Winter Growing Vegetables

The video has most of the information in it. But I took a few pictures that I'd like to share too.

Swiss Chard and root veggies in the back. Showing the agribon and the hoop frame bones below.

Here are the links to the agribon and the tufflite 6 mil plastic that I use.  I really like the agribon fabric, it serves for late season extender and also getting going earlier in the spring.

Making Lard

I promise I'll do a bee update but with tons of pictures and videos it's a long story. However the girls are safely transported and enjoying their new digs.

Mom and I ordered a half-a-hog from Rocky Ridge Ranch. In a quest to use more of the hog than most people I asked for all the organ meat and all the fat to process into lard.  I know Lard, right? Ewww! Ok, but as fat's go it is the most like our own and so easily processed by our bodies. I have been thinking about trying to get the least processed and most gas efficient fats as possible. Turning fat into lard is really easy it turns out.

I got two of these bags of fat weighing roughly 4.5 lb.
















I cubed it and put the fat into a stock pot along with 1/2 c. of water. The water will evaporate and helps the fat not burn and stick to the bottom of the pot.

Left side hasn't been heated yet, the right side is about 15 minutes into melting.

Close up uncooked.

Close up 25 minutes into cooking. See how it just melts.

Almost done. The floaties are called crackles you can eat them, they are like crunchy skin and fat. At this stage they make a crackling sound, hence the name. A word of warning, don't leave the pot because it needs to be stirred frequently.  I thought they tasted similar to bacon but they are really greasy (go figure). I think they might be better with some salt? But I am not desperate for fats so maybe I'll give them to the dog....

I don't have a picture of the straining process since I was by myself, but I lined a wire mesh strainer with several layers of cheese cloth and poured the whole pot through it.  Then ended up with jars that looked like this.

I did have a fiasco with one jar breaking and spilling hot melted lard all over the counter and the floor, after much cursing I got it cleaned up. Ugh!

After about 4-5 hours of cooling it looks like this.

One of the pots I under cooked so the the crackles were a very light brown. The other I cooked until the crackles were a golden brown. The two different pots yielded different smelling lard. The undercooked crackles smells cleaner less like bacon and just like fat or butter. The other smells of bacon or meat maybe, in any case it has a smell. The bacon one I'll use for cooking everyday things, the clean smelling one I'll use in pie's and such (not that I make many pies, but still).

From the one bag of 4.5 lbs of fat I got roughly 3.5 pints of lard. I left expansion space because I wasn't sure if it needed it ( better to be safe than sorry) then I stuck them in the freezer. It should keep for a year+ in there.

I also intend to use the lard for soap making if I can get access to more of it.

Arbor Day

Last Saturday Me, Jake, Mom and Neighbor Kara all went to the compost fair in Spokane.  They hold the fair every spring and fall. Their are demo's of what to put in compost and what not, types of bins, worm composting and such. It's all very fun and informative, most of which I know since I've been composting somewhat successfully for a while now. The fair was the day after Arbor Day so lots of info, and they were giving away free trees. One stand had maples, oaks, and deciduous type trees. But another gal for the Idaho Forestry Department was giving away Colorado Blue Spruce's which look like this as adults:

The lady gave us each 2 and then asked if we had room to plant them and more, we said yes (because we will eventually) and she gave us a bag of 10, we ended up with 16 trees total. I brought them home and planted them in 1 gallon sized pots, then buried the pots in the ground. I figured this would regulate the root temperature and they would be happier. Thus begins our wind and privacy wall even though they are scarcely 8 inches tall and we have no land yet, oh well no one ever said that I don't plan ahead. 

I have several tree farm spots in my yard that look like this:

Decidedly less impressive than their glorious adult counterpart, but they'll get there... in 10-15 years. *sigh*

adult picture from here.

Preserve Toothbrush Subscription

I don't know if I ever mentioned our subscription to Preserve for toothbrushes. This is our 2nd round of toothbrushes and I wanted to just document how the whole thing works.

First we were sent toothbrushes, now 3 months later we are sent this package:

Recyclable paper notice & cardboard shipping container, plus two toothbrushes in return labeled packaging.

Now I place my old toothbrushes back into the same packaging the new toothbrushes came out of. I left the heads poking out just to show you, but before I shipped them back I stuffed the heads in and taped it shut.

Drop it in the mail and voila. Cardboard and paper get recycled, the plastic case for the toothbrushes gets sent back with the old ones = no garbage.  Pretty cool.

Lip Balm Update

I had to run some tests on the Lip Balm to make sure they were ready for the pocket (body heat melting). It turns out the cocoa recipe is not. It's too soft and needs more beeswax to firm it up. So today I am going to remove it from the tins and re-melt it, adding 1.5 tsp more beeswax and give this a shot. I am going to update the recipe on the previous blog entry and also here:

Cocoa
4 tsp. olive oil
2 1/2 tsp. beeswax (grated) 
1 tsp. cocoa butter
1/2 vitamin E capsule liquid

Lip Balm

I wanted to try and make my own lip balm from the bees wax we collected. Honestly it doesn't take much beeswax to do this. Only a few teaspoons. I decided to blend my recipes based on a few I've found online and just kinda wing it.

My Recipes:
Plain
3 tsp. Beeswax (grated)
5 tsp. oil (I used olive oil, but any carrier oil would work)
1/2 tsp. honey
1/2 vitamin E capsule liquid

Cocoa
4 tsp. olive oil
2 1/2 tsp. beeswax (grated)
1 tsp. cocoa butter
1/2 vitamin E capsule liquid
















One recipe made 2 burts bees tins. In an effort to recycle I have been saving them. I cleaned and washed each one before refilling it with my own lip balm. Some of the links I used to make them are here:  Lemelange and Yonderwayfarm.

I used a 2 cup pyrex and a stainless steel pot to serve as a double boiler. Then I added all the ingredients, stirred it with a tooth pick until it was totally melted and mixed (which doesn't take long.) I had two tins ready and poured the liquid into them and waited about 30 minutes for it all to harden and set up. Voila, Done!

Why have I been paying 2+ dollars per tin? I made the plain recipe once and the cocoa twice, I now have 6 tins of lip balm awaiting the dry winter air.

first knitting project

In my not so spare time, my neighbor Kara has been giving me the basic's about knitting. I caught on quickly this time because I've already had another basic knitting lesson from my other friend Gayl. I 'got' it when Kara taught me. I practiced and practiced with a small ball of yarn and eventually moved on to this:

It's my first ever knitted dish cloth. Wonky and not quite square, but still I did it!

Solar Highway

A quick post.

I was just emailed this video and thought it was profound and way outside the box thinking. The concept, solar highways to generate electricity. The vid's only about 4 minutes long. Enjoy...

Tiny house thoughts

Jake and I keep coming back to land. Not in the city, not that Cheney is really a "city" but you know what I mean. Freedom to raise chickens and have a rooster on site with out the neighbors suddenly taking an interest in marksmanship. Space. Quiet. Stars. Greywater. Rainwater. Things we cannot do in the city. Our main problem is money.... who's problem isn't money? Being tied into this house we don't have the option to go buy land and start a new house out on property. But we've got an idea, build a tiny tumbleweed house ourselves.

If you've never heard of tumbleweed house's click the link, poke around. Jake and I could get a small loan enough to build a tiny house for around 20K. Then we would have a transportable house to move into after we sell this house and search/prep land.  I don't want to move back into an apartment, plus no one accepts dogs at any apartment or rental house in Cheney (college town.)

The tumbleweed house's (at least the one's we are looking at) are built on flatbed trailers, like a camper. The one we've chosen is called Lusby. I like how the great room is the kitchen. Me being the cook I don't want to be stuffed back in some corner like many of the other plans have. The Lusby is 117 sq. feet of pure awesome. Jake and I will be attending the the workshop in August, to ask questions and get a feel for the construction of a tumbleweed house.

Dee Williams might even bring her house down to the workshop, all though that's unconfirmed. Here's a great video about Dee and her tiny house which is modeled after a tumbleweed:

On Meat eating

Jacob and I tell people "we're vegetarians" since that is the simplest way to phrase it for the general public. Truly though we only eat meat from 2 places. Rocky Ridge Ranch sells the turkey I get for Thanksgiving and the occasional chicken all though that's going to change. Then there's Tom's Custom Meats where we purchased some beef for a hamburger. Jacob and I were only able to split the burger since red meat is incredibly rich. It was the first time we've had red meat in, 4 years? I think? It will be an extremely rare occasion food. I felt good about that burger because the cattle are raised on pasture right here in Cheney there entire life. They never go to an Iowa feedlot, I drive by them on the freeway all the time. But still, consumption of red meat will be a once in every 4 years kinda thing (if not longer.)

We've been considering raising chickens/rabbits for our own consumption, this way we have a hand in the meat we choose to eat. I can't turn a blind eye to the atrocities of "protein production" that is standard in the ole` US of A. Which is why the simple answer is "we're vegetarians," and it is one of the main reasons we became vegetarians. I don't mean to offend strict vegetarians with this post either. For 4 years we were strict veggies and it was great. But in an effort to get our balanced diet from local as possible it seemed meat eating needed to be added back in. I had to ask myself how much oil did it take to get this tofu to me? Peak oil? Will tofu become a luxury? And other such thoughts along that line. Trying to reduce the MPG of our food seemed like a good idea. Now with the gulf oil spill, it seems even more prudent. 

It's really a very hard issue for us, seeing what is the normal for average America is rather sickening. Have you watched Food Inc? That's America folks, and that's sad. With raising our own meat comes the inevitable act of getting it to the table. Knowing from start to finish the purpose we're raising them for. I know I've touched on this before in the blog, maybe I am just trying to come to grips with it all. This planet is really pissed off and I don't think any one path is "right." But it sure would be nice if we could get a yellow brick road, you know?  

Plastic Reduction Challenge May

Well this blows my tally out of the water! The heavyweights in this month are from soap making, closet cleaning and guests. Here we go:

May plastic weight: 703g

The goods:

White Vinegar
Vegetable oil
Coconut oil
a juice container and maddeningly it's a #7 which I *grrrrrr at
2 misc vitamin supplements from ?
a tube of super glue
a container of airborne, not sure where I got that from
broken old 'tupperware' container
package of garage sale stickies
bomb proof plastic container for a bike tool *grrrrrrr
many random milk bottle caps and pull tabs
brown sugar bag (will buy in bulk from now on)
of course.... envelope windows
packaging tape
a plastic outer core from an herb plant... didn't see it and wasn't thinking when I purchased it.
tags from clothing prices, you know those little 'T' shaped things?
random plastic bags from the suck sealer food saver

Matter of Trust contribution

Well since I spouted on and on about how awesome Matter of Trust is, I figured I'd better walk the walk. Maybe I should just give it to you in pictures......

Um... before

Hee Hee.... during

3/4 of a pound of hair... that is how thick this mop is!

The new do, for now... I plan to grow it back out. It's only hair after all.

Buzz cut's for hair booms! It does more good in the oil clean up than it does being on my head. LOL.

A Matter of Trust

This oil spill will have such a huge impact on our world, I don't think many people realize how devastating it could be. I feel really helpless with this whole situation but then I remember I'm not. Here's what you can do to help out:

1. Use less plastic, plastic is an oil product so if you demand less plastic you also demand less oil. (driving less isn't the only way to withhold money from BP.)

2. Eat local and preferably organic: many 'fertilizers' for lawns and crops are also made from oil and the closer your food is less it drove to get to you.

3. Smile more, Earth needs a hug.

4. Save your hair, yep.... save your hair. Do you get your hair cut at a salon? Ask them to get with the program of sending hair to Matter of Trust.  Since I don't get my hair cut at a salon, I do it myself, I will be saving all my hair. Also Matter of Trust or MOT takes pet hair too! What do they do with it? They make 'booms' of hair, essentially long tubes of hair that collect oil (picture). These booms are laid out in the oil spills and your hair, your dogs hair, or even wool soak it up. All the information and how to's can be found on there website at the link above. Please help, it's such a little thing.

photo from here.

Why I am reducing my plastic waste

This video makes me slightly heartbroken with all the damage we've done. Plastic's don't disappear even if you recycle, recycling isn't enough. The first 'R' is Reduce, then Reuse and Recycle.... I think most people have just latched onto the "it's ok because I recycle" mentality, and that isn't good enough anymore.


With hope.... we can stop this:

Spiral Garden phase two: The Layout

After rototilling in all that compost and smoothing down the dirt as best we can with a rake it started to look like this.

Jacob took a video from our bathroom window and the arial shots of it are much better than the pictures I can take on the ground. Keep in mind the layout isn't complete yet, my goal is to get that done by the end of the week.




I've been working on designing the flowers and general layout of this garden. I'm getting really excited to start planting!!!!

Plastic Reduction Challenge April

Well I went up in my plastic for this month but there are several things in here that I won't buy again now that I know what I know about plastic. Some of the stuff like the bottled water isn't mine or I should say wasn't generated by us. We had guests over, they are both #1's so they can be recycled in my area.

Here's the rub:

Weight 465g or 1 lb. 3/8 oz. (ouch, nearly doubled from March)

The list:

Food
1. 10 lb. bag of organic/fairtrade sugar ( I will continue to buy this since our bulk bin doesn't offer this)
2. 8 pack plastic wrap for olives from Costco. (won't buy again)
3. Ketchup bottle (I won't be buying this again it's a #7)
4. 3 water bottles (one's not pictured, don't buy ever)
5. plastic wine cork (we don't drink much wine and the wines we choose have a real cork stopper)
6. individually wrapped boca burgers (again, from costco and we won't be buying them anymore)
7. 2 cheese wraps, I've yet to find a good 'cheddar' not wrapped in plastic
8. Milk bottle caps and sealing rings (cheese, and yogurt making)
9. Foodsaver bags (lots of them, most aren't from me they contained blanched corn and I fed it to the chickens, so I adopted this plastic waste.)
10. A few ziplocks

Misc.
1. Envelope windows of course (still working on the junk mail reduction no thanks to USPS here.)
2. Wasp attractant bottle, came with the new wasp trap. (Yes the trap was needed, the bait isn't)
3. Broken hair clip
4. shipping tape and packing slip cover
5. baggie from hardware store for screws bought a long time ago.
6. Light bulb case for outside light, couldn't find one not wrapped in bomb proof plastic
7. Garden bulbs, came in a plastic sac.
8. Small baggie full of shrink wrap style plastic, a small story about that. I purchased reusable canning lids/rings from a company called Tattler  each of the sets came individually wrapped, which I was sad about but this should be a one time purchase. I'll post more about this later.

Some of this stuff I won't purchase again because of how it is packaged like the olives and the boca burgers. I am going to greatly reduce my use of the foodsaver bags and rely on my canning this year. Still lots of room for improvement.

Plastic Reduction Challenge March

I completely forgot to post my March plastic challenge results.  I am sure I missed quite a bit of stuff considering I didn't count any of the plastic waste from our flooring project. We chose bamboo flooring and it came in long cardboard boxes that we recycled but inside the cardboard the bamboo was wrapped in protective plastic and thin foam spacers. Also I forgot to count the glue containers which thankfully were a #1 so I recycled them but I am not sure how much it adds to the overall March plastic weight.

Amount: 257g or 9 1/8 oz.

I went up from last month, but again it would have been much higher if I was able to count all the bamboo wrapping, which would have stuffed a large garbage sack tightly! Much of this months waste is still related to the flooring project.

duct tape
painters tape
random plastic bags from flooring stuff
envelope windows
misc cd and case
hook for rubber chicken coop shoes
bread sticks dipping sauce container ( my kitchen was torn up and I caved to delivery pizza )
foam shoe insoles for jakes shoes
crackers sleeves
head cold medicine wrappers
milk lid rings
and an old hotel card

The last major thing that couldn't have been avoided is ear protection. We went to our local general store (guns, outdoors etc...) to find jake some ear protection. He would be working with the table saw for this entire flooring project we wanted to make sure he was safe. All the good highly rated ones came in a plastic shell.

I vow to get Aprils up here in a timely manner. :o)

Deodorant

I have been using the deodorant crystal for about a year now. But recently it hasn't been working as well, and I don't like being stinky! So I searched how to make your own deodorant. The recipes are endless, I found one from here that looked promising. I ended up changing it slightly, this is what I ended up doing.

1/4 c. Baking soda
1/4 c. cornstarch
4 + Tbl. coconut oil ( I ended up with around 5 Tbl. but start with 4)
5-10 drops of essential oil

The essential oil is optional, I used tea tree oil because I had it on hand. Tea Tree oil is also anti bacterial so I figured that couldn't hurt. I have used it for about 4 days now and so far no stink! I can't wait to give this a try on really hot days!

Plastic Waste Challenge February

Having stumbled upon Fakeplasticfish I decided I wanted to take the plastic challenge. Simply put I wanted to see what we throw away in plastic waste for a year. I started this in February. Some of the plastic (I am sure there'll be more) I wouldn't normally assemble. But since I am in the process of setting up an emergency kit I'll have a bit more in the way of unrecyclable plastic. The questions that follow are directly from fakeplasticfish's site.


Food
Ketchup bottle (not recyclable in my area, a #7)
cheese wrappers
frozen blueberry bag
flax meal bag
milk bottle tops
soba noodle bag
ziplock bag

Mail/shipping
Tape from a box
several plastic envelope windows
packing slip envelope
Chase fake gift card

Misc.
Empi bag for electrodes
 sunglasses containers clamshell packaging
9 plastic covers for things like toothbrush, sharpie pen, scissors (all for first aid kit)
 random plastic bags

Total weight: 7 3/4 oz or 220g
Total items: 40 (including all envelope windows)


What items can I replace with plastic free or less plastic? 

Ketchup bottle. I plan to make my own this summer when the tomatoes are rolling me over. The cheese and the blueberry bags I can do without. I am working on cheese making to supplement and reduce the plastic there. I can't seem to find any cheese that doesn't come in giant wheels that is wax wrapped. The soba noodles I can buy in bulk and have been. This bag was from my mother who didn't like the noodles.

What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic free alternative doesn't exist?

Most of what I have isn't from any product that comes in plastic. Just household essentials or stuff for the emergency kit.

How many of these items are from "convenience" foods that I could make from scratch?  


None, well if you count cheese as a convenience food then I guess one, but I am working on that.

What Items are essential and do not have a plastic alternative?

None.

What changes might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?

Really get on the junk mail delivery. I hate all the crap plastic windows that show up. I did the recent push to get off the junk mail lists, now I have to see what happens with that.

What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?


Since none of these items are essential I am going to say nothing here.

Are there any other conclusions I can draw? 


I'd say we did really well. Much room for improvement, I plan on going through preserve to get our toothbrushes that should eliminate at least 2 useless plastic pieces every 3 months. I need to make constant choices when out in public or purchasing things. I think knowing what I know about plastic now will keep me "awake" instead of a mindless shopper.

Junk mail

Getting of junk mail is seriously a pain in the ass! I have however found some sites that are truly helpful. I spent much of the morning on the phone or sending emails about being removed from junk mail lists. Here are the sites I found useful.

Privacyrights.org 
DMAchoice.org
41pounds.org

I called DirectTV to (with any luck) get off there mailing lists, since we don't own a TV it seems pointless to keep shredding the paper. At DMA choice I removed myself from all magazines, catalogs, and other random mailings. I however called about the credit card opt out at 888-567-8688, It's through opt-out-preescreen which can be accessed through DMA's website. With any luck I will stop receiving credit card applications from Skank of America. 


Seriously I would love it if I could check my mail only once per week maybe get just the bills from the crapy guys who need to actually mail a bill every month. (thank you city of cheney) My occasional Organic Gardening magazine is the one joy I have when I get the mail. 


Picture and another useful article from stopjunkmail.