Hippie Holidays!

I'm doing a talk tomorrow at Master Composter training about recycling through the holidays. Actually it will be more like stumbling through a quick presentation. Anyway, my counterpart is doing more gift-y type stuff and I'm doing some table centerpiece ideas.

When I get some non-phone pictures of them I'll walk you through the how-tos, but they really couldn't be easier and 2 of the 3 are 100% kid friendly!

Breakfast: Kickstarting my brain with grain

Hmmm, seems I'm talking about tasty stuff a lot these days, let's keep the trend going! I'm not doing a great job with the detox, but the beauty of this one is how forgiving it is. I feel like I can keep going and do the food aspect of it to create healthy habits and redirect my taste buds. Afterward, I can go back and integrate the yoga. In the meantime, I'm trying to remember to do all of it, just not beating myself up if I don't remember/can't find the time to do the morning routine of meditation and yoga.

Sorry for the pitiful picture...all I had on-hand was my cell phone.

This is pretty much what breakfast has looked like for the past week: baked apple quinoa (keen-wah) with a liver-cleansing beverage. Last week I started each day with a lemon drink that I grew pretty fond of: Juice from half a lemon, dash of cayenne, 2 ounces apple cider vinegar and a spoon of honey in 8 ounces of warm water. This week I'm supposed to replace the lemon drink with a detoxifying tea, but I had my lemon drink this morning anyway.  I don't know if it's that my tastes are changing, but I really enjoy starting my day with it!

I've used quinoa a handful of times in the past, but always as something of a rice substitution. Because it's protein-packed and full of fiber, it makes a perfect morning meal. I first tried this version which called for chopped apples, a few other ingredients, and dry grain all mixed together and baked.  It was good, but for texture's sake with the next batch I decided to partially cook the grains before mixing them up and baking them. I went with Gabby's Gluten Free Cinnamon Breakfast Bake, but instead of soy milk used apple sauce, didn't use quite as much maple syrup, and threw in a handful of chopped dates.

down wind of chemical stench

My lengthy dislike for Scotts MiracleGro products started when I was just getting interested in gardening. Scotts was suing TerraCycle for using green and yellow on their packaging, though I never really believed that was all it was about. Perhaps a small start up company with a great idea for reused packaging and simple organic ingredients was putting a hurting on a major corporation's profits. Whatever it was, Scotts image seemed like the popular football star stuffing a nerdy kid in a locker.

Companies like Scotts promote chemical use in the garden, persistent chemicals that perpetuate reliance for gigantic yields and "weed-free" gardens. They promote the idea that a singular plant (grass) is the only acceptable basis of a beautiful, lush yard. A single variety plant space, such as a weed free lawn, is known as a monocrop, and a monocrop's lack of diversity can create all sorts of issues that need other synthetic products to resolve.

I won't get into the many uses of weeds...well maybe for just a second--some of those weeds might replace your prescription medicine, others could be pulled up and used to make an organic plant food, yet others simply feed the wildlife in your yard. Perhaps if the critters had natural forage they wouldn't go after your tomatoes and you wouldn't need that Scotts brand pesticide after all.

The more I learn about gardening, the more I learn that popular kid in the green and gold uniform had a few unsavory secrets. Enter stage left: Monsanto, wealthy, smooth-talking hip best friend to Scotts. Monsanto's own GMO-tainted politics does nothing to endear me to Scotts. 


To put my feelings into perspective, let's talk about something most people have some level of concern about: the honeybees. We've all heard about the rapid decline of bee populations and what will happen if they keep mysteriously dying. Bees an accessible environmental issue: less bees, less pollination, less productive crops, less food, higher food prices, food shortages...you get the idea. Scotts sells all sorts of weed killer monocrop the hell out of your yard. Make it all grass, get rid of that nasty clover...that nasty clover that bees find so useful as a source of food. Yeah, food, that little thing that keeps us all alive. Of course, Scotts' BFF Monsanto, the company that sues farmers whose crops have accidentally cross-pollinated with Monsanto GMO crops. The GMO crops that may or may not contribute to the decline of bee populations, certainly contributing to the loss of monarch butterfly populations (another handy insect that pollinates plants).

And then the National Wildlife Federation announced its partnership with Scotts. Frankly I took the news personally. I felt like an old friend went and made out with the dude that used to tease me every day about being flat-chested. Betrayal.


How do you feel about the partnership? Care, don't care, wish I'd saved my breath for some pretty furniture and lovely pictures?

* * *


You Grow Girl and Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens discuss the new partnership on their blogs.

Sorghum Suggestions?

This year I precariously scattered sorghum seeds (more specifically Hungarian Broom Corn Sorghum) throughout the empty spots in the garden. That's kind of my approach when I'm out of ideas of what to plant--just scatter and see what happens. So I did, and it grew like it was supposed to. For a while I thought the plants were more corn and was wondering why I planted so much corn! Then the seeds became apparent and I remembered what it was.

Now I'm wondering why I planted it...aside from the initial charming idea of making my own broom. Uh, yeah, I was daydreaming of making my own broom. What of it?! And don't tell me you don't daydream of brush making.

Call me a garden geek if you want, but you'll be all sorts of jealous of my beautiful broom.

How Persistent is Persistent?

As a Master Composter, I'm part of an email circle with others in the program, and a recent one was from a man who planted a garden to feed his limited income family. He was writing to find out what sort of remediation would get his field back to a gardening state. Without publishing the entire email, he is, in short, frustrated.

I have got a ruined field that I spent two plus years creating from a wooded plot. Two years of incredibly backbreaking work, thousands of dollars for tree removal, fencing, etc -  not too mention months of seedling care, soil amending six plus months of rock and stone removal, etc.

The main suspect? Persistent herbicide. There are a handful of herbicides used on pasture/livestock forage, grain fields and some vegetable crops. Since they're approved for horse and livestock pastures, they're consumed (along with all those vitamins and minerals that make meat so tasty), passed through the animal in pee and poop and still remain active  even after the grass clippings and animal waste have been composted. The chemicals remain in the soil, and are taken up and redistributed by rainfall. Breakdown can take anywhere from 30 days to several years. **

Now there's a new herbicide in the neighborhood, one called Imprelis. It's currently available to lawn care professionals for weed prevention, but Scotts Miracle Gro is working with DuPont (Imprelis manufacturer) to develop a home-scale application, one approved for the lawn loving home owner.

The USCC [US Composting Council] is informing the composting industry and consumers that grass from treated lawns could end up in a compost pile, and unlike most herbicides, Imprelis will survive the composting process and still be active in the finished compost. *

Currently Imprelis has a 9 page instruction booklet. As it becomes available to the public, however, I'm wondering how obvious the warnings will be.

“One problem is that the warning is on page 7 of a 9 page label,” remarked Dr. Stuart Buckner, Executive Director of the USCC, “and unfortunately not everyone reads or follows the label. We are requesting the USEPA initiate a special review of the registration due to the likelihood of residual herbicide levels in compost damaging non-target plants.”*

Does that mean I shouldn't drive around town collecting bags of grass clippings for my compost? Should I find out who does the landscaping for lawns immediate to ours and see what sort of herbicides they use? How persistent is persistent?

How many people read warning labels? How many people know what goes into the trash, recycling, and what should be taken to hazardous waste? How many people care that the grass they put at the curb is picked up by the city for compost, and irresponsible disposal of "tainted" waste could end up in my food?

I found this article to be well-written and informative.

* Quotes from the US Composting Council statement on their website compostingcouncil.org.

**NC Cooperative Extension Herbicide Carryover

Notes to nicely wrap up a week

I've decided the tooth fairy is actually a mean little bugger. She goes around punching infants and toddlers in the gums {mostly at night, and all night long at that} then only comes back a few years later with the money to apologize.

The apology is, I think, actually a small percentage from the dough dentists use to bribe the tooth fairy to play nice. Otherwise no one would ever let anyone near their teeth and gums again.
 Later today I'm showing off the seed catalog prettiness that abounds this year. Is it me or are they prettier than usual??

Okay, so from all that pretty to something more gritty (especially the fat rendering post), I'm really into The New Home Economics blog. She covers books, recipes, gardening and DIY projects. . . sound a little familiar? Plus the budgeting posts are really good for my not so budgety brain. 

Then there's the weekend. What are we doing? Appeasing the grumpy gummed kiddo, finishing the chair project, making fermented sauerkraut and who knows what else!? How about you? What are you getting into?

Being cheap never felt so good!

We had an emotionally difficult weekend, mostly due to exactly what caused this rant. And while I left it so vague to drive the point home to anyone who may not have thought about the place for technology in a still-polite society, it was "inspired" by things going on in our home life. I'm sure, you, dear readers, know your manners, though. Please don't take the rant personally. It's all part of purging the toxicity.

All that turmoil aside, as emotion settles into goals for the future, we had an incredible, quiet, cozy, satisfying {. . . you get the point, right?} weekend. No going out to fancy restaurants or expensive movies, just quiet time at home with hobbies and each other.

Funny enough, our hobbies are frugal approaches to luxury goods. Chemical-free, naturopathic medicine from the fancy health food store? Nah. Healthy snacks all wrapped in hermetically sealed bags shipped from California (or who knows where) that line the upper shelves of the grocery store whispering, "Buy me! I'm good for you! I'll make you feel good about snacking!" Yummy! But no, thanks. Just how long have you been trapped in that little plastic bag? Micro-brewed beer at $5 a pint? Hmmm, yeee. . .nope.

Charlie started a bock beer, this time experimenting with adding a little rosemary. {If you grow rosemary you know it's one of those things you can never use up.}

I put the elderberries into watered down Everclear to preserve their beneficial properties, now I just need to shake it up everyday until it's time to strain out the pulp and save the liquid for cold and flu season. At that point I'll divide it into 2 bottles, add honey to one and leave the other unsweetened. We used Honey Gardens Apitherapy's elderberry elixir when our house got the summer cold that was going around; it was amazing! C took it as he started feeling the aches and never got the full-blown cold. I took it the day the cold hit full-force and it was gone the next day. M was too young for honey, though. At $12 a bottle {and you use one 4 oz. bottle a day} we aren't really in the position to keep buying it, so this {I hope!} will be a more frugal fix.


I took the peaches and apples in the fridge that we kept forgetting about, peeled 'em, sliced 'em, and stuck them in the new old food dehydrator. {We found one at an estate sale that has a thermostat and a fan in it! Super fancy! Out goes the old new old one!} No little plastic pouches to toss out, either! In fact, the natural packaging {read: the peels} they came in went straight to the chickens as a sweet treat that will become poop to nourish the fig trees.


When everything is all said and done, the beer is in the bottles and we're chowing down on some sweet dried fruit long after the oppressive summer heat has dissipated into a cool, reinvigorating fall, we'll still have these skills. The metaphorical black cloud will lift and we'll still have each other. We'll toast the life changes that reminded us to focus on the good things all around.

Cheers to being cheap! It never felt so good!

Summer Camp: Rock 'n Roll Allowed

Jena and I had a few conversations about personal pressure to get things done, and how it can pile up to stress. Somewhere in the conversation I realized how much we all need a summer break, even though it's something reserved for school age kids. Why is that?? Oh yeah, 'cause the bills don't pay themselves. But why not take the summer to have an excuse to put pressure aside and have fun. Play games, not as exercise but as a way to reconnect with people and nature. Have little activity centers like a summer camp: crafts, exercise, down time in the cabin, even mess hall duty. Yeah, we'll skip the bonfire where we burned rock 'n roll tapes and tee shirts if that's okay with you. But music is a good addition!

Take a moment: breathe in {deeply!}, and exhale all the pressure and expectations away. Watch them swirl away in the wind. Don't worry--they'll wait for you right around the corner and come back out to say hi when you're stuck inside for the winter. Let's do it again: breathe in, breathe out---shake off all the last little bits of self-expectations.

Hula Seventy has some great lists up, especially the Things I'd Tell My Seventeen Year Old Self and while I forget to read Hula Seventy as often as I'd like, her Summer List has motivated me to make my own. Mommy Coddle also has one {actually I saw hers first, pointed it out to Jena who pointed me towards the Hula Seventy one}. Mav has one too, though less structured, but it fully captures the spirit of what I'm saying.

Here are a few things I'd like to do this summer just for fun--no pressure, no expectations.

Crafts:

• Sew a simple cotton dress for me!
• Make a tent and sleep in it.
• Try out making hypertufa.

The Dining Hall:

• Can. can. can. {learn to use the pressure canner}
• Dry fruits and veggies.
• Make homemade ice cream. . .the real stuff. Close my eyes to savor every last bite since it won't help the 20 lb goal.
• Try new restaurants but mostly eat at home. . . which leads me to:
• Try new recipes.
  
• Try new foods.

Down time:

• Finish a few outstanding house projects, but do not add to the project list.
• Read.
  
• Take time to be still and enjoy the breeze.
  
• Make friendship bracelets and mail them to friends with handwritten letters.
• Write letters even without the bracelets. Maybe even find a pen pal.
  

Games and Outdoor fun:

• Ride a bike {hmmm, car free weekends again?}.
• Go to the lake {and maybe even go fishing...i know, gasp!}
• Try water skiing again
  
• Go to the beach.
• Try surfing. {Ignore how uncoordinated I am.}
  
• Go to the mountains (since I live in NC all three are just a short drive)
• Try new wines. {What?!? That can be an outdoor activity!}
• Play badminton
• Kickball.
• Bocce ball.
• Scrabble hours away on the porch.
• Go to the pool. A lot.
• Go sailing with the Mr.
  

Music:

• Play records while the sun shines through the windows. Introduce Mabel to Neil Young on vinyl.
  
• Go to shows and shake my/your booty.

And even with cleaning, take the time to get outside when you can, you know? Don't use chemicals in your mop water so you can pour it on ornamental plants in the garden. Hang the laundry on the line and breathe in the fresh air as you do it. Linger a little longer than usual to feel the sun on your neck.

Alright! You ready to pack up the pressure and relax your way through the summer? Let's go!
What kind of summer camp are you ready for?

My Soap Box

Since I've been making potions and concoctions lately, when I ran out of laundry detergent I decided it was time to make my own. I'm OK with buying detergent, but I liked the Seventh Generation Unscented Powder Laundry Detergent and now I can't find it anywhere. What did I like so much about that particular product? It came in a cardboard box. . . low impact packaging, no big plastic tops that aren't accepted with recycling.


There are recipes all over the internet, and the one I followed was 1 bar laundry soap {for a gal used to unscented everything I found out Fels Naptha soap is very scented, albeit like soap, but still very strong}, 2 cups borax, and 2 cups washing soda**.

**Except that I couldn't find washing soda so I subbed powdered dish detergent {ahem. . . Seventh Generation Unscented Powder Dish Detergent in a cardboard box} and added 1/2 cup extra because even though the first ingredient is washing soda, it has a few other ingredients in it.


Grate the bar soap, mix it all together and use it like you would any other powdered soap. I use 1/8th a cup for a medium to large load.

Since I read all over the world wild web to find out how to make this stuff I came to several conclusions: 1) Use laundry soap, not skin soap. Maybe the castille bar recipe works well, too? It just seems the people who weren't happy with how well the soap performed used Ivory or some other skin bar. 2) People seem to think this recipe makes an unscented soap. . . again, Fels Naptha is strong if you're not used to added fragrances which makes me think we're all walking around with desensitized nostrils. Am I the only one who can smell people doing laundry inside when I take a walk around the neighborhood?? Yes, I can also smell your clothes from 10 feet away and it gives me a headache. 3) The recipe cleans just as well as any powder I've used in recent history.

Alright, alright, I'll step down from my soap box. Have you made your own detergent? How'd you like it if you did? Do you use detergent from the store? If so, what brand keeps you satisfied?

Doggy Door Re-Do

Here's another little handy dandy project I did this weekend--I slip covered the doggy door. Now before you go thinking I'm someone who likes to keep the couch under a clear vinyl cover, let me just say this is an upcycling project and not one for purely decorative purposes.

You see, that little door goes into the front foyer, which has a coat closet and 2 additional doors into the large rooms downstairs {the den and living room}. That little room doubles as a dog house for our furry little fellas, and they sure like it that way. Apparently they like the room so much they wore the plastic/rubber door out within a year of installing the dog door. We looked into a replacement door, but it would've been a) more plastic to wear out and throw away in a relatively short time, and b) cost almost as much as a whole new doggy door.

We discussed options, which included a hinged wooden replacement, and decided to install a fabric option. I took the old doggy door, which tore off right at the part where it attaches to the door, and made a fabric sleeve, slipped it in there, then added fabric reinforcement along the top, where the screws go through to attach the door to the frame. I used an extra 5 layers for the reinforcement to *hopefully* keep this door up for a while longer than the original part. If not, no worries--the cloth is cotton and I can just throw it into the compost and sew a new cover out of a stronger material.

So, whatd'ya think? Tacky or cute? Is it worth it to fork over another $40 to have a "normal" looking doggy door?

Scrimping to Spend

'Tis the season for over-indulgence, spending freely, and lots of consuming. That's okay, really. I'm okay with that. I like shopping and I really like gift giving, but where's the balance in all that?
I rationalize my spending by choosing where/what to spend money on. One thing that screams waste is the plastic dish scrubber. I feel guilty buying them. In fact, I feel so much guilt that I tried to grow loofahs last year to replace the plastic, but they were mislabeled seeds and I actually grew delicata squash. I have since paid way too much for coir scrubbers, but know their time is limited.
Enter the onion bag. Scrunch it up so it's nice and frilly (lots of surface material for scrubbing action), sew a few stitches through the center to keep it in said scrunched up shape and voila! Dish scrubby without excess plastic waste!
I used a sturdy upholstery weight thread to sew it together, then attached a loop of thread to it so I can hang it to dry, too.
Are you scrimping in some ways to spend in others? What sort of crafty recycling are you doing these days?