s and the depression in NE Iowa along the Mississippi River. I mean like NEXT to the river.
She said that even those who could "afford" TP used catalogs. This included her family.
She babysat for other families and remembered corn husks (watch the direction of use as they get sharp), corn cobs (that had to be grim when they were dried out), and leaves. Wow.
I think given the choice between a corn husk and a rock, I'd be likely to go for the rock. Husks are serated on the edges and have all sorts of little stiff hairs...like a SCRUB BRUSH. OW.
Gram and also discussed that cobs would tend to take up quite a bit of room in the outhouse pit. Poo does too but poo tends to decompose and shrink as it dries or settles. Corn cobs are pretty stable. Maybe heavy cob use meant more frequent redigging of the outhouse.

She also noted some other interesting bits for those thinking of rocking it old school...in and outhouse. Make sure the well is dug through bedrock (easier in Iowa where the bedrock is limestone than here where the bedrock is basalt) because then floods from the river, even those causing the outhouse to overflow, will not contaminate the well. A shallow well near a flooded outhouse is a recipe for getting sick.

I asked about folks using cloth and she said that she didn't remember anyone doing that, but that certainly diapers were washed out and reuse and reused and reused. She also agreed that if washed well, there is no medical or germ reason to avoid using cloths and washing them.

Other tips: Watch out for tularemia if you eat rabbit. I had not heard of this before but apparently there was a bit of an epidemic when Gram's dad, code name "Great Grampa" was a kid. Rabbits were the vector so he would not eat rabbit. Fortunately they had other options even if these were occassionally things like squirrel and/or raccoon.

Farewell My Hamster-bine

2011-01-24T08:33:00.000-08:00

Just letting folks know...Hammy passed away between Friday morning and Saturday afternoon.
There was a nice service with a water burial in the St. Joe River. (too many stray dogs around to bury him in the yard.

First Results from the TP or Not TP Survey

2011-01-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

I emailed a few people about their experiences in times/places where TP was unavailable either momentarily or just not a "thing" in that part of the world. A good friend emailed back this response (edited and names changed to protect privacy at his/her request).

B. lived in the Republic of Cabo Verde, archipelago off the west coast of Africa, for 3-1/2 years. While there, B. got several intestinal diseases there, including several rounds of
giardia and amoebic dysentery. The amoebas moved in while B. was still with a host family, and one time, B. went to use their modern bathroom in a rush and found to a spasming stomach's dismay there was no TP and B. was alone in the house. B. went anyway, took off the underwear and wiped with them then rinsed the underwear in the sink... probably without soap-- yikes. At least B. had a fresh pair of underwear to put on.

B. states: Poverty is not romantic; it sucks. There's so much we take for granted, including and especially soap and TP.

Another time, B. was without TP and without a seat on the public toilet. B. proceeded to have a terrible bout with diarrhea while half-standing. Yuck. And still had to try to clean up without TP...What B. eventually did at home is what the middle-class locals did: B. had an indoor toilet. B. didn't use paper for Number 1, and did use it for Number 2. Then B. placed the dirty TP in a brown paper sack in the bathroom instead of flushing it.

The poorer locals used rocks for Number 2 and nothing for Number 1. They used the great outdoors for their bathroom. (Jill's Aside: I wonder if they had callouses from the rocks...what are the criteria for choosing a good wiping-rock?...I'm assuming not pointy and as smooth as possible but with enough texture to pick up the offending matter...The rain can wash a rock off better than a scrunched up leaf so one could well be re-using poo-rocks from others. The mind boggles.)

Now B.'s partner X. and B. use a variation of these methods because they have a septic tank. They use paper for both 1 & 2, flushing the dirty paper and keeping the wet paper in a bathroom basket for burning later.

X. adds: Toilet paper is a luxury that will be hung onto for as long as possible.
X. suggests newsprint or rags if one is not using TP in this culture. They are also trying to collect old diapers for various uses around the house.

B. also submitted the lyrics to the following song (Perhaps we can play it on the radio show for Earth Day!)

No Such Thing as Garbage

Here we sit in primordial stew
Doing what bacteria like to do
Although there are billions and billions of us
You will notice we don’t make a muss, ‘cause

There’s no such thing as garbage
It hasn’t been invented yet
There’s no such thing as trash you stash
and then try to forget
There’s no such thing as garbage
We make what we need and no more
One critter’s waste is another one’s
entrée du jour*

We are mammals and insects
and amphibians
Birds and reptiles and fungi, man
We’ve no need for landfills
or stinky trash cans
‘Cause what one of us can’t use
another one can

There’s no such thing as garbage
We’ve been recycling all of our lives
One species’ junk is another one’s lunch and then becomes fertilizer
There’s no such thing as garbage
We make what we need and no more
One critter’s waste is another one’s entrée du jour

Oh remember when humans
were terribly plagued
By the syndrome called
“throweverythingusaway”
For a few hundred years there
they just didn’t think
Thank goodness that garbage
has now gone extinct

There’s no such thing as garbage
We learned it just in time
Back when the planet
could hardly stand it
we started to learn this rhyme
There’s no such thing as garbage
We make what we need and no more
One critter’s waste is another one’s entrée du jour

* This line, the best in the song, was written
by Adam Levy

© 2007 Amy Martin

Vocals – Adam Levy, Allison Miller, Amy Martin, Bryony Schwan, Janine Benyus, Julie

Wolf, Jon Miller, and Todd Sickafoose
Drums – Allison Miller
Bass – Todd Sickafoose
Keys – Julie Wolf Guitar – Adam Levy

WTF!?

2011-01-09T10:38:00.000-08:00

Apologies to the sensitive for the implied cussage in the title but seriously...WTF!?!?

I was reading one of my favorite websites, www.dollarstretcher.com and came across this link

How different cultures handle credit cards

I can't get the table to copy over here because it is too big, BUT, I find it fascinating. Scroll to the bottom of the article to see it.

In the US we don't have the highest use of credit cards, but we're up there. The average American in 2010 put $4,236 on credit. Good lord! I put about 1500$ on credit cards between flights and hotels and gas (because I'm too lazy to run inside and pay ahead and then go back in and get my change) but I always pay it off before the end of the month. I can't remotely compete with that figure.

In China the average person put $297 on a credit card in 2010. That's for the whole year. Obviously that is skewed since many folks in China may not have access to credit cards.
France wins with only $267 on average per person on credit for the year! They DO have access to the same sorts of banking institutions that we do. In fact, many of the same banks. They seem to prefer debit and pay-pal for online purchasing and cash or debit for in person purchasing.

The line that column that caught my attention next was the number of credit cards in circulation...in the US in 2010 there were 686 million credit cards. That's more than 1 for every man woman and child alive! Jesus. Assuming that toddlers don't have their own and fewer than half of middle schoolers have their own credit card...that's enormous. I know plenty of people here who don't have credit cards or even bank accounts. I think I have 2 or maybe 3 that would be counted. Both from banks where I have savings accounts. I used to have a citibank card but hated the service and fees and whatnot so quit using it and one day they sent me a letter saying "charge crap or shove off." Shortly after they sent a letter saying "sorry, don't shove off" but I never heard from them again. I suppose I should do another credit report on myself and see if that closed. If not, I'll close it. I know that will affect my credit score but credit scores are only important if you need credit. I don't. (Yes, they also check them for car insurance but I doubt the liability insurance on my 1 year old vehicle changes much based on one canceled credit card with a zero balance for the last decade.)

ANYWAY, back to the fascinating table of debt.

The final column is also intriguing.
In China, remember 297$/year on credit, they have a savings rate of 37.9%. Wow! I don't think I'm there yet. That rate is from 2007.
In the US our savings rate is....4.3%! What do you people think you're going to live on in your old age? The profits from selling that truck with the fancy rims you put on your credit card? That's AVERAGE which means lots of people save less.

On the upside, Japan only saves 2.3% of household income so we aren't the worst.

I would like to see the chart on average credit card and other unsecured debt in various countries. I'd also like to see the average amount, both in dollars and as a percentage of household income, each of these countries spends on debt service (interest, fees, etc). As both of my readers know, I don't like to pay those sorts of things.

Recipes From The Food Group

2011-01-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

So on my lovely vacation (Thanks again Jonny!) Angela (Hi Ange) expressed interest in the recipes from the local food group. I typed them up and will post below with some reviews of the ones I tried and/or made. These recipes are from our pre-holiday community meal to show that holiday foods can be more healthy. This doesn't necessarily mean lower calorie.
Anyway, here goes.

Roasted Winter Vegetables
Preheat Oven to 350. Serves 8

2 large carrots
2 beets (no tops)
2 sweet potatoes
1 red onion
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 white or yellow onion
2 T soy sauce
2 T olive oil (strong flavored OK)
Generous pinch of each: dried basil, oregano, thyme, black pepper, sea salt.
Optional: dash of hot sauce or small pinch of hot pepper

Peel and chop into chunks: carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, onions.
In large mixing bowl combine all ingredients and toss to coat.
Transfer to shallow baking sheet and bake 50 min. to 1 hour.
Serve warm. Left overs are good cold tossed into salad greens.
Nutrition facts (from www.nutritiondata.com)
Per serving: 82 calories. 4g fat. 293 mg sodium. 12g carbs. 2g fiber. 2g Protein.

I loved these! Very tasty and pretty sweet from being roasted. I was about the only one dubious about beets since I find them a tad bitter. I generally use young red beets, striped red/white (striped on the inside), orange or yellow beets partly because these are sweeter and easier to cut up than the giant old red beets, AND because the yellow and orange ones don't bleed that dark red staining beet juice everywhere.

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Cauliflower
Prep time: 15 min. Total Time: 35 minutes. Serves 4-8.

1 head cauliflower, chopped
2 1/2 pounds potatoes, cubed (peeled if you like)
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c butter
1/4 cup milk or cream
1/4 cup sour cream
lots of pepper salt to taste
1/4 tsp paprika
1 head roasted garlic, squeezed out of skins (yes, the WHOLE HEAD).

Boil potatoes and cauliflower together until tender. Drain and mash potatoes and cauliflower with oil and butter. Add rest of ingredients and mix well.
Nutrition facts per serving (at 8 servings) 94 calories, 4g fat, 2s sat. fat, 14mg sodium, 14g carbs, 2 g fiber, 2g protein.

I swear you can't taste the cauliflower, but it does add a firmer texture. So if you hate snotty paste-like mashed potatoes, this is an excellent way to go. There were kids there who were used to eating sugary crap and they loved these potatoes too. They are not particularly low calorie, but they do have a wider variety of vitamins and garlic is an anti-inflammatory and good for the immune system (AND it keeps away vampires).

Spinach Artichoke Dip

5oz fresh spinach, rinsed and stemmed
2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
1 1/2 c cooked (or canned) butter beans
(NOTE: cannellini beans OK. 1 1/2 cup = 1 15oz can)
1 c chopped scallions
2 T chopped fresh basil
2-3 T lemon juice to taste
5-6 artichoke hearts or bottoms, minced salt and pepper to taste

Using the water clinging to the spinach after rinsing, stem the spinach until just wilted (2-3 min), and drain. In food processor or blender, puree spinach, garlic, beans, scallions, basil and 2 T of lemon juice until very smooth. Fold in minced artichokes and add more lemon, and salt and pepper to taste.
Nutrition facts per serving: 18 calories, 0 fat. 32mg sodium, 4g carbs, 2g Fiber, 1g protein
(not sure of serving size...sorry)

OK, at the event, I hadn't read the ingredients of this one so I avoided eating more than a couple of tastes since I thought it had dairy in it! This was probably good since I ate lots of the bean-based fudged (see below) and had I added another cup of beans with this dip, there could have been complications. It is delicious and truly tastes like it should. Not like some bean-substitute crap (I am not one who likes fake dairy products). If you can't get or don't have fresh basil, only use a couple of tsps of dried basil to avoid adding a sort of dusty flavor. Even in the dead of winter, there is usually a package of fresh basil in the produce section and I think it would be worth getting for this recipe. Bottled lemon juice will work fine, though fresh squeezed is extra good.

Roasted Green Beans
1 16oz packaged frozen green beans, thawed (or fresh beans if you can get them)
1 T olive oil
1 minced garlic clove
good shake of cajun seasoning
bacon bits (optional)
parmesan cheese (optional)

Place beans on oven-safe pan. Mix with olive oil, minced garlic and spices to coat . Add bacon bits late in baking time and sprinkle with cheese after removing from oven. Bake at 325 for 15-20 minutes. Stir halfway through the baking process.
Nutrition info per serving without bacon bits(4 servings):
83 calories, 4g fat, 1g sat. fat, 42mg sodium, 8g carbs, 3g fiber, 3g protein.

These green beans were delicious! We left out the parmesan cheese and bacon bits and they were still delicious. As usual, roasting makes things sweeter and takes the sort of squeaky-gritty thing out of the frozen beans. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that frozen green beans are squeaky-gritty. We were cooking for about 50 people so made enough to fill 2 jelly-roll pans about 1 layer deep. There were no beans left even though only 20 people showed up.

Chocolate Bread Pudding (by Paula Deen)
Cook time: 1 hr. 10 servings

1 (1 pound) loaf whole wheat French or Italian Bread, cubed
1/4 c heavy cream
1/2 c coffee
1 c sugar
1 c packed light brown sugar
1/4 c cocoa powder
1 T vanilla extract
2 t almond extract
1 1/2 t cinnamon
6 eggs, lightly beaten
3 c milk
8 oz semisweet chocolate, grated (not chips)
Whipped cream (real cream, whipped up) (optional)

Preheat oven to 325

Lightly grease a 9X13 baking dish and place the bread in it. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, cream and coffee. In another bowl, combine the sugar, brown sugar, and cocoa powder and mix well. Add the sugar mixture to the milk mixture and mix well. Add the vanilla and almond extract, and cinnamon to the beaten eggs. Combing the egg mixture with the milk/sugar mixture and mix well.

Stir the grated chocolate into the mixture. Pour the mixture over the cubed bread in the pan. Let the mixture stand, stirring occasionally for approximately 20 minutes or until the bread absorbs most of the milk mixture. Bake pudding for 1 hour or until st. Check pudding by inserting a knife through the middle and it should come out clean. Serve the pudding warm, or refrigerate and serve chilled with whipped cream.
Nutrition facts per serving: 497 calories, 11g Fat, 4g sat. fat, 1g trans fat, 481mg sodium, 83g carbs, 6g fiber, 18g protein.

I am not a fan of bread pudding and only tasted a bit of this since it has a lot of dairy and I'm not a fan of bread pudding. Why waste my dairy allotment on something slightly icky? It was a big hit with the bread pudding fans. Obviously not a "light" or low-calorie option. The "healthy" bit is that the ingredients are all real foods. The chocolate must be high quality. We used ghirradelli which isn't the top of the top of chocolate, but it's what the designated shoppers could get at the giant-mart in Coeur d'Alene. We chopped it rather than grated the chocolate because holding it to grate made it melt in our hands. If the chocolate does not melt in your hand either you are dead and cold, or you have cheap crappy chocolate with paraffin in it and you should not be making this recipe. No, chocolate chips won't do it justice as they generally have plenty of wax in them. A nice belgian or swiss brand of chocolate would do well. Again, I was not a fan because I don't like the texture of bread pudding. BUT many people loved it. Several of the participants were surprised that making whipped cream involved pouring a little carton of heavy cream into a mixing bowl and setting the mixer on "whip" for about 1 minute. It really is no more effort than thawing out the cool whip from the freezer and will clog your arteries with real food rather than "guar gum" (an item found in cool whip and many landscaping products). (interesting how I have more to say about the item I didn't like)

Pinto Bean Fudge (SURPRISINGLY DELICIOUS)

1 2/3c OR 1 16oz can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 c cocoa powder
2/3 c butter, melted
1 T vanilla
4 c powdered sugar
Chopped walnuts, optional

Put beans in blender or mixer and puree. Add cocoa, butter, and vanilla. Mix. Combine powdered sugar with bean mixture; beat 3 minutes until well mixed. Add nuts. Spread into greased 9X13 pan.
Nutrition information per 1" square:
224 calories, 8g fat, 3g protein, 36g carbs, 74mg sodium

This is another one that is NOT "low calorie" but "low calorie fudge" is also known as "total crap". The "health" benefit is the protein instead of so much fat. Since there are still 4 cups of powdered sugar, it's hardly healthy. We served this and THEN after people said "wow, good fudge" we told them it was made with beans. You do need to use a bean that cooks up to a brown color or the fudge color will be off. Pinto beans have a fairly light flavor so avoided the beany taste folks get when they use garbanzos and they are light brown so you avoid the oddly ashy-black color you get when you use black beans. There was no fudge left at the end of the meal. I would use real butter in this rather than substituting margarine. It has a better texture and helps the fudge set up. Margarine can turn to oil after it's been melted and won't add the creamy texture to compensate for the beans. If you take all the dairy out, then just don't make fudge.

Apple Cake with Carmel Sauce

Cake:
3 c flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
2 t ground cinnamon
1 c white sugar
1 c brown sugar
3 lg eggs, beaten
3/4 c milk
2 t vanilla extract
4 c apples, peeled (or not), and diced

Topping:
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/4 c milk
1/4 c butter

Preheat oven to 350.

In med bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon. Set aside. Place white sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs and stir by hand until well blended. Stir in milk and vanilla. Add flour mixture and stir just until blended. Fold in apples. Pour batter into a greased 9X13 pan or 2 8" round pans. Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

To prepare topping, mix all ingredients in a saucepan and cook at a slow boil for 3 min. Pour topping over the cake and return to the oven for 4 minutes or until the topping is bubbling and golden.
Nutrition facts (though don't know how many servings...):
360 calories, 9g fat, 4g sat. fat, 89mg sodium, 61g carbs, 4g fiber, 11g protein.

This cake was delicious. Unfortunately, it wasn't done until late in the meal and we were all full. Folks took servings home though. The carmel topping is instead of frosting (which I rarely put on a cake anyway...too much dairy for the flavor...and you can have like 3 pieces of cake without frosting (and without carmel sauce) for the calorie-price of one frosted/carmeled piece). I wouldn't peel the apples, I would just run them through the big holes on the stand up grater (which no one though to bring). If you do peel your apples, it's nice to through the peels into cold lemon water while you finish the cake, then, take them out and toss with some cinnamon sugar (not much) and spread on a cookie sheet and bake a bit along with the cake until they are dry. They make nice little fiber-filled snacks that taste like bits of apple pie. Please use a nice baking apple, not red or yellow delicious. I know some people like them, but the ones in most grocery stores are basically flavor free and too watery so the cake will come out bland and soggy and you'll end up baking it until the edges are over done. A nice granny smith or any other slightly tart variety. I've used Fuji and Gala in a pinch but I end up adding some crushed dried apples to the mix to get some flavor in there.

Tart Cranberry Dipping Sauce
Recipe from Alton Brown

Cook time 1hr. 12 servings.

1 lb frozen cranberries
2 c orange juice
3 c ginger ale
2 T maple syrup
2 T light brown sugar
1/2 t kosher salt
1 orange, zested

Combine all ingredients in non-reactive sauce pan (stainless steel...aluminum will turn the sauce dark), and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally for 30-45 minutes or until liquid is reduced by half.
Carefully puree with stick blender or in blender until smooth. Check for seasoning.
Nutrition Facts per serving: 49calories, 0g fat, 8mg sodium, 13g carbs, 1g fiber.

This was very good. I ate it on the roasted turkey. We used sea salt instead of kosher (because that is what we had). You could probably use regular table salt, but I'd only use 1/4 tsp then since that salt is more acid and there are several acid elements already in the recipe.

Roasted Butternut Soup

2 butternut squash (+/- 4lbs total)
5-8 cloves garlic
1 lg onion, chopped
4 c vegetable broth
1 lg or 2 small apples or pears, peeled, cored and diced
olive oil regular or non-dairy milk as needed
(a nutmilk is very nice)
Spices as you like (suggest 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp allspice)
Fresh cracked pepper to serve.
Lemon juice to serve.
Sea salt to serve.

Preheat oven to 350.
Cut squash in half, seed. Place cut side down on cookie sheet. Cot top off garlic head(s). Drizzle with oil. Wrap in foil.
Put squash and garlic in oven.

After 30 minutes, carefully turn squash halves cut-side up and continue cooking until soft, about 20 min). Meanwhile, sautee onion in oil in BIG saucepan over low heat until softened, about 10 min.

Take squash out of oven when soft. Scoop squash out of shells and add to saucepan. unwrap garlic and squash the soft garlic out of the cloves into the sauce pan. Add broth. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer until flavors blend. Anywhere from 30min to 2hrs. Keep a lid on it. Add water if it gets too thick.

Use a stick blender to puree soup in the pan, or puree in batches in a food processor or blender. If the soup is too thick after blending, stir in a bit of milk until the consistency is correct. Serve topped with fresh ground pepper.
Nutrition facts (per 1 1/2 cup serving):
133 calories, 1g fat, 298mg sodium, 32g carbs, 1g fiber, 3g protein.

This is something I make frequently. Butternut squash is a good deal because there is more flesh and less seed-guts per pound compared to other squash. It doesn't store as well as hubbard or other super hard squash varieties, but I've had a couple last 2-3 months. The cooked squash freezes well (I've got 2 or 3 tubs of it in the freezer now) and reconstitutes well.
It looks like a lot of work, but it's not bad if you're home all day anyway. For this event I roasted the squash and garlic the evening before and should have scooped the squash out while hot. It was harder to scoop out after it had sat in the skins (in the fridge) over night as the skins got soggy and tended to cling to the squash. Still, it was pretty good. The digging the squash out of the skins is the only messy bit. If you don't like digging the seeds out of raw squash you can get them out after it's done roasting and it will be easier. I like to keep the seeds to plant or roast so I take them out before cooking. The texture of the soup is VERY THICK. I believe I heard the word "baby food" a couple of times. I like that. It's similar to split pea soup in consistency. If you like thinner soup, add more broth and/or milk (we used walnut milk which is a bit grey unless you roast the walnuts ahead of time...can do it while the squash and garlic are in the oven) to thin it own to the consistency of tomato soup.
Once people tasted it, it was a big hit. I really enjoy the fact that it is so low calorie and quite sweet. It's an unexpected flavor for a soup. I wouldn't put the apple or pear skins in this recipe since they will always be chewy and the smooth texture is sort of the point.

If you don't want to use apples or pears, you can use carrots, well scrubbed. Either dice them up very small and sautee with the onion or cut them into 1inch chunks and roast with the squash and garlic.

If you don't have a stick blender, I'd start with a potato masher. It's a pain to get it all into a blender and back in the pan. Just make your peace with a chunkier soup.

I'll try to find some of the other recipes from our other meetings and post those now and then.

New Year's Resolutions...and Early Failure

2011-01-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

OK, not failure but not exactly success either.
At the end you get a quick summary of our special day at the Bowling Alley last night that was fricking awesome.

Resolutions:
1) Outside a minimum of 20minutes (in one lump) per day until the Spring Equinox (at which time the time will be maintained or increased). This sounds lame since my job sounds, and sometimes is, outdoorsy. Of late and especially in the dark of winter I find that I walk to work, walk to the post office and walk home. That is my outdoor time and it is not enough. My eyes are turning white. Even the pupils. On Sundays when there is no radio show I've been known to not put on pants much less leave the trailer. Being outside an hour a day (we'll work up to that) no matter the weather is known to decrease respiratory infections, increase health, and blah blah blah. That will also be 20 minutes when I'm away from the delicious loaf of sourdough bread that is always on my counter since I started making my own sourdough again and gained noticeable weight.

2) Yoga everyday, even 1 move. I've gotten out of the yoga habit and do it just now-n-then. The goal here is to get back in the routine and usually once I start, I'll keep going for more than 1 move. Requiring just 1 move keeps it very doable and makes one resolution a super easy success.

3) 8oz of water with every meal. I drink buckets of tea and some coffee, the occasional bottle of kombucha (look it up), and so on. Time to quit being dependent on the flavored waters and get back to water water. Nothing "wrong" with tea but I think having the habit of water with meals helps me drink through out the day rather than 8 cups of tea when I'm chilled and then up all night peeing. That much water with meals may also take up valuable sourdough bread space and hopefully get my thighs back down where they fit in the remaining non-spandex jeans in my wardrobe.

4) Plan a visit with Angela (Hi Angela!). I'm still visiting friends in Denver and Angela unfortunately had to leave a day earlier than me. We hadn't gotten together in 5 years! That's awful. One of Angela's wishes is to travel more and I love to plan travel so here we are. I figured that "travel with Angela" would obligate Angela to meet MY resolution and that's neither fair nor under my control, but I can plan. WARNING TO BREE AND Y-N-FRANK: your part of the country is our first target so we can try to see folks we haven't seen in more than 5 years. WARNING TO Mike-n-Todd: if this goes well, you could be next. There are many unknowns like available time, scheduling issues, finances, and what if we're incompatible travelers...so the goal is the plan.

I managed the yoga yesterday. Sure, it was mountain pose which is basically standing for a few seconds with good posture, but that meets the goal. Being outside...not so much. The water...well, today is another day (DOH! Forgot water with breakfast! Had coffee and juice. Damn and blast. Here's hoping for lunch.)
The visit planning doesn't have to be everyday, but on the way to the airport to drop Ange this morning, we did talk about locations and how I need specific information about her ideal accommodations to start planning. I'm a high maintenance travel agent.

Hope one and all have had as good a start on 2011 as I have.

Now for the update on Denver-Fun-'10-'11.
Yesterday there was a great deal of napping going on. We had breakfast and then several people not named "Jill" read and took naps. Someone kept Jonny out until the wee hours on new years eve so he was exhausted and groggy. Much better after having his 5 hour lie-down. I blogged and read and relaxed around Jonny's 1950s enclave.

THEN: at 6:15 we headed out into the cold and gloom to meet Jonny's boyfriend Gino (Hi Gino and Jonny) at a bowling alley reviewed on the interwebs as "like stepping back to the 1970s". We all love the kitch. Gino was the one who kept Jonny out until the wee hours but was rested and cheery when he got there at about 7pm. I believe the high score for our 2 games of bowling was 102. I set a new personal best with a score in the high double digits. I'm hoping to break 100 some day. The bowling alley was awesome. The website is most excellent

http://paramountbowl.biz/
Surf on over to their "bar and grill" and read the menu. CLEARLY it is a bad cut and paste job from another web site with the names of things served at the bowling alley typed in but the descriptions not corrected from the previous website (which we haven't found yet).
Here are the breakfast options:

Toast & Jelly $.95
wedge of iceberg lettuce with scallions & blue cheese dressing

Muff Yum$3.99
flash fried & served with a tomato vinaigrette

Breakfast Burrito$4.75
made fresh daily

Bacon or Sausage & Eggs$4.25
cocnut crusted with carribean flavors makes this dish an automatic classic

Eggs & Toast$3.25
chili & cumin seasoned chicken with muenster cheese, rolled in a corn tortilla

There is a startling similarity in preparation styles between the Breakfast and Burger options:

Hamburger$3.50
wedge of iceberg lettuce with scallions & blue cheese dressing

Double Hamburger$4.25
flash fried & served with a tomato vinaigrette

Cheeseburger$4.00
made fresh daily

Double Cheeseburger$4.99
cocnut crusted with carribean flavors makes this dish an automatic classic

Patty Melt$4.90
chili & cumin seasoned chicken with muenster cheese, rolled in a corn tortilla

Does this mean that only the Cheeseburger is made fresh daily? And why are both the Double Cheeseburger and the Bacon, Sausage, and Egg featuring "cocnut" crusting with "carribean flavors" while the Toast and Jam as well as the Hamburger come with a wedge of iceberg lettuce? I know it's just a lack of cut-n-paste skill, but the result is quite evocative reading. There is quite a bit more on offer.

We had sodas and some of the best fries I've ever had. The grease in that vat is lard and it is HOT. The fries were about 1/2inch thick and were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. That only happens with super hot grease.

The decor at the Paramount Bowl has not been updated since construction so it's quite nice. Hopefully Jonny will send photos for me to post. We were heavily photographed by him during the session. We were in lane 12, the last lane against the wall with the airbrushed logo on the cinder blocks. The ball return is straight from 1972 or so. And the whole lot is underneath a grocery store. It was not crowded, only 3 or 4 lanes in use while we were there. None of this "cosmic bowling" BS where they use flashy lights and strobes and LOUD MUSIC to enhance/ruin the bowling experience. It's just bowling and chatting and snacking. Since we all sucked approximately equally it was fun. We are all lame so three of us were using the lightest ball we could find...a 12 pounder. I could have gone to the desk and asked for a kiddie-ball but that seemed beneath even my skills. Jonny showed off with a 16 pound ball (heh heh). He won. The rest of us competed for "not last" or "not as bad as I've done in the past."

Then it was back to Jonny's '50s Dream House for flaming desserts. Everyone but me had cheese cake. I got toast and jam. The "flaming" part for all of us was a sugar cube soaked in orange extract and lit on fire. It does make an impressive dessert even out of toast and jam (the bread was artisan and the jam very good...I'm not sure any number of flaming sugar cubes could enhance wonder bread and cheap jam but it's worth a shot).

OK, we're having home-made dim sum tonight and I'm supposed to be surfing the web for dip recipes so must sign off now.

Lovely Times In Denver

2011-01-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

Angela flew in from Chicago (she was supposed to fly in from Dubuque but mechanical problems meant she was BUSSED to Shy-town...yikes. So glad she made it. I jetted south from Spokane. We both joined our friend Jonny in Denver.
He's got a lovely 1950s home that has not suffered the ravages of a sad 1980s make over and thusly has retained all the charm of a lovely 1950s home. I think Mrs. Cunningham does our laundry while we sleep.

Anywhoo. We're just here for a nice little new years vacation. So far it's been amazing.
We started at CASA BONITA!!!

As featured in South Park:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/154195/more-sopapillas-please

(it won't embed...just follow the link).

I got here a bit before Angela so Jonny and I went and got groceries. Then back to the airport to get Angela and STRAIGHT to the Casa Bonita where we sat in the BACK ROOM! and saw the worst magician EVER which was awesome in its own way. Not the mainstage cliff diver area. We had our borderline inedible meal (as it should be). Just a hint: do NOT get the Shirley Temple. It is sweetened maraschino cherry juice with bubbles, I think they rendered high-fructose corn syrup down to its sicky sweet essence. It added a heady after-shock to the barely edible taco salad I had. The sopapillas with honey were lovely. Next we headed out to the main "restaurant" area Then through Bart's Cave, saw mariachi playing, saw a cliff diver who first juggled flaming something or others, and browsed the gift shop. We all put 50cents and a penny into the souvenir penny-smasher machine and got the cliff diver smashed into the pennies.

After that it was home to the 1950s with Jonny. His house is lovely! It's one of those that is somehow bigger on the inside.

Our next big outing was the Denver Zoo. We were hoping for locales further afield but the weather and time conspired against us. The zoo was DESERTED! There were maybe a dozen cars in the parking lot when we got there and we saw about 20 people the whole time we were there! It was my best day at the zoo ever. No screaming kids. No one jamming into my ankles with strollers, no would-be-gangsta teens, no seniors creeping along in jammed aisles. Just us and a VERY few others. Perhaps the blizzard raging outside had something to do with it. Not all animals were available. The giraffes were not having it. I thought we would miss the water buffalo but Angela called out "you-whoo, Nature!" and they turned around to face us.

Here are a few highlight photos:

First, a lovely starfish! We spent maybe a half an hour just checking out the fish in the sealife area.

The elephants weren't too excited about being indoors and frankly this one looked pretty ancient. Still, we were in their building alone with them, a snoozing rhinoceros and a swimming hippopotamus for ages without interruption and with peace and quiet. It was lovely.

Check out the monkeys! I think they are howler monkeys. We were in a building with mostly lizards and things, but these were there as well. Angela settled herself on the floor to rest her aching feet and these monkeys came up to the screen type fence on the front of their enclosure and checked her out. She called Jonny and I over and the monkeys stuck around! I stayed about 20minutes before the monkeys moved away. They looked at us, at the aquariums (aquaria?) across the way and seemed to enjoy the peace and quiet as much as we did. They literally just hung around about 3 feet from us for that long. No, I did not try to touch the monkey.

I wish I had photographed each meal! Jonny is the best chef I know. We've had sizzling korean rice dishes in stone bowls, homemade and artisan breads. french toast that was beyond belief (mine is always heavy soggy crap), and much much more. I think the worst meal has been my potato soup. I love it a home but it was a bit "off" here and I just can't compete with things like the sun-dried tomato, artichoke, pepper, and chicken white pizza on HOMEMADE dough crusts made on a pizza stone. It was divine. Below is a photo of Jonny's Flaming Ice CCream. Just the sugar cube was actually on fire but still. I did not indulge in this dairy-licious treat but it was tempting.

Other events: We saw 6 new one act plays by colorado playwrights and with local actors at a small theater. Each had its ups and downs but we've been quoting lines from either the plays or the interesting young gentleman seated 2 seats down from me who was enthusiastically enjoying each joke, poignant moment, plot twist and good line. Unfortunately, he was enjoying them about 10 seconds after everyone else in the audience "got it." It was like he was on a delay.

Ange must leave us tomorrow and I go the next day.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-27T17:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a while.
I've been busy/sluggish. It didn't take much to keep me busy given the sluggishness.

ANYWHO, I'm at a hotel right now next to the Spokane Airport. Very classy. It's supposed to snow and freeze-thaw overnight and I have a flight in the morning so easier to drive today (and cheaper than getting a new car).

I continue my poo-paper research and will post the results of a survey soon.

I did want to update the pantry consumption/no groceries efforts.
Overall, it's going well. Boredom with delicious chilis and bean soups (featuring dehydrated peppers so much like chili except not as thick) has been broken up by the holiday meals offered everywhere and a few trips into town where someone said "can I buy you lunch" and I head for the nearest place offering a nice club sandwich and some SALAD!
I bought groceries to make spiced nuts for holiday giftery...nuts and spices. Other than what I tasted and an over-run on the curry powder and cinnamon, all went to gifts.
I DID buy groceries for the house before the holidays. I am getting a bit sick of having so little fresh food. I grew sprouts but forgot to eat most of them. Oh well. So I bought myself three bags of salad mix and some oranges and an apple. Surprising how good salad tastes after a few weeks without much fresh food.

My pantry food has been delicious. Black bean chili. Salmon with brown rice pilaf (that lasted 4 days...2 meals each day. I was actually sick of salmon). Fresh sourdough bread once or twice a week. Dried apples for snacks. Black bean soup with a tomato base from the tomato powder I made by pureeing tomatoes (all but the cores) and dehydrating the result in fruit leather trays. It turned out really well. There has also been lentil soup and veggie soup in chicken boullion broth. One failure was a veggie soup in a veggie bouillon broth. I knew the bouillon powder was kind of yucky and used it anyway thinking it just needed some spices to fix it up. Wrong. Ended up chucking a pot of soup. Lesson learned. That bouillon will go in the compost. Hope the bugs like it more than I do. I have chicken bouillon left and I'm sure I can make a broth mix from dried veggies too.

I still have 3 small squash and 1 big hubbard squash in the root cellar/front bedroom along with a head or two of elephant garlic (a little fried garlic makes a bean soup really good). Quince are still awaiting jamification but I'm counting on them to give off that gas that ripens things since the small squash are still under ripe. Today I had a pb&j sandwich for supper on homemade sourdough. The jam was strawberry from 2008 and was still excellent though a bit dark in color. On the side I had some butternut squash from the freezer heated up in the hotel's microwave. And 3 oranges (they are clementines, not very big). For lunch I had candy...not smart but delicious. One friend gave me a big bag of various candy and a box of ding dongs for christmas. I have been cutting back on candy and she must have thought it was through cheapness rather than fatness. I was going to share it all at work but the dove milk chocolate thingies filled with peanut butter are too good to share.

So was the ghirradelli bar (spelling?).

And the Ding Dongs.

Hence the appearance that I am wearing the hated jeggings. In fact, I'm just so fat and so bloated with water from the salty holiday dinners that my jeans look like jeggings. I've cleverly disguised my post holiday muffin top (it's more of a cake than a muffin...one of those giant cakes strippers jump out of) with a baggy sweater. That paired with my aversion to bust-support has me looking like a www.peopleofwalmart.com refugee. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day and they do make bigger pants.

Back to the groceries. I also bought sea salt. I was going to muddle through with the regular table salt, but I can't use that in the neti pot unless I want my sinuses to feel like I just snorted battery acid. And it tastes better in soups and things.

(This hotel computer is next to the entrance to the lounge so the blog post has been previewed by traveling drunks who keep looking over my shoulder on their way into the bar.)

I'm almost out of high-gluten flour and may need to stock up on that in a few weeks. I have not been successful making sourdough with all whole wheat flour as my whole wheat is a lower gluten variety. I wish I had some all purpose flour as well since trying to make a cake or cookies with low-gluten whole wheat and/or high gluten white has not been going well. I've eaten the cakes and cookies, but the texture has not been good enough to share.

So far, eating out of the pantry along with using the freezer-soup-bucket has meant less waste than usual. When nothing is fresh to start with, not much goes bad before it is eaten.

I must say that the dehydrated onions are delicious and rehydrate very well this year. I dried them at 190degs Fahrenheit, much higher than recommended, and until they were very very crisp. They taste like toasted onions and make up a little bit for not getting to fry them for soup base.

OK, the spell check isn't working well on this so pardon bogus spellings.

Toilet Paper Debates

2010-12-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

FOR THE RECORD: I do not use cloths in lieu of toilet paper.
But, I'm not against it.

I'm putting this post up now because it's one of the extreme frugality tips that gets people worked up.
Check out this post where the tip to use cloths instead of constantly buying toilet paper to throw away, reuse small cloths.
The comment by James Coffey is pretty intense. He seems to think that we'll die of poo poisoning if we use washable cloths rather than toilet paper. Cloth diapers used for babies is OK because apparently, their poo doesn't stink. Well, it's not as toxic anyway. He states that he's a scientist. According to his contributor profile, he's an anthropologist. So am I. Thus our opinions are equal. Except mine isn't based on "ICK! POOP!" but instead uses logic.

OK, here's my point. Using cloth in place of toilet paper won't kill you.
Evidence:
1) Cloth diapers are an option for adults with continence (bladder and/or bowel) problems. If adult poo were as alarming toxic as J.C. believes, who would offer this service? (I do like J.C.'s comment that adult guts are crammed with rotting meat and that makes it more toxic than baby poo. Uh...try a little metamucil, or a salad, or a bran muffin, or an apple.)

2) Toilet paper is a recent invention. I'm not sure of the exact date, but not before paper production became automated. I can't imagine that in colonial America people were using the few scraps of paper they might have (mostly bible pages) for potty purposes. For that matter, people haven't always had cloth either and you are welcome to use leaves. Do remember "leaves of three, let it be" unless you want poison ivy of the nether regions.

3) There are pioneer and other records of folks using rags in the outhouse. Some washed them for re-use and some chucked them if they had enough extra cloth lying around. Other options were catalogs, corn cobs (hopefully before they dried into raspy round files).

4) Poop is pretty easy to wash out of stuff. Easier than blood.

5) If poop was that toxic, wouldn't many a wife have died from husband-undies-exposure? Many men, and a few women, stripe their undies from poor wipery or something and do not throw out their undies every time. Many of them are still alive.

6) Soap does amazing things. As does heat. You can adequately wash poo out of things (see adult cloth diapers above).

7) You can't die from cooties. You might think that using cloth is gross. That is just cooties. Cooties do not kill. If you find you have a cooties infestation, contact a 6 year old girl for a cootie shot or to have your home cootie sprayed. I think cooties (anthropological term: Ritual Impurity) are the main reason folks are resistant to this.

I know folks who will not use a cloth hanky because they fear the germs. I do use cloth and just wash them. When I have a nasty cold and need something more substantial than a small hanky, I use old dish towels or defunct t-shirts.

I know people who are creeped out by my cloth napkins (granted, some of them are pretty stained from wiping out frying pans when I don't have a dish rag handy) and think that those must be paper and disposed of. I recently brought dish towels to a community cooking event and was shortly quite popular. One person seemed grossed out when I used the old towel to clean squash and vegie scrapings from a counter, but when it was time to dry the dishes they came around. I had to round up the towels a few times before I left. When no one brings dish towels (which appears to be most of the time) they use PAPER TOWELS! to dry dishes. Can you imagine the waste?

Anyway, one part of frugality for me is not buying stuff that will simply be thrown, or flushed, away. I've managed that with most paper and plastic products. I DO still buy toilet paper and recognize that it is largely due to cooties. It is not a scientific logical reasoned action, it is cooties. The Eww-Factor is still there. I buy 100% recycled paper toilet paper wrapped in recycled paper and I recycle the wrap and the tubes. I hear that Sheryl Crow limits the number of toilet paper squares she uses so this concern with pooper paper isn't just mine. I wonder what Ed Begley Jr. does. I'll have to send him an email.

There is a modified version of toilet cloths. Using them only for number 1. This is more palatable to most folks and is often used as a starter place. Another option is the one used in much of the middle east, India, and other areas. Having a spigot or jug of water and a small pitcher near the terlet. This way one can clean the affected area with running water. Sort of a manual bidet. This works best with a squat toilet and I think we all know how I feel about squat toilets. I'm fine with their existence, but don't care to use them myself. Sort of like bread machines.

OK, there are my thoughts on cloth vs. TP. I think cloth is more noble, but I am weak and use TP.

Lunch Report

2010-12-04T19:40:00.000-08:00

The local food coalition had a luncheon event yesterday and I helped. (please read that last bit like the kid on the shake-n-bake ads from the 1970s).

It was supposed to go all day, but we had a low (though appreciative turnout.

The menu was pretty impressive:

spinach dip with crackers and veggies as an appetizer
Beverages: water with lemons, coffee, tea.

Soup: Roasted Butternut Squash (with roasted garlic, pears, and spiced with nutmeg and cloves) (I made this one...I split it and put walnut milk in part of it. It was good)

Meat: Elk roast

Veggies: roasted root veggies with a soy-vinegar-spice mix on them
AND green beans sauteed (or roasted) with garlic and creole spices.
AND mashed potatoes and cauliflower (just cook it all together and mash up) with roasted garlic

There appears to be a "roasted" them with an emphasis on garlic. Hmmm.

Anyway, also had some tart cranberry sauce to put on the roast or whatever you wanted it on.

It was all lovely.

For desserts:
Fudge (made with pinto beans...I SWEAR it is good, very fudge like)
Apple cake with caramel sauce.
Chocolate bread pudding with real whipped cream.

At least one person there had never had whipped cream, only cool whip. Wow.

The low turn out appeared to be due to multiple factors:
1) it's winter and folks would need to drive 6 miles. (though usually free food AND door prizes (I won't a cooking lite cook book) gets folks there)
2) it was payday friday and that afternoon tends to be thin on staff anyway
3) there was a competing fund raiser at the early childhood learning center...so the kiddies' parents probably went there
4) Our advertising was not fabulous, but not bad either, certainly more than the kiddies' advertising.
5) the title was "enLITEned holiday cooking" and perhaps people prefer their holidays full fat
6) It was lunch and many of our folks who attend evening events would have been at work and may not have had time.

We had some food left, plenty, but it went home with folks and/or got donated to the fund raiser. I took some but gave it to a friend who couldn't get away from the office long enough to come to lunch.

The good parts were that 10 women and 3 kids cooked together in one kitchen (commercial size kitchen) with no conflict and in fact, with some fun. There is something very fundamental about food sharing (ask any critter...primates, lions, cats, dogs, vultures...). And something quite bonding about cooking sharing.
I was popular due to bringing actual sharp knives though I was fairly selfish with them. The organizer brought her own electric skillets (the lid of one got shattered), some pans, and some spices. The clinic's dietitian had brought examples of slightly healthier options (e.g. raw sugar, whole wheat flour) and shared them when we ran out of a couple of things. Another woman was willing to supervise kids running a stick blender (brave not due to the danger of getting cut, but rather due to the danger the kids would discover it is way more fun to run the blender at an angle and send mixture all over the kitchen. They did discover this and she did not kill them).

I was cool until I saw a little girl at our serving table sneeze. Fortunately I already had food from that table and double fortunately the cake had not yet been put out.

I think the best part of our food events is that we hand out the recipes. I've incorporated one from an earlier event into my frequent rotation (wheatberry salad), the squash soup from this one already was in my frequent rotation and I think the green beans with garlic and spices will be in there now (in green bean season anyway). I already do roasted veggies. Honestly, I'm going to try the fudge again. It was really surprisingly good. The texture was right and it still had 4 cups of powdered sugar, but almost no dairy. I usually can't have much fudge.

I think every thing but the elk had a good dose of fiber. That isn't just a hunch. I'm feeling pretty cleaned out today.

And a shoutout to my landlord/lady who I don't think read this. My hot water tank started throwing the breaker thursday night. As I roasted 12 lbs of squash and 5 heads of garlic. I told them Friday morning. It got diagnosed friday afternoon and fixed this morning. Not bad. I was able to get warmish water so managed an unsatisfying shower Friday to avoid stinking at the food event, but doing dishes in slightly warm water doesn't work well.

Speaking of food:
Today I made 2 loaves of bread (and ate one...it was good), oven fries (at them all...oops) and ginger lime steelhead. The steelhead was so thick it took forever to cook. The fries were done first so I ended up eating way too many of those before the fish was done. I'll be eating that for a few days. There are worse things than extra steelhead.

As a bonus: here is the recipe for the fudge. I think I've already posted the squash soup. If not, I'll do that later.

Pinto Bean Fudge
1 and 2/3 cup cooked and cooled pinto beans (or 1 16oz can rinsed and drained)
1 c cocoa powder (NOT hot cocoa mix...we've had to tell people this)
2/3 c butter
1 T vanilla (yes, a BIG T, not a tsp. Also, almond extract would be a most excellent substitute)
4 c powdered sugar
Optional: chopped walnuts

Put beans in a blender or mixer and puree (or mash well). Add cocoa, butter, and vanilla. Mix. Combine powdered sugar with the bean mixture. Beat 3 minutes until thoroughly mixed. Add nuts if using. Spread into a greased 9X13 pan.

We used a variety of pan sizes rather than just the 9X13.

My biggest adventure at the food thingy: being a turd about keeping my stuff. People kept borrowing my paring knife. It's one that Gram gave me YEARS ago and I keep sharp. Unlike new knives, it holds an edge (hence everyone wanting to borrow it). I caught more than one woman eyeing the covered pans I brought the squash in (I had roasted it at home the day before as the ovens at the long house (that's rez-talk for "community center) are unreliable and I needed an hour of roasting time and an hour of simmering time). These pans are old and have sturdy slide on lids. I don't know if you can get them anymore and I've nearly had to punch people to give them back when they try to say "oh, these are mine." Really, did your Gramma ABBY put her name on medical tape with permanent marker there on the bottom too? Jeez. Actually, I may have stolen one of the pans from Sher. Sorry Sher, but tough honkers. It's mine now. The B-team pan is metal with a clip on metal lid. Still way better than the crappy modern plastic lids because you can put on a metal lide while the food is still hot if you don't mind the food steaming a bit. A plastic lid melts and/or puts a crap flavor in the food if you put it on while the food is hot. AND you can't use the plastic lids as cookie sheets. My pan lids are actually my main cookie sheets.

DAMN IT! and Possibly a New Project

2010-11-27T15:27:00.000-08:00

So, tried to go camping this weekend.

I had made it to Missoula on wintery but not bad roads. I turned the phone on to check messages after fueling up and Jeanne called. She'd been in the ditch! Crap. And was headed home. Fortunately she and Sadie (the dog) were fine and claim to continue to be fine. But I don't blame her.
On my way out of Plummer 2 different people warned me a of a 'big storm' headed this way...8-11 inches of snow...yada yada...by Sunday. I figured I'd be headed home MONDAY so a storm that is over SUNDAY is just about right and also the weather stations I checked all said regular winter stuff, 1-2 inches of snow and warmer temps.

But, when it came to deciding whether to winter camp alone (albeit in a cabin with a stove) I figure IF the storm did materialize, I'd be 4000 feet higher up and alone within 1 mile of where they stop keeping a road open and what if I fell on the way to the crapper and broke an ankle. I'd end up in some crap movie of the week. The kind I hate. You know. Where someone takes a stupid risk and ends up getting hurt and other people, tax payers generally, have to spend a bunch of money helping the idiot out (e.g. the family who drove on back roads in the winter because the interstate and main highways were CLOSED and ended up lost and stuck. So they LEFT THEIR VEHICLE (apparently having never read or heard anything about winter safety). The woman and a nursing baby get stuffing in a snow cave by the husband as he walks around like a moron looking for help. They hadn't packed food, blankets etc. STILL he was heralded as a hero after they were rescued at great effort and expense and much emotional trauma to themselves and their families. What I thought was, "what an asshole" and that the wife was as stupid as him for agreeing to go. I just hoped stupid skipped a generation and the kid turned out alright. Same with the guy in the movie now. He goes hiking alone in back country and tells no one where he's going. Again. Has he not read or heard ANYTHING about safety? Days later he ends up cutting his arm of with a pen knife and he's heralded as a hero. No. Stupid. Possibly with a high pain threshold but it was that or die of thirst while contemplating his own stupidity. Why would I go see a movie. I did NOT want to be in a movie like that. If I ever head out to do something terminally stupid yet manage to survive, the polite thing to do is to not mention it.

So, I turned around and headed home. I thought of getting a hotel for a night but if that supposed storm was happening, I'd be stranded at a hotel, with the hamster (no hamster sitters available) waiting out a storm and watching a very expensive organic chicken thaw and go bad (I would rather watch it rot than try to cook it in the microwave and then throw it out...though possibly I could have made a passable soup in the coffeemaker...2 cups at a time).

I spent about 9 hours on the road to get to my own trailer. On the upside, if I fall down here on the way to the crapper and break and ankle, the cats will tear through the floor and eat me before I have to face the shame of a movie of the week.

The good news was I decided to pretend I was camping for at least 24 hours. I unplugged the phone, turned off the cell, left the computer and TV off and just relaxed and read books. I spoke to no one for a full 24 hours. It was lovely. I made the meal I had planned for the cabin which, while delicious, is not as fun to cook on a regular stove as the woodstove and since I doesn't take as much effort, I didn't appreciate it as much. Still, roast organic chicken with herbs de provence and giant cloves of garlic roasted in my dutch oven, wild rice, cherry pie from the last of the home canned cherries (Sally: hope the trees are back in service soon! I'm also on the final jar of cherry jam from 2007), sourdough rolls, and I started pumpkin soup but honestly I was too full to eat it so it's waiting in the fridge and may get moved to the freezer. The only disappointment was making broth out of the chicken carcass (after stripping it of all recognizable meat for soup or something). I put it back in the dutch oven since that is where the delicious spices, roasted garlics, and pan crusties were. I simmered it for a bit and checked it. It smells amazing, but the dutch oven turned it black. I've made broth in iron pans before and it's been dark, but this looks like gun metal. Smells great, probably high in iron, but ugly. It's in the fridge in a container while I try to think of something that won't be made inedible by the color. Maybe something with black beans as the main ingredient since that will be black anyway. I was going to put some in the pumpkin soup and save the rest for chicken noodle soup. But black chicken noodle soup and god knows what color pumpkin soup...ick. Any suggestions?
Anyway, some animal will enjoy the skin and bones that are going out in the trash. I'd like to compost them but I know something would just dig them out of there too.

SO: I had all that lovely quiet time and I read a book. "Julie and Julia", like the movie. It's better than the movie! Most books are. This is more a memoir of one year, the one when the author turns 30, when she needs a new creative outlet. I think lots of people do this sort of thing, and now many put it on the web (e.g. No Impact Man, New Dress A Day, etc). Then I wondered what makes a few of these blogs take off and most just sit in the abyss. For Ms. Julie Powell (author of Julie and Julia) is that she's a funny writer and seems to be pretty honest, admitting the not so flattering bits (like meltdowns over failed eggs). No Impact Man was also pretty honest, or at least appeared so, but less funny. Both of these also talk quite a bit about how the projects they've chosen change their relationships with others and the rest of their lives. For New Dress A Day, she's gotten some fame, but hasn't talked much in the blog about specific folks. She is however a very amusing chatty-style writer.

My blog will never take off since it is an open ended project, I'm not documenting in the detail, and it is funny only intermittently. Oh well. Better keep the day job.

SO: I wanted a new project. But not for a year. I like projects and the book reminded me of that. I'm going to see how long I can go without getting groceries. The pantry list keeps reminding me of how much food I have in this house. To get ready for the thanksgiving cabin trip that never was, I needed to buy a small bag of noodles for the soup (which now won't happen), a few potatoes and an onion. I have lots of dry onion but I wanted to make potato soup (which I did Thursday night when I got home). It's easy and pretty much cooks itself so seemed a good thing to have the first night at the cabin. It was also good when I got home after the 9 hour drive to know where. It made me realize again that I have a TON of food in this house.
There are still 4 squash and now a box of quince (like an apple) in the root-cellar/front-bedroom along with some garlic. There were 5 squash but one went off and had to go in the compost. I think it froze.
ANYWAY: Given the nice variety of food and spices and oils and fats and whatnot, I'm going to see how long I can easily go without grocery shopping. I often do that at the beginning of winter and thought of it with the pantry inventory so now is the time. If people show up with elk jerky or invite me to lunch, obviously I'll accept. I'm not trying to set up some strange nazi rules that will limit my already limited social life. Just see how long that amount of food lasts in my regular life and see what I run out of first.

It was funny that as I left for the cabin, I thought of throwing in a bag of beans, bunch of rice, and some spices so that if we got stuck we'd be fine for a week. We'd stink ourselves out of the cabin, but we'd be fine. Oh well. Next time.

Well, That WASN'T Frugal!

2010-11-21T22:25:00.000-08:00

So today I'm like totally at the radio show.
We (Sally P, Jill M, and I) start out in the production room and then 10 minutes before Peace Radio starts or so, we head into the studio, where the magic happens (or not). As usual, I wen tin early and used the wifi and got info for my movie reviews and something I wanted to report on. I had the report and another web page for the show pulled up on the laptop. When we move to the studio, I just unplug the computer from the wall outlet in one room and replug it in in the other. Well, apparently between production room and studio...separated by a thin wall, a trojan hit my computer. And I don't mean the condom.
A fake "disk scan" window popped up. The graphic was sort of "off" from the Windows defrag icon and the font was a bit off and "scanned" was spelled "scaned"....hmmm. And then, I got a warning that my hard drive was corrupted so I better click the open window and allow the defrag and that a hard drive couldn't be found and that I had no RAM. Hmmm...I checked the task manager thingy and all was well, but there was too much activity for the programs I had open. So I shut it off...and it wouldn't shut down. That's not good.
I tried again. Then I forced a shut down.

After the show I called Pam who recommended I take out the battery for a while to force the computer off and a restart. I did and more of the nonsense. I did manage to download a fresh antivirus freeware program and do a scan. This took over an hour. Then I did a scan and sure enough, trojan. That is now quarantined along with another suspicious program. I did a real defrag and another scan and so far, knock on wood, things are going OK.

Must remember to back everything up! Not clever. AND to make the "restore" disk like the computer has been trying to make me do for MONTHS. Okay... YEARS. If this goes bad before I get it backed up I'm going to have to pay for data recovery or lose my Europe photos and blog backups and all sorts of very important things...like the black bean sweet potato chili recipe that I can find on the internet.

Anyway, I'm staying in Moscow tonight because I have an appointment tomorrow morning and we're expecting CRAP weather. First major winter driving of the year. That's not a time to be on the road. And it was already freezing rain by 4pm today. It's good to have a job. It may not seem frugal to take a hotel room for 50$ when I could drive the two ways for 20, and yet frugality is about spending money where there is value. The amount of stress this is saving me is HUGE.

Iowa Highlight Part 2

2010-11-16T13:55:00.000-08:00

A few more photos from the MaidRite.
You can see Sher's technique of leaving the sandwich wrapped for tidiness. And Pam's balls-out-all-unwrapped-ultramessy method.

They had the chocolate pie, which is not visible in this photo. I was just shooting the classic pie display cabinet.

And below are a couple of photos of the decor and clientele.

And now for the rest of the show:
The pixie cut gal came up to us and asked if we'd tried their homemade ketchup. We said "no." She pulls a ketchup squeezy thing (see above photo) out from other the counter, whacks it down hard and a stream of ketchup shoots out at Pam! But it was really red yard stuffed in the bottle. Pam nearly jumped out of her skin.

One Iowa Highlight

2010-11-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

I'm just back from Iowa. Called in "sick" to work today. More tired than sick and having caffeine withdrawal headache thanks Sher and her coffee guzzling friends (e.g. Diane Finley).

ANYWAY. I thought I'd report on one small highlight of the Iowa Trip. The sidetrip to Galena was great and all, as was going to Clayton with Gram. But we're starting with the simple joys: a good sandwich.

Mom, Pam and I went to MaidRite. I don't remember ever going before but Sher had.
It's a chain serving loose meat sandwiches with a side of entertainment.

There's a lovely view of the place...in the rain.

And this is the classic prep table. Formerly, the meat was cooking in one side while served out of the other. There is a metal divider in the middle. BUT the bastard health and safety people said "oooo can't have uncooked meat touching cooked meat because someone with a weak system might get the poops."
So now,

the meat is cooked in different location (it might just be at the other end of the long counter but we don't know) then brought out in a metal tub (much like you would find silverware in after washing it but that's probably a coincidence) and dumped in the MaidRite steam table bin. The ingredients appear to be hamburger and chopped onion.

It is scooped onto the buns on, options include tomato, lettuce, onion. Ketchup and mustard provided. the white space in the bottom of the photo is the counter you sit at. No fancy booths or tables here. All counter seating at this location. AND there were 5 people working behind the counter. Two women of a certain age, shown above, a young guy who took our order, a young woman who probably doesn't work there anymore, and one old woman who had aquanet-helmet-hair. Everyone but the young guy had a butt two axe handles wide so the prep space was a bit crowded at hip-high.

Here's the older woman snacking on a raw sweet potato fry. Pam got those. They were DELICIOUS. Pam's were cooked of course. It was pretty clear that they were home sliced and frozen in a ziplock. I got the regular fries and having made the odd batch of fries during the 3 years (or was it eternity?) that I worked at McDonald's, can attest that to get fries from actual potatoes (not the mush formed into sticks that most fast food joints use) you have to have the oil/lard about 2 degrees below the temperature at which it bursts into flame.

As you can see, most of the cooking equipment appears to be original to the building. I like that. Very frugal. The three of us had 3 sandwiches, 2 versions of fries, a brownie and a piece of pie. The total was under 20$...and it came with a SHOW! The chick with the pixie cut threw our sandwiches to each of us from the prep table. The sandwiches come wrapped in paper which you sent on the counter. You also get a spoon as the loose meat tends to fall out. Sher used her paper as a sandwich diaper and managed to eat very tidily. Pam and I struggled and ended up eating most of the sandwich meat with the spoon.

I'll have to continue this in another entry as I'm on dial up and it's too hard to add more photos to this entry.

Exciting Garden Development

2010-11-05T23:08:00.000-07:00

WORMS! Not in my composter (that's in the house...well trailer...not the garden). In the actual raised bed. This is exciting because it means that the garden is settling in and functioning well. I was planting a few garlic bulbs before I left for the Iowa trip today (it was that or compost them) and a HUGE night crawler was curled up in the garden. It was in the newer portion which has a carboard barrier between it and the ground. I don't know if it came in over the side or up through the bottom. Doesn't really matter.
If the worm has friends and family living in there, it means less work for me and that is always good. I won't need to dig up as much this fall. I'll just let them do their thing aerating and digesting things in the dirt. Woohoo! I like to be lazy. As long as they don't eat the garlic, walking onions, herbs, or kale that I'm still growing in there. I don't think they would.

Are Jeggings the Mark of the Beast?

2010-11-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I know that as a product of the 1980s when jeans were worn so tight as to account for the dramatic rise in cesarean sections (pretty sure we deformed our pelvii) I'm on thin ice and in "pot-kettle-black" realms in criticizing the attire of the young.

Still though, pretty sure jeggings are the mark of the beast. In my on going quest for non-spandex pants I'm confronted by the spector of 19% spandex! Jesus. My swimsuit (an industrial age appropriate Lands End model that never gets worn because I prefer the Idaho Bikini (cut offs and a t-shirt)) doesn't have that much! Jeggings. The Rosemary's Baby of jeans and leggings that are all the rage now. I can only assume this means they are going out of style elsewhere in the country and being shipped to north Idaho as part of the move toward the final fashion graveyard...Ross Dress For Less (where I got my last pair of first-hand jeans).

I've even tried to pay retail for non-stretchy pants now. If nothing turns up, and I don't suddenly drop a stone (that's british talk for 14 pounds) and fit back into my skinny clothes, I'm going to have to try custom made jeans. There's a website where you put in your measurements, they go over the interwebs to India, and jeans appear in your mailbox some weeks later. It's 50$. I could normally get 20 pairs of jeans for that. But, if I hate them all and won't wear them, then it's not frugal to buy 20 pairs of jeans or jeggings. And really, on what planet would anyone want to see me in jeggings?

I was just manning a booth at a career fair at a high school. The jeggins were rampant. Even the boys were wearing jeans with stretch. While I'm all for clothing equality, I wish they'd gone for tube tops. Less obscene. They were wearing girl jeans with stretch and given that they did not have girl figures, it looked like each and everyone of them had dropped a load in their britches. I asked my teen-expert (an actual teen boy) what the deal was and whether they knew it looked like they'd poo'ed their drawers (after all, in the 1980s, we knew of the camel toe but we saw it as a necessary evil). He said that it might be ironic. Sort of a metaphoric dump on the establishment.

Does each pair of jeggings come with a free tube of gynelotromin because seriously, you're going to get an infection. Things need to breathe and that has got to chafe.

OK. I will try to make this my final pants rant. Either that or add it as a label for posts.

On the upside, I still have 2 pairs of pants that I can wear to work so it's not a total emergency yet. Maybe the thrift stores in Iowa will have a better selection of non-stretchy pants.

Pantry Inventory: Results

2010-11-02T08:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I must say, knowing what I have has helped. This is not a surprised to anyone.
I've already included a few things in meals that I forgot I had and started using up the items that were just a bit left in a package and consolidated a few other containers. Not bad. And I'm remembering to drink tea.

This is definitely a step in a frugal direction. The "use it up" part of frugality.

Pantry Invetory: 10-28-2010

2010-10-30T16:32:00.001-07:00

I wanted to know what I had on hand and what I needed to get from the co-op during the 5% off bulk sale this week (that means stuff from bulk bins was 5% off), and at the last farmer's market. A well stocked pantry is frugal, especially if you get much of it on sale. 5% isn't much, but why not take advantage?

I also thought it would be fun to see what I had and share the pantry with y'all. I'm not sure who reads. I think most folks are cooks so have a stocked pantry and I'm hoping you'll be willing to comment and share so I know how far I've strayed from "normal" (not that I ever was...I was making my own sourdough bread as a college undergrad while still having diet coke and ho-hos for breakfast and was once so broke that the "pantry" consisted of a bag of sugar, a bag of rice, and some cocoa...you can live on sweet cocoa rice for about a week...it's pretty good!)

I decided to be honest so I included food that's gone off and needs to go ... I will chuck it but if I started doing that while doing the inventory, I'd never get done with the inventory. First I'd chuck the food, then start re-organizing and then something else would occur to me and I'd never get back to inventorying. So rest assured that I'm not eating 3 year old grape leather in a punctured plastic bag (even though it smells delicious!)...into the composter it goes.

The GOOD news:
1) I have a buttload of food and could happily --well 'healthily' anyway-- live for MONTHS without buying anything.
2) I have a good variety of food so I won't get scurvy
3) I have plenty plenty plenty of protein (and this is before the fridge-freezer inventory)
4) I did a great job stocking up on local products to get me through the winter

The less good news (trying to be non-judgemental):
1) It's not organized well.
This is not a surprise to anyone who knows me. I just heard the phrase "put like with like" as a way of organizing (yes...it was on one of those hoarder shows I saw while at a hotel) and honestly, that had not occurred to me in a serious way, or at least had not stuck. I know to do it with receipts and tax stuff, but it hadn't occurred to me to try it with everything. Anyway, that's on the to-do list now for my pantry: organize by putting like with like (and then I'll keep one bit of each in the active cooking cupboard and kitchen shelf unit).

So, there are many places where I keep food. The kitchen is not exactly palatial and the cupboard space is made for someone who keeps bags of pasta sauce, a few cans of sauce or whatever, and maybe a handful of pans. Not much storage. I've supplemented with a shelving unit for food and a few plants called "blue shelves"...these were bought at a thrift store for 6$ a few years ago. They were already blue. Then there are 2 more shelves for cookware and dishes and whatnot. And a few milk crates for more pans that won't fit in the cupboards or on the other shelves.
Anyway, here goes:
abbreviations:
pkg = package
pt = pint jar (ball or kerr usually)
qt = quart jar (ball or kerr usually)
large jar = a really BIG antique jar, like 1/2-1.5 gallons
med jar = smaller than a BIG jar, but bigger than a small jar
small jar = roughly a quart, but not a quart jar
note: all beans are dry and the majority of things are bought from the bulk bins so beans/lentils/peas/etc are dry, not canned. These will yield 2-4 times as much once soaked/cooked. In fact lentils just keep growing! Every time you reheat some lentil soup you add a bit of water and the lentils soak it up. I'm pretty sure it can become a perpetual pot of soup if you don't just break down one day and eat the whole pot at once.

Blue Shelves
The top of the unit is plants (including 2 carrot tops I cut off to grow more carrot greens...not a success yet, but hope springs eternal)

Top shelf:
-1/2 pkg seaweed wraps for sushi/sashimi/california rolls
-1/2 pkg kombu (different seaweed...a bit in a pot of beans makes them slightly less farty and adds what looks like a giant slug of green goosh)
-1 bottle, unopened, raspberry vinegar
-1/2 pt Raspberry jam from 2008 by M&E
-1 pt smashed plum g00sh 2008 from A&Y
-bit of sea salt
-bit of brown rice vinegar
-2 jars chicken broth powder
-1 jar vegetable broth powder
-1 small tin wasabi powder
-bit of cocoa
-salt and pepper shakers (Mount St. Helens set...awesome) with bit of pepper in there
-1 empty tin from crystallized ginger
-1 ginger tin with 3T corn meal
-sample of anti-gas supplement
-sample of Rhodida Ros.
-sample of chia fiber mix for smoothies
-3/4 pint almonds
-1/2 C popcorn kernels
-1lb bag coffee beans (organic, shade grown, free trade, dark roast...delicious)
-empty tea tin
-coffee grinder
-sample skin moisturizer
-1 box apple cinnamon tea bags
-1 tin gun powder tea (about 1.5 cups)
-few bags of lemon zinger tea
-1 tea bag of black tea.

2nd shelf down
-1 new and 1 old pkg crystallized ginger
-1 qt cocoa
-about 1.5 quarts nutritional yeast in a used rice protein powder jar.
-2 round cartons table salt
-3 and 1/4 2lb packages rock salt (for the sidewalk, but it is a foodstuff too)
-1lb gnocchi
-1pkg egg replacer
-1/2 bag wheat berries, about 2.5 lbs

3rd shelf
-1 qt canola oil
-1 qt olive oil (extra virgin but I don't think it's organic)
-8c lentils...local!
-1/2 c flax seeds
small bags of the following:
-mung beans
-flax
-cinnamon sticks
-cloves--2 bags of these
-garlic-herb mix
-nutmeg
-allspice
-basil
-thyme
-rosemary
-cayenne
-stevia
-oregano-2 bags
-coarse sea salt
-herbs de provence
-curry
-bit of teecino (coffee replacement product) in a tin (this has now been consumed...frees up a tin)

Bottom shelf
-2 qt sweet cherries in light syrup, 2007 canned by me
-1 pt pears, A&Y
-1 pt black beans
-1c soy protein powder
-1c lecithin (but I think it's gone off...must chuck that)
-4c brown rice
-5 qt honey (local! bought in large bucket noted below and repackaged some into quart jars for -easier use)
-3 tricycle maintenance items ... non toxic and clean but probably not categorized well

Under the Kitchen table:
-2g honey (1/2 full 4gal bucket, some has been decanted into the qts noted above)
-small tub of home-mi hamster food
-12.3lb butternut squash (yes 12 and one third POUNDs and it's one squash)

On Kitchen table:
-4boxes pectin
-4 apples
-1 lemon
-4 pears
-1 onion
-2 plums
-Medium hubbard squash (a "medium" hubbard squash is bigger than my head)
-3.25 heads garlic

In hanging vegetable basket (those wire tiered numbers you hang from the ceiling)
-4 cloves garlic
-1 hand of aging ginger (ooo...that would go well with some squash...)

Counter by the sink:
-2 qt home-brewing apple vinegar
-12 small hot peppers

Country by the fridge:
-1/2c olive oil
-1 pt popcorn kernels
-2.3 qt dried apples
-2c dried pears
-1/2 pt strawberry jam, mine, 2007
-1 pt dried carrots
-1 tsp agave syrup (the bottle is draining upside down)
-Big jar whole wheat flour
-4 little tins of tea from London.

Stacked in jars in boxes by shelves holding pots/pans/radio
-4 qt dried tomatoes
-1 pt dried tomatoes
-1 pt tomato dust (I cored tomatoes, cut out blemishes (there were VERY few), chunked them up, threw them in the blender, and pureed them. Then poured into the "fruit leather" trays in the dehydrator and dried them down to brittle. I put it in jars and crunched it into dust. The theory is that I can use this to make tomato sauce...it worked once!)
-1/2c dried onion
-1.5 pt dried plum leather
-2 pt dry plums
-1.75 pt dry peppers
-3 pts dry onion
-1/2 pt dry ancho chilis
-10.5 1/2 pt dry peppers, various kinds, mostly as sweet, medium or hot mixes

In the antique rice tin of spices and mixes:
-1 fiesta dip mix
-3 guacamole dip mix
-1 pueblo chicken rub
-1 lg bag chimayo powder
-1 mole mix (ooo...mole! My favorite mexican chocolate chili chicken treatment)
-1 bag of something labeled "Hot" (this was a gift and arrived that way...looks like oregano but then the "hot" doesn't make sense)
-1 "scorcher" salsa mix (I mixed up the other one and "scorcher is putting it mildly)
-1 med red chilis
-1 fajita marinade
-3 fajita mix
-1 small chili pepper

Dining room floor (in boxes, not just strewn about...things get tough during canning season and I actually have to clean the floors so I can store stuff in boxes! Jeez...I would kill for a root cellar)
-12 1/2pt plum jam, various mixes but all freestone/sweet plums and made with honey rather than sugar
-6 1/2 pt plum essence (I started with about 16 cups of plum puree, skins and all, and cooked it down to about 6 cups...mixed in a bit of lime juice for acidity for canning and that's it)
-2 pt pickled plums...from a few years ago and they are CRAP...must throw these out in the compost once rinsed
-7 1/2 pt 2008 cherry jam, sweet cherries from S&J.
-12 1/2 pt 2009 sour plum jam (I'll be keeping Diana on a slow drip of this as she claims she's become dependent on the sour plum jam and there were no sour plums available to me this year)

Cupboard by fridge (this is what I think of as the main "food" cupboard but I may have to rethink after this inventory)
Top shelf, from stoveward side to fridgeward side:
-1 big jar whole wheat flour (local, not organic but low till)
-1 big jar white high gluten flour (local, not organic but low till)
-1 c dry goji berries
-2 c raisins (thompson)
-2 c wheat bran
-1/2 tin baking powder
-3/4 pt rye berries
-1 c garbanzos
-1.5 c nutritional yeast
-1 c honey
-1.5 c high gluten flour (because it didn't all fit in the big jar)
-1 qt rye flour
-1 big jar (yes, another) whole wheat flour
-1 qt pumpernickel rye flour
-1 big jar rolled oats
-1 med/big jar black beans
-2 c black beans
-small jar split peas (I just wanted a few to try. I've never like pea soup but I've only had canned -so maybe dry peas are better...they are super cheap)
-small jar walnuts...out of shell

Bottom shelf (there's only the two...total length under 3 feet each and structurally unsound)
-bit of corn starch in a box
-1 tin corn starch
-zip lock back of grape leather from god knows when!
-brown rice vinegar
-bromelain (supplement)
-2 c popcorn kernel
-1 qt apple cider vinegar (raw, unfiltered from bulk bins)
-1/2 c barley
-3 baking cups (like for cupcakes)
-3/4 c molasses
-1 bg jar turbinato sugar (I tried to quit buying sugar and just use honey...so this might be the last of the sugar for a long long time)
-1 tin baking powder
-1 c cous cous
-2 c cashews
-1/2 c sesame seed
-handful of almonds and craisins in a baggie
-1/2 dried tomatoes (not from this year...hmmm)
-2 c white rice
-Anise seeds
-1 qt jar of assorted pepper seeds (this should be with gardening stuff)
-1 c baking soda
-small shaker of table salt
-med jar oats
-1 qt oats
-3/4 c sea salt
-2T vanilla
-2 c corn meal
-2T toasted sesame oil
-bit of stevia
-1 pkg stevia
-1 c dried corn---couple of years old but this stuff lasts many years, it's one reason people got into growing corn (or any grain)
-1 c dried apples from 2009, questionable
-vitamin B supplement
-bit of cocoa
-2T black tea
-bromelain supplement
small spice jars of:
-red chili flakes
-sage
-lemon grass
-unknown yellow powder...no odor left, time to chuck it.

Spices on rack over stove (I KNOW that's not the best place to store them but I go through them fast enough that they keep fine)
-kelp powder (that's the third kind of seaweed...jeez)
-lecithin (gone off)
-bit of honey
-curry
-bit of paprika
-bit of cayenne
-hot cayenne
-rosemary
-cilantro
-spike (this is "Mrs. Dash" found in the bulk section...I tried it, it's not great)
-thyme
-cinnamon
-tumeric
-mustard (the dry powder...not just a yellow squarty thing of mustard)
-something that may or may not be chili powder...I write the names on the jars as I refill them and then the names rub off as I use them. Some are easy to ID like salt and rosemary, others are tougher.

Spices on the fridge (I got magnetic spice tins with windows on them at World Market..I LOVE them...you can see when you run out...but again with the rub-off naming system)
-cinnamon
-nutmeg
-oregano
-bay leaf
-lemon grass
-granulated garlic (this keeps better in a jar and will need to switch back)
-cumin
-chili powder
-cayenne
-rosemary
-thyme
-small pepper grinder (magnetic...there used to be a salt grinder on there too but it fell and busted)

on top of fridge:
-large pepper grinder (2$ at thrift) with multi-color gourmet pepper corn mix in it. Yummy AND pretty.

Bedroom closet (there is a file box in there with jarred goods)
-1 qt cherry leather 2007
-1 pt dried cherries 2007
-1/4c tomatoes...not this year
-1/2 pt dry celery
-1 pt dry celery leaves

Under the bed (in jars in a box...not just spread around like a compost heap!)
-1 small/med plastic jar with assorted bags of dry peppers, not this year but I dried them until they were brittle (maybe 5% moisture) so they are still good
-1 pt tomato dust (see above for explanation)
-5 1/2pt dried peppers, 2010 vintage
-1/2 pt mixed tomato and hot pepper dust (this is supposed to be instant arabiata sauce)
-3.5 qt dry tomato
-1 c dry red onion from the garden, 2009
-2 1/2pt dry tomato

Tea Bin (this is a very large tupperware type thingy with dried herbs for making tea)
bags of the following (the bags are about "sandwich" size). The Tea Bin needs a home.
-chamomile
-calendula
-echinacea
-nettle
-lavender
-dandelion root
-juniper berry
-licorice root
-valerian (two partial bags)
-slippery elm bark
-senna
(man...I could use some little jars for these but all the jars are full of jam and dried veg)

This is a lot of food! I do like soups and chili from the dried beans, peppers and other veg.
I do wish I had some more apples, some canned apple sauce, and some dried potatoes. If there is a cheap bin at the co-op I'll get that.
This does not include the food in the fridge. That's another blog (partly because the fridge needs cleaned out...the soup bucket in the freezer has cut down on waste but a bag of greens and a bowl of rice and a few other things slipped by me)

Just with this, no fridge stuff, I could eat and be healthy easily through to February probably. That 12+ pound squash alone is a week's worth of soup. I'd be sick of it when I was done, but still. The plan for that is to roast some, soup some, eat for a few days and freeze the rest in 1-2 serving portions. I wonder if you can dry winter squash?

I used this to inform a trip to the co-op today for the last shot at the bulk sale. I can see that eating just this will make me want something "fresh" during the winter. Soup from dried veg and beans and so on is delicious, but sometimes you want fresh food. So I got seeds to sprout. Alfalfa, clover, broccoli, and radish. About 1/2 cup will make plenty of sprouts for a couple of months. I have 2 sprouting systems and will try to focus on eating them regularly.
I may also try to plant a bit of lettuce or greens under glass outside or in the window inside. The kale is soldiering on in the cold weather so who knows...a cold frame could grow kale all winter (if only I weren't so lazy).
Maybe a couple of pots of fresh herbs too. Of course I'll buy some fruit and veg in the winter but it's hard to get local stuff in winter.

I'm pleased to see I have some variety in jams due to back stock of older jars. These are NOT rusted, damaged, discolored or anything that would indicate a problem. Obviously I'll smell them before I open and other than supplying Diana with the sour plum from 2009, I don't give away old jam. It's one thing to accidentally poison me, but another to poison someone else.

If I keep making bread and things, I'll also need more flour but I didn't want to buy more than this for now. It can go buggy.
One reason for the rye flours is that my sourdough starter likes a variety of whole grain flours as food. If you feed one kind exclusively you lose the variety of yeasts in the starter and the flavor is less interesting and the leavening action less vigorous. And this starter is vigorous! I got it from the bread guy and it keeps growing when I put it in the fridge to "rest" it. It grew when the house was 45degrees. Even raised bread. The bread is much lighter than with my previous (and now deceased) starter. I even got a starter sitter for while I'm gone.
Right now the starter is working on bread with a mix of whole wheat, high gluten and rye flours. ...perhaps I should just do a separate sourdough post...

I also picked up more nuts at the co-op. It probably seems excessive to many of you that I have 3 kinds of nuts in those quantities. These are raw, not roasted/salted snacking nuts (heh heh...I keep typing "nuts"). I use them as a dairy substitute. 1 part nuts to 3 parts water in the blender makes a good "milk" and if you've read past entries, you know that unlike most folks who make nutmilk, I leave the nut bits (heh heh) in the final product. Sometimes I have to chew my Sunday morning mocha made with nutmilk, but I live alone so no one gets grossed out.
The nuts on sale were walnuts out of the shell. These won't last as long as those in the shell. Actually, walnuts in the shell apparently last forever as I'm too lazy to crack them and pick out the nutmeats to make walnut milk (which makes an AMAZING latte with a bit of honey or stevia)

Doing this makes me wonder what a "normal" American pantry looks like. Right now I don't have a single fruit or vegetable product in a commercially packed can. The baking powder is still in a tin, but will probably be bought in bulk from here on out.
Would any ready care to share their pantry inventory? I won't judge you any harsher than you've judged me (you know you thought "3 kinds of seaweed? Seriously? What kind of granola actually has 3 kinds of seaweed in the house?) (and you also probably thought that my house must always smell of flatulence given the amount of BEANS listed...well I blame all that on a dirty hamster pen...I mean "it does not")

And the exercise also points out that I need to get all my boxes of jars of dried and canned goods together and put like with like! Then I can just keep one box with one jar of each type in the kitchen cupboard...or on the shelves.
If I can get the second bedroom turned into a cool storage room for the winter, I usually keep it about 45 degrees in there, I can put the squash and canned goods in there.
I have Diana's old vacuum sealer so some nutmeats may get vacuum packed and put in cold storage to extend the shelf life. I don't think it would be good to freeze them as oil tends to coagulate and it could make the texture weird. I'll ask Gram.

OK, time to make supper. I've made it through everything so I get to make something from scratch. Woohoo.

25 Things I DON'T Do

2010-10-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

that save money. I liked the line in one of the Tightwad Gazette issues ( have volumes I and II...looking for III or the Compleat Tightwad in thrift stores and the free book bin at recycling), that the author, Amy Dacyczyn was having trouble with news crews filming her since most of what it takes to save money is NOT doing things. See the family NOT stop at the drive thru. See them not buying popcorn and enormously expensive pop at the movies. There the pizza delivery guy doesn't go. Fascinating viewing. Obviously the time is filled with other things but they aren't things that made for good TV viewing. Hanging laundry seemed to be a hit for her (something I just did moments ago).

Anyway, below are 25 things I don't do that save money. And FYI as soon as I posted the list of 25 things I "do" in previous entry, I thought up many many more. Each as boring as the last...crock pot cooking, whatnot.

And now the list:
1 Buy clothes retail (except shoes, socks, undies)
2 Buy clothes at full price even if retail
3 Pay interest
4 Pay for that initial depreciation. Used is where it is at!
5 Eat out much (it happens...less and less...partly because I want things the way I want them and the best way to get that is to cook it myself. According to family lore my first words were "I'll do it myself")
6 Buy pricey coffee (yes, it does add up. I know people who spend 5-10$/work day which is 25-50$/week, 100-200/month, 1200-2400$ per year! The high end is my food budget for the year.)
7 Eat mostly processed food. Cook-n-save. I also end up with almost no trash. I just took out 2 grocery bags of "garbage" which are things I can't recycle here. It's about 2 months worth.
8 Buy everything that catches my eye
9 Browse through catalogs
10 Window shop when bored
11 Shop as a hobby or pastime (well...sometimes I am in thrift stores without a list so need to work on this one)
12 Drive around for entertainment. Actually, I miss this one. I like a nice drive in the boonies. But, alas between wasting gas, and wasting money, and putting polution out in the environment I gave it up. Back to walking and riding my tricycle.
13 Try to keep up with the neighbors / the Joneses. Partly because I don't give a crap and partly because I don't see them as role models
14 Accept upgrades rather than refunds or discounts. But if I can't get a refund I'll take the upgrade.
15 Buy bottled water. It's insanely expensive compared to the tap and may well be LESS healthy AND the bottles use more water to manufacture then most of them hold. That's just wrong. Fill a container at the tap. I almost passed out at an event recently when the hostess offered me a water to drink. I said "great" and she got a PLASTIC BOTTLE out of the fridge and POURED THE WATER IN A PLASTIC CUP! Nothing was recycled. I realized that that might be standard behavior and that maybe, just maybe, I'm the weird one. I don't get it. Why pay a huge amount for water (and based on the size of the package of bottles she DROVE somewhere to buy it which means gas money, wear and tear on the car, etc) and then pour it in a cup that is used ONCE!!!? At my house you'll get filtered tap water (it tastes rank without the filter and according to my free test kit has as much chlorine some days as a swimming pool should) in a glass or cup out of my cupboard. It will cost me almost nothing and your thirst will be equally quenched and frankly, the graniteware tumblers I have now (Thanks Sher) are pretty cool.
16 Buy cake. This probably seems odd. But for a year there (in Spokane...) I would just run out about once a week and buy a slice of cake from the store across the street. It wasn't going to bankrupt me, but it was wasteful in general. I can make an entire chocolate cake for about a dollar. I was paying 3 or 4$ for one slice with crap frosting. I do make quite a bit of cake. I like cake. I just had chocolate cake with my potato soup, dried venison, and ratatouille on quinoa dinner...and a cup of tea made with loose leaves.
17 Eat meat at every meal. I did "meatless Monday" this week (ratatouille on quinoa for lunch and supper, apple pancake for breakfast...it was really good). Meat is spendy and hard on the environment when raised industrially. Monday I was positively STUFFED and as far as I can tell, I ate maybe 1200 calories. 50 of those were honey in my tea. I love honey. I'm not a vegetarian and I eat extremely well (see "cake" above) and cutting back on meat has saved bunches of dollars in groceries as well as allowing me to upgrade to organic free range meats AND it will probably save me healthcare dollars in the long run.
18 Look for happiness in stuff/possessions. I have in the past. I was once pretty sure that having a mortgage would make me happy partly due to the promised tax savings. Turns out it was a crock. I didn't get a net savings. Only about 30percent of the interest came back in the taxes. The other 70% was a loss. Forget that. And I didn't like having the debt. It was a cool little house though and I liked having somewhere to paint and decorate (well..Sher did the painting) how I wanted. Hence the dream of buying for cash.
19 Expect to be rich. Letting go of the idea that I'll ever be wealthy, or even want to be wealthy has helped. I've settled on the level I wish to live at. I want a basic structure to live in with interesting cooking facilities. I was going to put in "hot shower" and "indoor toilet" but realized those are still negotiable. I can get a free shower at the gym and a bathtub with no shower would be fine. I prefer a toilet in the house, but I also really like camping in areas with pit toilets because they never break or back up and they don't stink up the house. Hmmm....
20 Pay for more degrees. I'm done now. If it's free, fine. But I've got 4 college degrees and one free one off the internet. I'm interested in many things and now I can just read up or audit a class or whatever, but I don't need or want to pay for any more degrees.
21 Immediately assume I have to pay someone to do a repair or maintenance task. Just yesterday I checked a book out of the library on wiring to see if I can fix a lamp. If that doesn't work I'll borrow a ouija board and try to contact Grampa Bush. He was an electrician (in fact, I think he rewired this lamp at some point). I may end up paying someone, but we'll see if I'm able first. I'll learn something too so fits in with the not paying for degrees/education bit above.
22 Pay for storage (sorry Pam!). I just learned on the radio show this weekend that the ministorage business is far larger than I ever suspected. That's insane. How much crap do we need? Our houses are larger than ever (some folks excepted...Sally, Rik, etc you know who you are), families are smaller and yet the houses are over flowing with crap to the point that folks rent temp storage for stuff they clearly aren't using. Wow. I've rented storage in the past when I had no housing and I've abused others' storage units when I had inadequate housing (chevy van, anyone? anyone?). I don't THINK I've rented storage when I had a reasonable size place to live. Later we'll talk about how two rooms in the trailer are basically storage...I could rent an even smaller place if I got rid of my crap here and in Pam's basement. And yet I think I'm at the bottom of the rental market. There might not be a cheaper rental. Still it would be good to get rid of and/or use up some of the crap.
23 Buy new (meaning "new to me") clothes if I can remotely possibly make an acceptable outfit out of clothes I have. i only really gave a crap about clothes in jr. high and even then, I didn't "get it" I just wanted to be invisible and sought to blend in with the other tight panted pre-teens. Given where I live and the profession I'm in, this is generally possible. Idaho formal is black jeans. I've got one pair I only wear for meetings. Bought them at thrift. Black jeans, a decent sweater or columbia shirt and reasonable shoes or boots will pretty much do it. I have one sort of blazer for real emergencies (came in handy for court a few times...no, I wasn't charged with anything! I was there supporting others).
24 Throw crap out or donate it until I'm sure I don't need it. This results in a bit of a hoarding issues, but I've also saved some dollars. Recently I was going to donate a couple of travel mugs as I had 4 and really, 2 is plenty. Well, 2 died so I dug the others back out of the goodwill box. So, I'm still set for travel mugs.
25 Buy t-shirts. I'm not talking shells or the shirts to wear under button downs and v-necks to work but actual t-shirts. It's come to my attention that people give me enough free ones to keep me supplied. I just had to retire 2 shirts (rag bag...later to be composted) and ended up with 2 brand new t-shirts from events I attended. Freebies. Even found one in my mailbox at work Monday morning! I used to buy them to commemorate events, trips, whatnot. But now I've got so damn many I'll never wear them out. I wonder if I can make underpants out of them? Or re-weave the cotton into spandex free jeans.

The list actually goes on and on and on but I'll stop here. There are probably more obvious things (e.g. don't buy a car until the one I'm driving dies or is murdered on the highway) but I can't be bothered right now. I need to get on that pantry inventory and wash some undies.

P.S. I did give up last night and turn the furnace on. The temperature in the house just would not maintain without it. I had put up storm windows and plastic, styrofoam in front of the backdoor with shrink plastic over it, plastic plate (which has been washed and reused many many times...) over the bathroom ceiling fan, plastic over the windows that don't have storms (the front bedroom/root celler/cold storage has not had all the windows done. It's next.) I even stuffed used wax paper into cracks in the west side jalousie window. But the wind was sailing through the trailer. It was pretty strong and there is only so much one can do. I thought about lighting the oil heater but it gives me a headache until I throwup so that can't be worth it. I made a new filter (it is a size that does not occur in nature so I buy what I can get and cut to size) and started it up. The temp was back over 50 degrees in 10 minutes. Central heating is a miracle.

Turning on the furnace has also made it possible to dry clothes. When it's too raining to hang them outside and I'm not heating the trailer, I can't do much laundry as the moisture just condenses on the walls and ceiling and makes mold. I've got enough clothes to get by for quite a while, but the outfits have been a bit creative.

25 Things

2010-10-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

So, I was reading some thrifty blogs as I am wont to do.
One of them had solicited lists from other frugalers (that's people who actively do frugality...frugalees are the friends and families of frugalers. Frugalees suffer from crap gifts, handme down clothes, and chilly houses in the winter (yes, I have a blanket wrapped around my head right now and am considering giving up on my "wait until Nov. 1 to turn on the furnace" deal since with a 20+ mile per hour wind the trailer is FREAKING COLD...I can expect a 15 degree temperature drop between bedtime and getting up time without a wind. WITH a wind, it's going to be closer to 25 degrees and we're only at 55 now. The low tonight will be 34...so, assuming some serious temperature drop BEFORE bed, I'm going to FREEZE. Might be time to admit defeat)
ANYWAY:
Here are some things I actually "do" to save money (later there will be a list of the crap I DON'T do. There will be repeats here and these are not in a good order:

1 I save money...like in a savings account, retirement account etc.
2 No longer pay interest (I've read some folks spend 12% of their income on interest! Wow)
3 Try to eat what I have on hand before it goes bad (need to do better on this...see upcoming pantry inventory). Also, on average Americans through out something like 30% of the food they buy. Wow. Trying to do better than that.
4 Cook from scratch. Ingredients are cheaper than processed food. Also, it has a creative element AND helps heat the house in the winter (though not enough today)
5 Maintain the car reasonable well. Keep the oil changed, but don't fix dents and things (I put insurance payouts for those into savings...other people's insurance, not mine)
6 Drive slower and smoother. In "The Ultimate Cheapskate's Guide to True Riches" Mr. Yeager gave the example of putting a FULL to the brim glass of water in the cup holder and learning to drive so that didn't spill. I haven't done that yet but thought of him on Friday when I picked up a roaster full of runny (and delicious) soup and had to drive it 7 miles on a windy road going downhill. I drove REALLY REALLY smoothly and didn't spill any and probably saved gas. It made me aware that I have work to do on the "smooth" bit.
7 Wear out clothes. I appeared at book club yesterday with holes in the elbows of my sweater. The rest of the sweater, like 99% is perfectly good...and I will patch those.
8 Develop hobbies that save money or at least don't cost much. E.g. canning and gleaning.
9 Use the library (multiple libraries actually...I was surprised to find I was the only one at book club with a library copy of the book)
10 Netflix. I'm not recommending the company in particular, but apparently the cheap love it. I pay 17.99 or so a month and watch usually 6-12 movies per month. If the Plummer library had a better DVD selection, I'd cut back on that subscription.
11 Reuse stuff. I have rags made of worn out clothes. The garden is made largely of discarded wood and containers.
12 Compost. Two systems. This saves on trash and saves on fertilzers and whatnot for the garden.
13 Garden. I'm not sure it's saved that much money yet. I do count it as education, entertainment, and food.
14 Pay bills on time. I went through a phase earlier this year where I would forget to pay the city bill on time. Don't know what that was but it cost 5$ a shot. No more of that.
15 Go shopping in the closet (or in my case the big pile of laundry on the floor of the bedroom or on the couch). When I'm sick of the outfits in rotation, I dig through the closet/laundry pile and switch some things out.
16 Repair things. Like get shoes resoled. Darn socks. Sew on buttons. Replace my own car battery.
17 Walk. when the trip is under 1.5 miles or so, I generally walk. This is easy in Plummer as any trips in town are under the threshold and any trips out of town are longer.
18 Group errands. If I get the car out, I try to have at least 2 things to do. Unless it is a trip specifically for work (and sometimes even then) I do as much as I can where I'm at and park the car while in one town (no towns around here are too big to walk across).
19 Make coffee at home. Cheaper. And better.
20 Put left overs in the freezer if I don't eat them. In fact. I'm going to have to take out some of the freezy packs to get the latest soup ingredients in. It's the last hoo-rah for fresh veg this season so I've been making buckets of things like ratatouille and freezing the remains.
21 Buy staples when they are on sale. This has been serious this month as the Moscow Food Co-op is having a bulk-bins sale for members. I've bought enough oatmeal, flour, lentils, oil, spices, and etc for quite a while. I'll be doing a pantry inventory this week (before the sale ends next Sunday) to make sure I've got the basics. It will mean very little grocery shopping this winter which is always an odd adjustment.
22 Ask for discounts sometimes. I will be increasing this. It's another tip from Mr. Yeager. Sometimes there is a discount. Might as well ask. Since I don't shop much, and haven't had the nerve to ask for a discount at a thrift store, I don't do this much. I'm much better at getting the AAA discount at hotels/motels, asking about the government rate and etc. Motels generally have a better deal than the first price quoted.
23 Delay purchases. I hate it when people tell me to "just buy it" (yes you, Pam, and others). I KNOW I have the money. What I'm deciding is if I really want it.
24 Know my hourly net wage and the "real" wage minus the costs of having a job (see older posts on this) and decide if any purchase is worth the time I have to work to buy ANDstore and maintain the item.
25 Try to be grateful for what I have. That's not too hard since I live near some seriously poor people and have that radio show where we talk about people with much much less that the aforementioned seriously poor people.

It's been a while

2010-10-20T09:28:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the delay between posts. I've been busy/lazy.

I'm having a very amusing time with the "Kill-A-Watt" meter I checked out from the library. I've even renewed it.
So far I've tested most appliances that can be tested and I'm down to comparing lamps and fans. The washing machine will be tested this weekend to see how much it costs me to do a large load vs a small load. I know it's more economical to always do large loads, but when one lives alone, it's hard to come up with a big load every time. I just don't have that many undies and you can't throw those in with the jeans unless you want the underoos torn to shreds which is also not economical.

I'm still holding off on turning the furnace on. The olive oil on the counter gelled up the other day but re-melted into olive oil by afternoon when it was over 55 in there. The coldest it's been is 43 in the house. This morning it got down to 47 but I baked a loaf of bread before I left for work so the left over oven heat will warm things up quite a bit.

Soup Bucket Soup Report

2010-10-09T18:17:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that I was keeping a container in the freezer for left overs that would make good soup.
Well, it also made me much more consciencious about eating what I fixed so I would not have to face it again in a soup pot.
SO, with only 2 forms of leftovers in the soup bucket, I dove in and made soup. I was out of other edible and prepared food in the house (not remotely out of food...food inventory coming up soon) and decided to go for it.
I moved it from the freezer to the fridge a day before fixing. This is a cheaper way to thaw than using the stove (not much cheaper...but a bit as it saves electricity needed to cool the fridge and the electric to power the stove). Then, I put it all in a soup pot and added water. Since I had some kale in the garden that was well due to be picked, I did so and added about 6 smallish kale leaves, torn up, to the pot. I was going to add some pasta for noodles but with quinoa and potatoes featuring heavily, it didn't really need another starch-like product. I did throw in a few tomatoes that were in danger of going off.
And, fixed some biscuits while it was heating up.
It was delicious. The original dishes were some of the classic "that which has no name" (recipe appears in a past blog post) and a veggie hash over quinoa. Both featured quite a bit of garlic, fried onions, and various spices so I didn't feel that a broth addition was necessary.
As far as I could tell, the following were in the soup:
potatoes (red, yukon and blue), onion, garlic, carrot, beets, heritage zucchini, tomatoes, hot pepper, quinoa. I splashed on some lemon juice and fresh ground pepper to serve.

For dessert more biscuits with jam. I had too many biscuits but they go stale so I tend to eat the whole batch.

I'll be doing the soup bucket soup from now on. It was way better than trying to eat the left overs in their original format for too many days in a row.

DEAR UNIVERSE: GET YOUR SPANDEX OUT OF MY PANTS!

2010-10-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

Seriously. How much do I hate spandex in my jeans? I hate it to 11.
I am having a helluva time finding jeans, yes at thrift stores but still it's all the same brands, without freaking spandex. I do not want pants in the shape of me. I want pants in the shape of PANTS. If I wanted to wear tights, I WOULD BUY FREAKING TIGHTS.
Jesus.

Even Carhartt is putting spandex in some of their women's pants.
Why only in the women's? Have you not seen the men walking around these days?
Some of them have chunky thighs. Maybe THEY would like stretchy pants for "ease of movement".

Seriously. It's not just that I hate any form of clothing that clings (bras...you are on notice!), I am trying not to buy synthetics. I'm hoping to have an entirely compostable wardrobe. One that does not feature petroleum products (bras...that's you again). Will I have to have my pants custom made? Wear boy pants? (see above "chunky thighs" and add "short waist" and "flat butt" to find out why I haven't tried this route too often...no one wants to see old lady coin slot).

I just want jeans. Denim. Cotton. Straight leg (boot cut jeans give me wierd saddle bag thigh thingies with or without spandex....tapered legs are just not there). Low rise (see above short waist...in the 1980s my jeans literally hit my bra strap some days. I was the torso-free-gal).
Is that too much to ask of the world?

When I want "ease of movement" I'll buy pants that FIT. If you buy the right size, you will not have trouble sitting down with or without spandex.
One of my favorite effects of spandex pants is when they "hug" my butt curves, such as they are and gradually pull my underpants down throughout the day. Nice feature. Because next to old lady coin slot, who doesn't want to see a middle aged woman try to sneak her hand down the back of her pants to find her undies? When I'm working outside with no privacy or potty facilities in sight, I love making the choice between sticking my hand down the back of my pants or trying to figure out if everyone can see that my undies have bunched up around the bottom of my butt. Also, it chafes. If they don't get the spandex out of my pants, I'm going to have to invent undie-spenders which will be straightened out sock garters hooking my undies to my bra for an all day wedgie-chafe-fest that can't be beat. You think I'm a bitch now? Wait until I've got undies all up in my business while I'm trying to get a bulldozer to stop doing whatever it shouldn't be doing.

So, again:

Universe,
GET YOUR SPANDEX OUT OF MY PANTS!
Love Jill

Does anyone know where I can buy jeans without spandex, with low rise, straight legs, and sturdy cotton fabric?

Ever More With The Thriftiness

2010-10-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

Mr. Ultimate Cheapskate, Jeff Yeager, has a "Miser Adviser" system where one can lobby for status. Interesting. I'm composing my application and will post it here when I'm done.

Yesterday I got some more plums. They are past it now so here's hoping I get those quince a friend said might be available. I've got plum butter going in the crock pot. It's been cooking down for about 2 days (with the lid off when I'm home) and is down to less than 50% of the original volume so time to jar it up today. I may add some acid in the form of lime or lemon juice to be safe. It tastes amazing. I added no honey, sugar, spice or anything. It is the rendered essence of plums and as thick as wet cement (but prettier). I put the pitted plums, skin and all, in the blender. The flavor of these plums, and the good color, is in the skins.

I've also instituted a new practice recommended in all thrifty how-to books:
The Soup Bucket. This is a container in the freezer that accepts left overs. When full, put it in a pot and call it soup. So far I have 2 kinds of veggie hash, one with quinoa, in there. I'll report on the results when I make the soup. Some folks put each type of left over in a baggie, then put the baggies in a bigger bag. That seems like a lot of plastic to me so screw it. I have a divided tupperware (gotten when I left for COLLEGE in 1984 from one Sandy Bright) that I've put mine in . It holds quite a bit and is a dark color for less stainage.

And I got the best thrifty gift on Friday! I had talked to a local woman about being her CSA test run. At the beginning of the season she refused cash and said it looked like they wouldn't have much of a crop due to staff issues (her husband blew out a knee or something). So, I gave up and put more garden in (i.e. got more buckets from the free bin and planted things like carrots that grew into tomatoes). Friday we're all at a food event here in Plummer and she gives me a box with potatoes, tomoatoes, onions, and chard! Cool. Not a mass quantity which is good, but enough that had I not needed to go to Moscow for a few other errands, I could have skipped the farmers market and saved the trip. The food has all been good so far and I got supplies for BLTs to eat all week (bacon is cooking on the george foreman grill right now).

The plums from a week ago made the following:
37 jars of jam (with honey not sugar)
Plum crisp to serve 70!
And what will be some delicious plum essence.

I think I'll try drying at least some of the plums from this week.

And this may be the thriftiest move of all since I'm not saving any real cash by doing it: I left the canner full of water from canning last week. I didn't want to pour it out when I could just let it sit on the stove, covered, and use it this week. I pay one rate for some enormous amount of water that I never hit so it's not like it's costing ME to waste water, but it costs the planet to pour it down the drain so I kept it. I think I'll put it out on the yard or garden when I'm done canning this week.

PART DEUX:

2010-09-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

This has gotten TOOO LOOOONNNNGGG so I broke it in two, which is why I should not write the blogs offline and then try to upload them (which is one way to make the most of my 20hours per month of free dial up service). I write too much when not under time pressure.

Here are a few of Mr. Yeager's suggestions that I already do (hence the whole "mirror" thing mentioned above) and thusly I think they are brilliant (re: mirror):

Fiscal Fasting: Going for specified periods of time spending NO money in any form. He recommends a week at a time and says it's fair to fill up the car before you start if you need to commute to work etc. Otherwise, leave all forms of cash at home. Best to schedule during a week when you don't have bills due or regular payments taken out of an account (thouse count!). I generally do a modified version of seeing how long I can go without spending. Then note what it was the broke me. Often I just really want a candy bar. Sad. For Mr. Yeager's version, keep a little notepad or pencil (or use your cellphone) and note when you break the rules. Don't get bent, just notice. Also notice how much food you have in the cupboards and where the gaps are. Right now I have what seems to be a good balance of beans and grains but may be low on veggies and fruits (other than dehydrated tomatoes).

Spending Autopsies (I may have the first word wrong but I can't be arsed to go through the whole set of 7 CDs and the book (which has no index) to find it). Take one or two months a year and write down EVERY transaction. All money in, remember to include interest, and all money out in every form. It's just a check up for those of us who don't always use a formal budget. I usually start with what seems like a reasonable budget and keep everything in a categorized list in a budget book I bought about 3 years ago (in a thrift store for like 50cents) and see how it goes. If it turns out I'm spending more or less in a category than I think I am, I check out where, why and whatfor. Sometimes it turns out it's because I want to and then I keep doing it. If not, I'm a bit more conscious and try to change. That usually works. I don't track every penny all the time but I did for about 6 months when I was trying to turn my spending habits around. I may have actually bored myself out of shopping.

Frugal Hobby Choices: Choose hobbies that save money or at least don't spend any or at least least cost very little. Hobbies that produce gifts are good. As are hobbie that save money (like learning to do home repairs, fix engines, change oil, biking rather than driving, you get the idea). My hobbies are generally free or cheap and often produce something of value or interest. Canning, dehydrating, cooking, beadwork (must remember to do that more...). there are some associated costs, but they all come up with an interesting product and cooking probably saves me the most. Cooking from scratch saves a bundle. Biking and walking save oodles in driving / gym memberships / healthcare costs.

Cooking from scratch: Duh. Even if you can buy a crap lunch for 2$, you can make one for less. You can make an elaborate lunch for less if you figure in the costs of damage to your health and well being into that 2$ lunch (probably costs 1-2$ in future or current healthcare). How many people do I see (including me) who take supplements to make up for a crap diet? (see "candy bar" above). If you cook in large batches, in a crock pot, from in season/on sale products and with basic ingredients (generally cheaper) you can eat for very little.

Put money in savings all the time: DUH! Of course, I didn't always do this. But, I do now. I like to go online and move money from checking into savings and look at my new totals. If you don't find that fun (admittedly, most won't) automating your payroll deposit to divide into checking and savings may help.

My Butt Hurts!

2010-09-24T15:09:00.001-07:00

2 Disclaimers:
I wrote this in notepad and pasted it in which always results in wierd hard returns I can't get rid of without trying real hard so live with it.
AND this is a self serving musing. Probably best not to read it at all.

OK, not the best title butt (heh heh) I bet it got your attention. I spent 4 hours yesterday sitting on the floor and getting up and down while
giving presentations to school kids. I'm suspecting that used my gluteous
maximus(which are indeed pretty maximized sizewise right now)muscles more than they were used to of late. So now my butt hurts. Hopefully this will keep me
from sitting on it all day. We'll see.
Today's REAL topic is a book review. And because I'm frugal, it's a two-fer
deal.

Both books are by Jeff Yeager. His most recent The Cheapskate Next Door and
his 2008 tome (which I listened to on CD while prepping food to put in the
dehydrator) The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches. I got one from
the Moscow Library (Hi Sally) and one from the Plummer Library through
interlibrary loan. Thus no money was spent in the production of this blogpost.

I love them both. Probably because, like most readers, I like a mirror and
apparently I too am a cheapskate about many things. I prefer the word
"frugal" since "cheap" implies things like ripping people off and tipping
poorly. These books make nice companion pieces to all of Amy Dacyczyn's
Tightwad Gazette publications.

Back to Mr. Yeager. He got popular in the late '00s when he started appearing
on the Today Show suggesting that perhaps folks might want to SAVE MONEY
rather than constantly try to earn more or think of their house as a
retirement fund. His writing is fairly light, like Ms Dacyczyn's, and the
advice is pretty sound.

I like anyone who debunks cliches and trite sayings like "you have to have a
million dollars to retire." Why would I need a million dollars? Even with
travelling over seas most years, I spend less than $20,000 to live, eat
travel, etc. To earn that on 5% annual interest, I only need...just a
second...$400,000. Not much. AND when I'm retired I won't have job expenses,
though probably gardening expenses will go up. My driving will be about 1/3
what it is now so gas savings will probably cover the gardening increase.
With no debt, no interest to pay, and lower taxes due to lower income, I could
be fine with even less per year. Mr. Yeager agrees.

When did spending less than one's takehome pay become passe? I haven't always
managed it...like when I had loads of school debt and a mortgage, but once I
got that all paid down, I've only bought things I had the money for upfront if
at all possible. I did take out that one car loan when the Toyota was
murdered (some say euthanized) by a teen with a cell phone, but even then the
smallest loan possible for a good solid used car and I paid it off in one year
rather than 4 to save interest. I hate paying interest.
According to Mr. Yeager, sometime in the 1980s or 1990s people across the US
stopped saving. They saved about 11% of TAKEHOME PAY (I hear so many people
now talking about gross pay but what use is that? Taxes is taxes, that money
isn't yours so why figure your lifestyle based on it?) and now save 1% or
less. Most people in fact save nothing.

And when did we decide to ALWAYS have home loans? (mortgages, equity, second
mortgages, reverse mortgages) Why not just pay it off and quit paying
interest? Folks always try to explain to me how it's better to have a home
loan and better to keep remodeling your home to have the best resale value. I
say BS. It's better to not pay interest (I do rent but my rent payment is
less than the interest I'd been paying on my 80,000$ house in Iowa so I bank
the difference and now have the cash to buy a modest house or land) and to own
the home outright if possible so you only pay the taxes each year. And
every time you remodel to make the house worth more you raise the value and can
raise the taxes.

It's like when my Toyota was hit with hail and folks said I was stupid to use
the insurance to PAY OFF the loan (I'd only made 4 total payments when it got
hit), that instead I should spend it, and more, to get the hundreds of dents
fixed so my car would have better resale value. This made no sense to me. I
intended to drive the car until it dissolved into a pile of rust or refused to
move or became clearly unsafe, just like the one before it. In high school
our math teacher, real name: Mr. Flickinger, showed us that a used car, even
one needed pretty serious repairs, is always cheaper in the long run (often in
the short run) than a new car and that interest, even if you can take a
PORTION OF THE INTEREST, off your taxes is always a losing game when you're
the one paying it. I believed him. And I've paid a lifetime total (including
the bites that Fred and Sher paid...thanks) on cars of:
6000 + 1900 + 2500 + 800 = $11,200 on cars. Additionally, I've paid less than
1000$ on interest so let's call it $12,200 for 22 years of cars. That is
$554.50 per year on purchase and interest. Or the equivalent of a monthly
payment of $46.21. Not bad! And I still have one of the more reliable cars
on my street. (knock on wood!). Of course that is biased by the street I live
on. I wonder what other folks spend just on car loan interest averaged over
their driving lifespans.

Of course, every month I keep this car on the road, that $46.21 goes down.
The Cheapskate Next Door also told me that the average US citizen in his/her
40s spends 80$/MONTH!!! on clothes. Seriously? Wow. I spent $2.50 last
month on clothes and I got 2 pairs of jeans. They were on half price at a
thrift store. Both Tommy Hilfiger brand and neither showing much wear. I did
spend 80$ getting my shoes resoled, though that might have been in 2009 and 8$
getting some seams redone on those shoes. And I had to buy new bras this year
for a grand total of 38$ including shipping. It's actually been a fairly expensive year clotheswise for me as a few work shirts bit the dust and I got 4
new ones (well...new to me) for about another 12$ and this is the second round
of pants I've bought. One pair cost 5$ and I actually considered not getting
them until they went on sale. Pretty sure that makes me a cheapskate
Mr. Yeager goes through many other cheapskate/frugal moves. He, unlike some
other frugalers, is pro-dehydrator. I find that I save bunches on food with
mine and that I can buy more local/organic/in-season food when I use it. As
you may or may not know, my old dehydrator died (well, just the heater/fan
bit) and Pam (Hi Pam) got me a new one of the same model off the interwebs
using just the points she had on a credit card of some sort. She also got
herself one and Sher (Hi Sher) is also using it. This is super frugal since I
didn't spend anything and neither did Pam. So far I've dried about 60pounds
of tomatoes in various formats at 80cents per pound for local, organic, in
season tomatoes. I'll have them to eat for the next year or two as they are
in airtight quart jars (pretty well sterilized before use...or at least dry
and clean) and I dry them to crispy. I've also done about 35$ worth of
various hot, extremely hot, and HOLY F--- hot peppers. These and some onions
which I hope to start drying this week, get me through winter with delicious
soups, stews, chilis and rice-n-beans type dishes often made in the crockpot
for even more frugal deliciousness. I spent about 70$ on the first dehydrator 5 or 6 years ago and will soon evaluate how much the electricity to dry things
costs and let you know how much I've saved. I think it's cheaper than canning (especially when people don't give the jars back!).
This is not the world's best book review is it? Still, if you're looking to
live on the cheap and cut expenses so that these fluctuations in the economy
don't effect your lifestyle or quality of life, AND so that you can spend more
time on things you enjoy and less on things you don't, Mr. Yeager is a good
place to start. I'll try to do a separate discussion of Ms. Dacyczyn's books
soon.

Tater Harvest Begins

2010-09-12T13:30:00.000-07:00

I got into 2 tater buckets. These were planted on April 25th with one tater each. The blue potatoes came up with 18 ounces of tater output. The reds are currently in the lead with 27 ounces. (I hope to be able to use "pounds" for at least one bucket). There are 4 buckets left.
Those still have live vines and I've got it on good authority that the taters are still growing if there are live plants above ground.

Here are a few tomatoes, ontions and one blue potato:

And here is the meal I made out of some blue potatoes, tomatoes, and 2 onions. Other than the seasonings it is entirely from my garden.

I'm actually ON the radio now so I have to post-n-go.

North Idaho Depression Tours...Next Stop: The Mission

2010-09-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

OK, it's been ages but I've been both busy and without much access to the interwebs. Tonight I'm at the Stardust Motel in Wallace, ID which has wifi...though due to the cinderblock walls, I appear to be mooching wifi from a private residence across the street rather than able to get on the motel's service.

ANYWHO.
I'm here because Jonny (Hi Jonny) is visiting and helping catalog the Cataldo Mission. It's the oldest building in Idaho (1850s) and completely unique in its construction. Also unique: the amount of bat crap we got on our boots when we spent a half day photographing the attic. EEEWWW!

The new blog photo is one Jonny took of me at the radio station. The other peace babes had lives and were not around on the day before labor day so it was just me. I just played music. Mostly classic blues but I did paint myself into a corner with a country segment ending with Dolly Parton's "Potential New Boyfriend".

AND we stopped on the way to the station Sunday to check out some land that should be mine. It's lovely. The house needs work but is livable and there is a well, 10 acres, trees, a creek, quonset building, another building, and possibly a fruit tree along with a large deer-fenced garden area. It MUST be mine...I will be harrassing the owners until they sell to me. Damn them.

AND we did the farmers market. AND we went to part of Paul Bunyan Days in St. Maries. This was all we expected and less. We went for the lawn mower races. Against tradition, these were NOT blindfolded but were for speed. Not nearly as interesting as when they are blindfolded.

Now, I must get back to work. Jonny has taken about 600 photos so far and my photo log is woefully behind.

Possibly the WORST Gardener Ever

2010-08-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

So, I have a couple of pots CLEARLY marked "carrot" that I remember planting...with CARROT seeds. And yet, they have tomatoes growing out of them. WTF? The tomatoes don't have actual fruit on them, but definitely tomato plants.

Then there are the onions. Last year the onions were spectacular and big and easy. This year, I harvested all I could find in the raised bed and the volume of the bulbs is definitely LESS than the volume of sets I put in. Fewer in number and quite feeble in size. Most of the starts had disappeared entirely. Sigh. The few left in pots seem to be doing well. Onions at the farmers market are fabulous so clearly I suck.

Then there are the squash...I may get 4 winter squash of a variety I do not recognize from seeds from my vermicompost. I should at least recognize the variety because presumably I bought and ate it at some point. They are shaped like acorn or delicata, but all green with small white spots. Quite cute. But still...WTF?

The calendula continues to be eaten by what appear to be black ants.

And when does one harvest the potatoes? I keep sticking my hand down in one of the potato pots to try to see if there are tubers in there. I either found one potato or a rock. I didn't pull it up. I think when the tops die I should dig them up but any advice is welcomed.

The mint continues to look good as does the sage and the GREEN GREEN GREEN tomatoes which hesitate to turn red.

In other sad news...my dehydrator died. There will be a wake this evening and an autopsy soon. In the spirit of "the dehydrator is dead, long live the dehydrator" I must get a new one. Obviously it's only the heating and fan bit that died, the trays and whatnot are fine. So I'm going to try to get the same model. It died with half dried tomatoes in it. I have given them the cryogenic treatment in the hopes that when a cure is found (or a recipe started) I can revive them for use.

mmmmm....MORE BLT

2010-08-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure BLTs are the perfect food. Seriously. I got some lovely black rye from the bread guy at the farmers market and have bad a few BLTs with local pepper bacon (not back bacon this time, just regular streaky bacon), farmers market tomatoes, and I had to buy a bag of greens as my supply of greens is dwindling. Still have plenty of homemade mayonnaise to make the sandwiches with. The one major issue is the amount of bacon to cook up. I have a large George Foreman grill and 6 slices of bacon fit nicely. I mean to make less, but it seems wasteful to have empty hot space on the grill. So I think "I'll save some for the next meal" but so far that has yet to happen. It's too delicious and the smell is too good. Actually, I think the sandwich was almost entirely local! The mustard in the mayonnaise is not local, but is "artisan" and I don't know where they got the pepper on the bacon, but that is not a large portion of the actual meal. I followed it up with some chocolate cake. It might be the best meal I've had in a year (since last year when I had a BLT and chocolate cake).

They say only the first two bites of something really taste good...I don't buy it when it comes to bacon. It's all good.

And a quick shout out to Pam who sent me a hamburger phone like in "Juno" AND a custom made pendant with the words "I DON'T HAVE TO DO SHIT" stamped on it.

mmmmm....BLT...

2010-08-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

I made a local BLT for supper. I found tomatoes at the farmer's market yesterday, but had already decided not to buy bread. I thought I might make "that which has no name" BUT then I remembered to stop at the local butcher in Moscow and got back bacon. And of course I have lettuce.
SO, today I stopped at the co-op and got bread (a "rustic loaf" which is delicious and lumpy shaped). THEN I found a recipe in a GIANT cookbook Jonny (Hi Jonny) gave me for mayonnaise. As usual, I didn't have all the right ingredients, but I was close. I didn't have the dijon mustard recommended so I used the stone ground brown mustard. No fresh lemon juice but I figured since I could have substituted vinegar, I could use bottled lemon juice just as well. A local egg went into it. The oil is from elsewhere sadly. The olive oil is from far away, the canola COULD be from here if only there was a local processor for all the local canola crop (also known as rape or rapeseed crop). BUT, the tomatoes, lettuce, bacon, wheat, and egg were local and that's most of the deal. It was delicious. I now have way more mayonnaise than I need. I wonder if that's something I can give away. I wonder if I could make a smaller amount with a quail egg. Or a single serving with a hummingbird egg.

Squash Blossoms.

2010-08-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a steady supply of raspberries. 1/2 to almost 1 cup per day. Doesn't sound like much, but it's a serving of fruit...and extremely local AND delicious. So far very few have actually made it in the house but I did manage to save enough for 1 cup of raspberry dairy-free icecream the other day (in the tiny Donview 1/2 pint I got at the thrift store). Very nice.

I'm getting about 1-2 servings of peas per week. Next year, I will plant more densely.

I've also had a couple carrots and another beet. This was a nice red and white striped beet (the inside, not the outside, was striped). Milder than the red and didn't "bleed" all over the counter while being sliced. I chopped it fine, along 1 big and 1 tiny (accidental harvest!) of my purple carrots (purple on the outside, orange on the inside), a local garlic clove and a local onion, and fried up in olive oil. I put in a bit of lime thyme and cilantro and parsley from the garden along with the carrot tops chopped fine (related to parsley and taste like very mild parsley), and the beet greens chopped super fine. I mixed in some jasmine rice left over from a few days ago and let the whole mess steam for a few minutes. It is delicious. I was tempted to pick one of my peppers but I'm trying to save the first ones for seed so I can try to get an early variety going.

Other recent treat from the garden!!!!
Squash blossoms for brunch today. Note to self...before picking be SURE the GIANT BEE is not in the bloom. He/She was pissed. I froze for a minute until it found a new bloom to snack on. I picked about 6 blooms from at least 2 different plants (hard to differentiate the plants). All but 1 were open and had potentially already polinated someone. Obviously, I only picked the male blooms since picking the female ones would mean fewer squash at the end of the year. I had read recipes and come up with the general impression that one should make some sort of wet slurry (eggs, milk, or eggs and milk) and a dry component (flour, bread crumbs, cracker crumbs, corn meal). I had a local egg and local whole wheat flour. I picked a couple of leaves of sage in the garden per Laurie's suggestion (Thanks Laurie! hope all is well with you) and chopped those in to the flour. Then, put in a tiny bit of nutmeg because it smells delicious fried. Heated some of that goat butter in a heavy skillet. Dipped one bloom at a time in the beaten egg and dredged in the seasoned flour, then fried lightly (which means turning the heat on and off on my stove since the only settings on the big burner are "off" and "center of the sun") and it worked out fine. I had to replenish the butter now and then since I was being stingy with it. I didn't cut any thing but the stem off the blooms and just a quick dip in water to get big bugs or dirt off, then drained and dipped and fried. They were FREAKING DELICIOUS. Wow. Next time I will try bread crumbs which I will save rather than feed to the worms.

Attempted Garden Photo

2010-08-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is:

The green bucket is not a plant, it is a bucket of water left to warm up and de-chlorinate for a day, per the recommendation of my guru, that square foot garden guy. Behind the green bucket is a BIG and late planted container of cucumber and what I hope is squash. Might be melon. To the side, is a small pot of flowers just for fun, you can see one leaf of the rhubarb plant in a bucket (wants to be in the ground but have to wait for wet weather do dig. Then a couple of tomatoes. If you look close, you can see one tomato near the lip of the brown container. This went into the jesus bruschetta.

Also in view, 3 containers of taters. More tomatoes (one ENORMOUS tomato plant near the clothes line gives you an idea of the height of that one) and the fact that the volunteer squash have taken over the newer portion of the raised bed. The shade from said giant squash seems to be helping the lettuce and carrots. In the far back end of the raised bed you can see sad calendula. As soon as it blossoms some stupid flying black ant looking thing eats the bloom. Same thing is happening to the marigolds which are SUPPOSED to be bug repellent.

In the way background is the neighbor's house. He's been a shop teacher...I don't think he brings his work home with him. If I had turned slightly more south you could see the lovely pond with plantings, seating and BBQ that they put in this year. They focus more on what they enjoy than things like the outside of the house looking nice. I like them.

That Was Some JESUS Bruschetta

2010-07-31T20:22:00.000-07:00

So, I got 2 tomatoes from the garden. A clove of local garlic from the Farmer's Market a while back, and some purple basil from the garden. Chopped it all and mixed with some olive oil. Put it on a fresh baguette from a local bakery (bought at farmers market) and made with local wheat. I think this is the most local meal so far in my quest to be a better locavore during the summer.

I've got more tomatoes (local but not mine...my garden is only putting out one a day so far) and local onion and the herbs in the garden are doing well (along with lots of things other than the onions and beets...those were supposed to be the easy crops). I think along with the local long horn burger I bought, I can make "That which has no name" later this week.

Here is the recipe for That Which Has No Name:
Olive oil, canola, or butter to fry in. More for potatoes, less for burger.
1 lb of burger (if you don't have burger, use some potatoes cubed to 1/4")
1 medium onion or the equivalent amount of green onions/scallions etc, chopped fine
1-3 cloves of garlic chopped (as much as you like)
2 good size or 4 small tomatoes
Lemon juice
Cayenne or Paprika
Salt
Pepper

Use a heavy skillet.
Fry up the burger, drain the fat.
If using potatoes, get enough oil to cover the bottom of your skillet and fry on fairly high heat. Don't mess them about too much or they get squishy. Just let them go until browned on one side and turn over.

While the first bit is frying, chop the garlic and onion.

When burger/taters are done, add the onion. You may need some more olive oil if you drained it all for the burger draining.
Let this saute for a bit whiel you chop the tomatoes.

When the onion just gets translucent, toss in the tomatoes, 1-2 T of lemon juice (if you have fresh lemons, that is best but anything works), how ever much cayenne or hungarian paprika you want. Stir it up once, turn off the heat and put a lid on it.

Let it steam a few minutes like that especially if using potatoes. You want them soft on the inside but still cubes.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with pita bread.
It's delicious. In a pinch you can used canned tomatoes but then skip the salt and test for acidity before adding lemon juice. Sometimes the canned tomatoes get a bit sour or sweet or salty.

The garden is doing well, but I will have to wait for a better connection to put up a photo. It's hard to photograph the green plants in a big jumble against the green weeds and grass in a jumble that I call my yard.

Perhaps there will be some movie recommendations in the next post.

A Veritable Cornucopia of Food

2010-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

As long as I mostly want greens anyway.
Here's the BIG salad I got from my garden last night for supper (and some left for lunch or supper today):

It's in a giant colander that Gram gave me for christmas which is awesome. It's almost as big as the sink (and an enamelware antique so probably worth $$ but I just use it).
Included in the salad: Red lettuce, green lettuce (with curly edges, not sure what kind that is), kale (scotch I think), chard, 2 beats...one is just a straight root, other is about 1" across), 2 radishes (they were dying in the heat...will try again when it cools off), and ONE TOMATO!!, some parsley, spinach, and probably more stuff. I thought about picking a carrot but I have so few I'll let them get bigger first. The onions are just sad so I didn't bother pulling one up.

Here are the highlights:

The tomato is a bit wee, but quite delicious. Don't know the variety, but it's some heirloom.

I also got a good handful of raspberries later in the evening.

The greens are doing surprisingly well right now. I think partly because they are shaded by the overwhelming size of the squash plant. There are three in the raised bed and I may have to cut two of them out. They are too big. The biggest is putting out those lovely blossoms seen in previous post, and starting little squashes, but they shrivel a week or two after appearing. Odd. There is another late start squash in a giant pot that I have high hopes for.

Peppers are out and looking good too. And I may get a strawberry one of these days.
The potatoes are confusing me. The tops are dying. Should they be dying already? On the 5 early pots they are dying back. On the later pots, still growing. I mulched pretty much everything with a new layer of compost last week and will do that again. The nutrients in the soil are probably pretty well gone by now. I'll have fresh worm poo in the next couple of weeks too. The smaller bin (the one in the shower, not the one on the toilet), is about finished so rather than pile on new bedding like I would in the winter, I'll harvest a good portion of the compost and fill the gap with new bedding. With canning season upon me, I'm going to be feeding the little beggars alot.

I need a new worm bin idea. If anyone has an idea for something I have lying around the house that I could make into a worm bin, please speak up. One is in an old refrigerator veggie drawer. Another is in an old plastic filing box. The recycling bin is in use for potatoes (and I miss having a recycling bin frankly). So what's next?

Anyway, I did make my first JAM this week. I picked the pie cherries across the street, pitted them with the new-to-me pitter I got at the goodwill (the kind you pound on rather than the kind you run like a syringe...I call the new on "the slapper"...it looks like this:

This photo is taken off the web. Not a picture of my pitter but it's the same kind, style and color.)

It works pretty well clamped to the counter. The only place to clamp it is right by the sink. Just load cherries with one hand and slap the knob with the other. (if you know British slang you'll be giggling now).

I got 2 batches of jam by adding in a cup and a half of the same cherries I picked a few days back. The trees are pretty well cleaned now of everything I can reach or could pull a branch down and get. Not as good a crop as some years but not bad at all. There weren't any to put in jars with syrup for pies this winter. I have one container full frozen from the first picking so I can get one deep pie or two shallow pies. If I stretch them with apples or something I can get 3 pies. Oh well. Here's hoping for huckleberries and other things to fill in the gaps.

The huckleberries look promising...but one never knows until the day.

As far as my experiment on how much food I can grow in the area of one parking space...clearly "some" is a good answer for now.