January list for the Anyway Project

Domestic Infrastructure - these are the realities of home life, including making your home work better with less, getting organized, dealing with domestic life, etc...

• finishing the plastic on the crawl space insulation - I'm not doing it, hubby is -- and it's dependent on weather at this point
  
• sealing up the cellar foundation
• sealing up windows in the two storage areas off the kitchen
• de-clutter and organize art and craft storage
• curtains on the windows of one room for sound-proofing and heat retention
  

Household Economy: Financial goals, making ends meet, saving, barter etc...

• selling off a Les Paul guitar that hubby doesn't use much (ad posted)
  
• eating down the stores through January to reduce outside purchases (challenge)
• set up budget for our next travel vacation
  

Resource Consumption : in which we use less of stuff, and strive to live in a way that has an actual future.

• thermal pot cooking
  
• walking for shopping and volunteer work (use car as little as possible)
  

Cottage Industry and Subsistence:: The things we do that prevent us from needing to buy things, and the things we produce that go out into the world and provide for others. Not everyone will do both, but it is worth encouraging.

• designing reusable Christmas tags from photos I took of Williamsburg wreaths
  
• learning to make custom-sized socks
• starting next year's Christmas presents by using up my re-discovered yarn stash with a new knitting book I got
  

Family and Community: Pretty much what it sounds like. How do we enable those to take the place of collapsing infrastructure?

• co-learning with a celiac neighbor how to make polenta (an economical gluten-free "fast food"!)
• began planning to build an outdoor oven with neighbors
  

Outside Work: Finding a balance, doing good work, serving the larger community as much as we can, within our need to make a living.

• volunteer work with Peterborough Greenup's Urban Forest project (GIS mapping and data analysis) --> explore using iTree software for them
  

Time and Happiness: Those things without which there's really no point.

• Nordic walking to enjoy whatever sunshine we have this month and get fresh air
  
• fiction reading (second-hand or borrowed books)
• making digital photo collages of our year's travels for our scrapbook
• start an art journal
  

How I Did "Anyway" in December

Domestic Infrastructure - these are the realities of home life, including making your home work better with less, getting organized, dealing with domestic life, etc...

• finishing the plastic on the crawl space insulation - not done
  
• sealing up the cellar foundation - begun; 1/4 done
  
• sealing up windows in the two storage areas off the kitchen - not done
  
• de-clutter and organize art and craft storage - begun
  
• curtains on the windows of one room for sound-proofing and heat retention - done!
  

Household Economy: Financial goals, making ends meet, saving, barter etc...

• selling off a Les Paul guitar that hubby doesn't use much (ad posted) - awaiting final sale
  
• starting a monthly savings plan for charitable donations - done
  
• starting a monthly savings plan for travel funds - done
  

Resource Consumption : in which we use less of stuff, and strive to live in a way that has an actual future.

• Christmas baking using what I have on hand or have canned - done
  
• batch cooking - done - see post
  
• walking for shopping and volunteer work (use car as little as possible) - done
  

Cottage Industry and Subsistence:: The things we do that prevent us from needing to buy things, and the things we produce that go out into the world and provide for others. Not everyone will do both, but it is worth encouraging.

• making some heat bags for gifts - done
  
• Christmas baking and preserves for Christmas gifts - done

I also made some reusable bags and tags as a gift enclosing a gift.

Family and Community: Pretty much what it sounds like. How do we enable those to take the place of collapsing infrastructure?

• teaching a celiac neighbor how to make no-knead gluten-free bread - done - see post
  

Outside Work: Finding a balance, doing good work, serving the larger community as much as we can, within our need to make a living.

• volunteer work with Peterborough Greenup's Urban Forest project (GIS mapping and data analysis) - on-going
  

Time and Happiness: Those things without which there's really no point.

• Nordic walking to enjoy whatever sunshine we have this month and get fresh air - done
  
• fiction reading (second-hand or borrowed books) - done
  
• making digital photo collages of our year's travels for our scrapbook - 5 done
  
• plan some future art collage work - done and have gotten into doing Zentangles as well (which I can use in the collages)
  

Knitting So Far This Fall

I was watching so much television this fall, I decided to do something useful while doing it. Besides, I was taken by the opening of a new shop on Water St here in Peterborough called Needles in the Hay: they stocked Briggs & Little yarn! Briggs & Little is a yarn mill in the Canadian Maritimes. They take wool from sheep herders and spin it; some can go back to the sheep farmer if he/she want; the mill sells the rest. The heathery colours are particularly nice.

When I lived in Nova Scotia, there was a cluster of sheep farmers about 15 kilometers up the road from me who I got to know quite well. I learned to spin from them; I got raw wool from them. One woman, Janetta Dexter, specialized in collecting double-knit patterns and knitting double-knit mittens from her own yarn. In a double-knit mitt, colours are carried behind the face of the knitting. This produces a very warm mitten.

She published a small booklet of just the patterns. Later she shared them and some others in Flying Geese and Partridge Feet by Robin Hansen. The patterns you see here, starting from the top left and going clockwise, are: Shining Star (front) and Fleur-de-Lis (back), vertical strip on mitt body and Peek-a-boo on the cuff, Salt and Pepper in the wristers, Candlelit Windows in reversed colours, and Northern Star.

After the third pair of mittens, I found my old stash of wool! So the green and white pair are knit from that.

After Christmas I want to start making socks. I have books, needles, and sock yarn on the way.

The Wrap is a Gift

These bags contain presents. These bags are reusable and were made from off-cuts when I remodelled some old drapes to smaller curtains for my husband's studio. The tags are reusable too! I designed some tags in Inkscape, using some vintage Santas off the Internet, and laminated them. Names can be written on with dry erase markers, then later wiped off and used next year.

Turning 1 Pound of Butter into 12 dozen cookies

I found this great recipe a couple of years ago on the Internet. Of course I've lost the link. But I decided to give it a try this year since earlier this fall I bought a pound of unsalted butter in stick form on special. The basic recipe calls for one stick of butter and makes three dozen cookies. I also wanted to make cookies with the cookie stamps I have: a tree of life, a dove, and flower/sun. I used one stick of butter for some oatmeal cookies earlier in the week.

Here's the basic recipe:
Cream together in a bowl: 1 stick of unsalted butter, 3/4 cup of organic sugar (or use yellow, brown or white). Beat in 1 large egg and 1 tsp vanilla. This goes fast if you can use an electric mixer.

Mix together the dry ingredients in another bowl: 2 cups white whole wheat flour or unbleached flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 tsp sea salt.

Add the dry ingredients gradually to the butter/sugar mixture and blend well. I used a wooden spoon for this.

Preheat your over to 350 deg F. Line cookie sheets with silicon sheets (or parchment paper).
You can form your cookies by rolling them out, slicing them from a log, or forming into balls that you press flat with a cookie stamp. The first two methods require you to chill the dough, which make the cookie stamp method appealing. Whatever method you use, bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until cookie edges lightly brown. They will firm up more as they cool on a wire rack.

Cookie stamping: form the dough into balls and place on your prepared cookie sheet. Press flat with the cookie stamp. The cookie should go to the edges of the stamp and be about a quarter-inch thick.

Additional variations: It's nice to have a variety of cookies at holiday time, I think, so I tried two of the variations to the recipe.

Chocolate Mocha Cookies: Add 1 tablespoon of instant coffee and 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the dough. I used two tablespoons less of the flour so they wouldn't be too dry.

Ginger Spicy Cookies: Substitute 1/4 cup of molasses for 1/4 cup of sugar. Add 1 teaspoon of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1/8 teaspoon of allspice to the dough. You might want to add two tablespoons more of flour as well so the dough will be less sticky. I had to flour the glass cookie stamp I used so the cookies wouldn't stick to it.

Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies: Add 1 cup of chocolate chips and 1/2 c finely chopped pecans (I would try pecan meal in these) to the dough and drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto your cookie sheets.

The Mouse Count Begins

Every fall mice invade the pantry and undersink area. We have an old porous foundation and that's how they get in. This year my husband is sealing it up so the invasion has come late, but there must still be an opening or two they can get through.

In the past I've put out mouse bait and poison cakes. The mice just seem to make a mess of them and pass on the word that there's tasty treats to be had inside this house.

Last year instead of spending money on bait I got a couple of old-fashioned traps. I had some peanut butter that was starting to go stale so a dab of that became bait. The first evening we're sitting in our living room and we hear a SNAP!. Sure enough, there's a mouse in the trap under the sink. A day later we had one in the pantry. Once the trap was sprung, peanut butter gone, and so was the mouse -- one up for them.

Last year's score: Me: 4 Mice: 1.

After the fourth mouse, we never saw trace of another.

Two days ago I saw mouse sign under the kitchen sink. Last night I set out the traps. The old peanut butter is even staler. This morning I had a mouse. The trap is baited again.

It's a great way to use up old peanut butter.

Doing a Door-crasher

Today (a Saturday) Staples here in Canada had a door-crasher on 500 GB external portable drives for $40 (25-30 per store) and netbooks for $150 (25-30 per store). I went to the farmer's market and then made my way over to Staples at 8 am.

There was a good cluster of folks there already and I saw my neighbor Sherry there. She had commandeered a teenage friend of one of her kids to join the line with her so she could get two netbooks (there was a "one per family" limit). She'd driven by the store at 5 am and seen 4 people there, so she went home for some breakfast and then came back. She'd already made a Tim Horton's run and gotten a box of Timbits for the crowd of about 20.

We gabbed about a bunch of things so the time went fairly quickly. At least it was 1 degree above freezing (Centigrade) rather than the -15 C it'd been throughout the week in the mornings. Sherri's feet were still getting cold though. I was wearing my Blundstons and doing fine. That's what she want to get; another friend of hers swears by them as well.

About ten to 9 they passed out coupons for the drives and netbooks. Though people were clumped around the door, we all knew who had been there first and things were really orderly (that's how Canadians are!).

Once I had my coupon, I went to my car and had some of my coffee. Then I went inside and one clerk had a stack of drives at her register so people who just wanted those could go through the line fairly quick.

The shiny black drive is sitting on my desk now waiting for hookup to I can transfer stuff from the 320 GB drive to it. The 320 drive then becomes my private storage drive and the 90 GB drive I was using for storage and backup will be dedicated to backups (and consequently not hooked up and running all the time).

Gluten-free bread making

I'd been promising my celiac friend Sherry for some time that I would walk her through a recipe for gluten-free bread dough from Healthy Bread In 5 Minutes a Day. So last week we made a date to do it this past Monday afternoon. Doing this is also one of my goals in the Anyway project.

A couple of weeks ago I walked her through a whole wheat bread recipe from the same book (or at least my variant on it which works really well with the organic, locally-grown whole wheat flour we get from Merryland Farms). Its four ingredients (flour, water, yeast and salt) make it simple enough that she get one of her teenagers to mix it up. We made English muffins and a baguette from half the dough; the next day she made pizza for her husband to take to work from the other half of the dough. Everything was eaten up within 24 hours!

Sherry, unfortunately, cannot eat whole wheat bread because she is a celiac. Her diet has to be free of gluten. Another friend of hers makes gluten-free loaves for her, which she carefully rations a slice or two a day. But the friend never makes pizza, and that is the one thing that Sherry craves.

The recipe is extensive: three kinds of gluten-free flour, water, xanthan gum, eggs, honey (we used organic sugar instead because she was low on honey, yeast, salt (we substituted sea salt for kosher salt), and neutral-flavored oil -- which we forgot to put in initially and had to add fifteen minutes into the primary rising. It worked out fine.

We let the dough rise for two hours while Sherry looked after some baked beans, we had tea and hot cider and talked a lot about community, sharing, and stockpiling food, she started a lasagna sauce, and we drove to Honda dealership to pick up my CRV with totally reconstructed rear brakes after the left rear brake caliper stuck and burnt out everything.

When we got back, she turned off the smoke alarms before heating her oven to 500 deg F since it was overdue for a cleaning. The gluten-free dough has to be handled gently. We found patting out thin circles for personal pizzas worked much better than rolling them out. I also did the patting out directly on parchment paper after incorporating a fair amount of flour into the intial balls. She was freezing the pizza shells partially baked, so they only took five minutes in the oven. While I was busy shaping, Sherry was equally busy get done pizzas onto a cooling rack, putting in a new pan, and setting up another pan for me to put them onto. We ended up using one piece of parchment paper four times. After that it was too browned to be reused again.

The last time Sherry had attempted to make gluten-free pizza had been an exercise in frustration: the dough constantly fell apart as she tried to move it from a board to pan and stuck to everything. Using lots of flour in the shaping and patting, rather than rolling, directly into the pan going into the oven minimized the falling apart. The dough only stuck to the shaper's hands and that was a quick wash-off after the last pan went into the oven.

We used up all the dough as pizzas. Sherry is looking forward to a dozen or more pizza meals. She can make one up and take for lunch when she's out housecleaning (she does it with green supplies like baking soda and vinegar) and she'll no longer be tempted to go off her diet on pizza nights at home!

A Thermal Cooker Trifecta

Soup This past Sunday was the Quaker potluck in a space that doesn't have a stove, though it does have electrical. Rather than get out my crock pot, I used my thermal cooker for soup. It also had the advantage of being a deeper pot so there is less likelihood of leakage while transporting. Another Friend brought chili in an oval crockpot and he had some mess to clean up.

The soup was based on the harvest I have on hand: tomatoes ripening in newspaper, delicta squash in storage, canned tomato stock, lightly salted vegetable stock, dried chard, and dried zucchini slices. I add some mixed dal and curry and produced a hearty, warming soup for lunch. After bringing it all to a boil, I set the pot in the vacuum sleeve, closed the insulated lid, and went for an hour long walk. I checked the seasoning when I got back, brought it to a boil again, and set up for Meeting. The soup cooked through meeting and announcements and all but two servings was joyfully consumed. I put those two servings in the fridge and rinsed out the cooker preparatory to its next use.

Rice Once I got my thermal cooker and found out how easy it was to cook rice in it, I donated my rice cooker to a thrift store. It was also far easier to clean and you never have to worry about it burning. It takes 45 minutes to cook brown rice in the cooker. Just bring 2 cups of rice in 3 cups of water to a boil, set it in the sleeve, cover and forget it. Supper got a little bit delayed, but the rice stayed fluffy in the cooker. We always use leftover rice in fried rice, under stir-fries, or perhaps even in a rice pudding. After supper I put the remaining rice in a container and cleaned out the cooker for its next use.

Steel-cut oats Usual recipes for steel-cut oats (the oat grains are cut into pieces rather than rolled flat) call for a half-hour boil. There is also the ease with which the oats will cling and burn to the bottom of your pot. I used the same proportions of water and oats as called for: 4 parts water to 1 part oats and did up 2 cups of steel-cut oats for a week of breakfasts. I also added hemp hearts, nutritional yeast, ground flax seed, and wheat germ (a round teaspoon of each per quarter cup of oats) as I do for my usual oatmea. I brought this to a boil and set the pot in the vacuum sleeve, closing the lid. After 4 hours they were nicely cooked through. It was bedtime then, so I simply took the pot out of the sleeve and set it in our "walk-in" fridge (the enclosed porch in December - March).

I moved the finished oats to containers this morning (Tuesday) so I could used the thermal cooker for tonight's supper of Southwestern stew. To used the oats, I microwave them for 2 minutes with fruit then top with some yogurt -- a very hearty, rib-sticking breakfast!

First,, cut a delicta squash in half lengthwise...

That's how my session in making squash granola begins. Kathie's recipe is an adaptation of one that uses applesauce. I, in turn, adapted hers to what I have on hand.

When I cut open a delicta squash (commonly called a sweet potato squash here in southern Ontario), I get a half cup of seeds or more. I save all my squash seeds, because you can toast them for a lovely snack, hulls and all. You can also use them instead of bought-at-the-store pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds). Sesame seeds make me gassy, so I substitute half a cup of ground golden flax seed and half a cup of oat bran for those. I did use sunflower seeds as called for in the recipe. I didn't have any brown rice syrup, but I did have a can of date syrup from Syria.

I wasn't making the granola just for myself. I have two friends on wheat-free diets and cans of this granola will be in their Christmas bags from me. I added coconut flakes, dried cranberries and raisins to fancy it up a bit.

So to start, I cut a squash in half and take out the seeds. I set them on a plate to dry after pulling them off the fibrous stuff and rinsing them for the next batch of granola. I use seeds from previously cooked squash for this batch. I cut the squash in 3/4 inch slices and put them in a covered glass dish with some water. Ten minutes in the microwave cooks them. I let them cool while I get everything else together. I scoop the squash from the rind and mash it for the granola. I usually get over a cup of mashed squash; what I don't use for the granola will go into soup, pancakes, cookies, or waffles.

Here's my recipe:

Mix the following dry ingredients together in a bowl:
5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 cup dried squash seeds
1/2 c ground golden flax seed (I use a coffee grinder to do this)
1/2 c oat bran
1 cup coconut flakes -- break up long pieces
2 tsp cinnamon

Mix the following wet ingredients together in a saucepan and bring to a boil:
3/4 c cooked, mashed orange squash
1/2 c honey
1/3 c date syrup
2 tablespoons olive oil

Pour over the dry ingredients and mix well. I can fit this into one fairly large lipped cookie sheet (or "jellyroll pan", though I never make any cake in it), but you may need two pans. Bake in a 300 deg F oven for 45 minutes, stirring every ten minutes.

After it is baked, add the fruit:
3/4 c dried cranberries
3/4 c raisins

This makes three coffee tins (originally holding 12 - 16 oz of coffee) of granola. You can also put it into pint jars. I'll probably do that to put them by for the summer!

December list for the Anyway project

Domestic Infrastructure - these are the realities of home life, including making your home work better with less, getting organized, dealing with domestic life, etc...

• finishing the plastic on the crawl space insulation
• sealing up the cellar foundation
• sealing up windows in the two storage areas off the kitchen
• de-clutter and organize art and craft storage
• curtains on the windows of one room for sound-proofing and heat retention
  

Household Economy: Financial goals, making ends meet, saving, barter etc...

• selling off a Les Paul guitar that hubby doesn't use much (ad posted)
  
• starting a monthly savings plan for charitable donations
• starting a monthly savings plan for travel funds
  

Resource Consumption : in which we use less of stuff, and strive to live in a way that has an actual future.

• Christmas baking using what I have on hand or have canned
  
• batch cooking
• walking for shopping and volunteer work (use car as little as possible)
  

Cottage Industry and Subsistence:: The things we do that prevent us from needing to buy things, and the things we produce that go out into the world and provide for others. Not everyone will do both, but it is worth encouraging.

• making some heat bags for gifts
  
• Christmas baking and preserves for Christmas gifts
  

Family and Community: Pretty much what it sounds like. How do we enable those to take the place of collapsing infrastructure?

• teaching a celiac neighbor how to make no-knead gluten-free bread
  

Outside Work: Finding a balance, doing good work, serving the larger community as much as we can, within our need to make a living.

• volunteer work with Peterborough Greenup's Urban Forest project (GIS mapping and data analysis)

Time and Happiness: Those things without which there's really no point.

• Nordic walking to enjoy whatever sunshine we have this month and get fresh air
  
• fiction reading (second-hand or borrowed books)
• making digital photo collages of our year's travels for our scrapbook
• plan some future art collage work
  

November wrap-up for Anyway project

Domestic Infrastructure - these are the realities of home life, including making your home work better with less, getting organized, dealing with domestic life, etc...

• getting the tin roof done on the back of the house done except 2 pieces of flashing
  
• finishing the plastic on the crawl space insulation carry over to next month!
  
• sealing up the cellar foundation carry over to next month!
  
• build a cold closet in the heated basement may carry over to next year because I can't decide exactly where to put it
  

Household Economy: Financial goals, making ends meet, saving, barter etc...

• selling off a Les Paul guitar that hubby doesn't use much ad has been posted
  
• finding cheaper house insurance (done! and savings have gone to charity donations)
  

Resource Consumption : in which we use less of stuff, and strive to live in a way that has an actual future.

• reduce daytime light use as much as practical we're both getting better at this
  
• batch cooking have used my thermal cooker lots
  

Cottage Industry and Subsistence:: The things we do that prevent us from needing to buy things, and the things we produce that go out into the world and provide for others. Not everyone will do both, but it is worth encouraging.

• knitting socks for myself, mittens as a Christmas gift I gave up on the sock pattern after I broke a bamboo needle; did finish one pair of mittens and started another
  
• putting together some baking mixes for Christmas gifts made up some bean soup mix for gifts
  

Family and Community: Pretty much what it sounds like. How do we enable those to take the place of collapsing infrastructure?

• teaching a celiac neighbor how to make no-knead gluten-free bread not gotten to the gluten-free yet, but she did learn how to make the wheat no-knead bread for her family
  

Outside Work: Finding a balance, doing good work, serving the larger community as much as we can, within our need to make a living.

• volunteer work with Peterborough Greenup's Urban Forest project (GIS mapping and data analysis) entered one inventory area of tree points; starting to investigate use of iTree (free from the US Forest Service) for them
  
• volunteer work with the Festival of Trees' Green Team (we sort recyclables out of the festival's waste stream, saving upwards of $3000 in tipping fees so more money goes to Hospice, Hospital, and another health agency). worked the Teddy Bear breakfast; also came home with some great reusable stuff for Christmas decor and wrapping that they were going to put in the landfill
  

Time and Happiness: Those things without which there's really no point.

• Nordic walking to enjoy the fall sunsets and warm afternoons found a new trail that takes me to a good grocery story with an LCBO next door; also walked to my Quaker meeting twice -- these are half-hour each way walks. Feels great!
  
• fiction reading (second-hand or borrowed books) finished two books
  
• making digital photo collages of our year's travels for our scrapbook ran into some computer issues so had to spend time and energy on those - continue to next month

A Wandering Birthday Celebration

My husband Ray had his birthday today. He started off with a good breakfast of homemade waffles and sausage. He had a late night with his garage band last night so he pretty much doddered the morning awake.

A local restaurant always sends each of us a $10 coupon on our respective birthdays and our wedding anniversary. We usually use them. We did lunch at the place since Ray didn't know if they did their superlative burgers at dinner time and a good burger with fries was what he was in the mood for. I had fish and chips. leaving the fatty batter behind, but eating everything else. We didn't have coffee; we were planning that somewhere else.

From there we drove to the place 45 km away where we got our metal roofing from and returned the chimney kit and vent closures we didn't use -- $120 refund! We continued east on Highway 7 another 32 km to Madoc and its Almost Perfect Coffee shop. Ray had their JamaicaMeCrazy blend and I had their Brazil Bahia Blue. We also had treats (to stand in for birthday cake): a date square for Ray and a caramel topped brownie for me (so much for the diet today!).

We turned around and headed back to the Peterborough. I wanted to stop at Almost Perfect to check what they had for tea (I've gotten some nice boxes of Celestial Seasonings teas for a buck in the past) and to get Ray a bag of potato chips as his final birthday treat. No Celestial Seasonings, but I got a Tazo sampler box for Christmas as well as some Tetley Red Tea.

Our last stop was the Independent grocery store for milk. The Kawartha Dairy milk is 19 cents more than the Sealtest milk at Mac's, but it is good quality and locally produced. I also found some discounted bananas for eating, waffles, and baking!

It was dark when we got home, but only 5:30 pm by the clock -- November darkness!

A 50% Off Day at Value Village

Value Village is a big chain of second-hand shops in Canada. It has housewares and books as well as clothing. They take some donations, but mostly they buy from non-profits such as the Canadian Diabetes Association.

Periodically they have sales days: 50% off all their clothing, shoes, accessories, and bed and bath. A few years ago they used to have the discount on everything in the store, but they've limited it now.

Today was the pre-holiday one (they also had one at the end of August -- pre-school, I guess). They open two hours early on sale days, so I got there shortly after 8 am. I was interested in a pair of neoprene shoes I'd seen there last week. I figured if they were still there, my name was on them. They were!

I had looked at hats before too, looking for a good wool felt for winter. Lo and behold, I found a Tilley winter hat in my size! I've coveted one of these for years, but I always found the price too high. The original Value Village price was less than a third of the retail price -- and today I got it for half that. Just the savings in that one item (the hat was new enough to still have its owner manual) more than covered all my other purchases.

Matching the hat was an L.L. Bean wool cardigan. I didn't get it off the rack. Another woman was using the mirror I was checking hats in and she had the sweater in her basket but thought it'd be too large for her daughter who takes a size small. The size was marked as medium but the shoulder seams fell off my shoulders too, but not too much. Enough room to layer another, lighter sweater underneath it. The woman showed me a white cashmere sweater she had found for her daughter -- that she was definitely keeping.

I looked though the men's sweater and casual top section but I didn't find anything for my son or husband. I did find a Columbia micro-fleece top in my size though.

Nothing really appealed to me in the pajama section -- what I have right now will suffice. But I did want to get some elastic waist pants with pockets to see me through the next year of weight reduction. I found a brown corduroy and bright tuorquoise cotton that fit well. Coming out of the fitting booth, I saw an Eddie Bauer heavy corduroy shirt in a flower print on the reject rack. I tried it on: it fit and went with the cords I was wearing today. Its colours will also go with my jeans and some other pants I have. It's a "nice casual" and a good addition to my wardrobe.

I found a pair of nylon shorts and a tank top for summer wear as well.

A very successful day bargain-hunting!

Peoples in other places do it, why not us?

I'm trying to incorporate 5 to 7 servings of vegetables a day in my diet -- quite an uppance from the usual North American 2 - 3 a day.

In the early days of summer, I'd just go picking in the garden and do up a stir-fry with tofu or single egg omelet for breakfast. Sprouts with a splash of dressing also are great. Really added zip to my energy level at the start of the day.

November is here and though we're currently in a warmish spell (still frosty in the morning though), I know colder times are a-coming. I had stashed a bunch of tomatoes in the freezer back in October for future canning. A few days ago I got them out, defrosted them during the day, and made pizza sauce in the evening. In the course of defrosting I poured off a lot of tomato stock -- great soup base.

I still have tomatoes ripening, chard and parsley growing, and squash in storage. Those and the stock made a great vegetable soup. I froze half of it and the rest I'm using for meals and snacks. There's no starch or fat in the soup, so it is quite low-calorie. A cup of this rounds out an oatmeal (cooked with apples and garnished with yogurt rather than milk) breakfast nicely.

Mid-November Scrounge

It's been a while since I made the rounds of the recycle boxes in my neighborhood. Christmas is coming and my jar stock is low, so that was my primary objective this week.

It's also been a dry, sunny week. There's frost in the morning on everything, but the sun warms things. That we've moved into daylight saving time means it's light out at 7 am again, so that makes scrounging easier too. Though I got five bags of leaves for my garden (few leaves fall in my yard) the night before -- and they were a super find since the leaves in four of the bags were already chopped up and I had to run my electric mower over only one bag of them.

I went out with a couple of bags and came back with 4 quart jars, 4 three-quarter quart Mason jars, a pint Mason jar, a jam jar, and a face cream jar (love those for my homemade body sugars!). I also found a large wire basket of the sort you find in freezers -- too big for mine but still a great bin for all sorts of things -- and a lime green Starfrit frying pan. I'm divided between keeping the pan for myself or filling it with something like the ingredients for a paella for a sprightly gift.

Not a bad haul at all!

The Jar Dilemma

I have nearly 300 Mason jars that I've accumlated over the years -- yet I still scrounge for jars at the height of canning season. A major part of it is poor stores management on my part: I don't eat some of the stuff up fast enough. At least I do keep track of what is around from the past year or two and put a priority on using that first. But there is only so much mustard and ketchup two people can eat in a year.

Of course I can give stuff away as presents, and I do, with much appreciation from recipients. But once a jar leaves this house, it rarely returns. I can only hope it is being reused. But I've reached the point, with the rising price of new jars, of not using new jars for gifts.

So I periodically check the Value Village housewares section. Four pint Mason jars, often with bands and lids, which is the size I most frequently use, can be had for a Canadian buck plus the sales tax. These are the jars I use for Christmas gifts, as it were.

Another kind of jar is the non-sealing kind. We're getting fewer and fewer of these in our house every year. Some is because food manufacturers have been moving to lighter-shipping-weight plastic for things that used to come in jars. A lot is because most things that come in jars (jams, pickles, fruit, sauces) I put up myself in my own Mason jars.

But these jars are great for such home-made gifts as body sugars, bath salts, soup mix, and spice mixes. Baking mixes are a "once opened, it's used" sort of thing and they can easily be put into cleaned and dried milk bags (4 liters of milk are often sold in a set of three bags here in Canada -- nice size for something like a cookie mix).

The source for these: the neighborhood scrounge on garbage/recycle day. Sometimes I score Mason jars as well!

Money Out of Thin Air

Well, not really, but it sure felt that way this week: an expected cheque for energy retrofit work arrived at least 6 weeks early and the expected shortfall for house insurance (I did not have enough in the savings account to cover the new rate which was 150% of last year's) turned into a rate lower than last year with much better coverage when I queried and found a new insurer -- and the payment system moved from a lump sum at the start of the year to monthly payments during the year -- so I had insurance savings to use for my year-end charitable donations.

Two-thirds of the cheque is going to savings that have been depleted/not added to in the past few months, about a third will be for our Christmas travel, and a little bit will be some "mad money". One reason I had felt in a financial bind (not a serious one -- I could have dipped into savings) was that I had actually pre-spent some of that cheque for a guitar for my husband. A well-deserved reward for all the retrofit work and roofing he's been doing.

We've been with the same house insurance since we bought the house. In that time we've upgraded the plumbing, laid down metal roofing, and upgraded the electrical. Maybe we could have got better rates if we had talked to them, but the "bump" wouldn't have disappeared entirely. I checked out other mainstream firms and got quotes that were about a hundred dollars over our rate last year.

Then I checked out the small insurance company we get our travel health insurance from. I belong to something called the Quarter Century Club for Ontario public service retirees and this firm gives that club good rates. The health insurance rate (here in Canada you need it spectacularly if you do any travel to the US) from them was definitely lower than that from CAA. I went through the lengthy phone interview and then was pleasantly surprised when the rate they quoted me for much better coverage was lower than my rate last year before added on taxes. It was a no-brainer to go with them. Then a no-fee monthly payment plan was the icing on the cake. We already do that with our travel health insurance. It really is the way to go when you're on a monthly income.

The Anyway Project for November

The categories for the Anyway Project are:

Domestic Infrastructure - these are the realities of home life, including making your home work better with less, getting organized, dealing with domestic life, etc...

• getting the tin roof done on the back of the house
• finishing the plastic on the crawl space insulation
• sealing up the cellar foundation
• build a cold closet in the heated basement
  

Household Economy: Financial goals, making ends meet, saving, barter etc...

• selling off a Les Paul guitar that hubby doesn't use much
• finding cheaper house insurance (done! and savings have gone to charity donations)
  

Resource Consumption : in which we use less of stuff, and strive to live in a way that has an actual future.

• reduce daytime light use as much as practical
• batch cooking
  

Cottage Industry and Subsistence:: The things we do that prevent us from needing to buy things, and the things we produce that go out into the world and provide for others. Not everyone will do both, but it is worth encouraging.

• knitting socks for myself, mittens as a Christmas gift
• putting together some baking mixes for Christmas gifts
  

Family and Community: Pretty much what it sounds like. How do we enable those to take the place of collapsing infrastructure?

• teaching a celiac neighbor how to make no-knead gluten-free bread
  

Outside Work: Finding a balance, doing good work, serving the larger community as much as we can, within our need to make a living.

• volunteer work with Peterborough Greenup's Urban Forest project (GIS mapping and data analysis)
• volunteer work with the Festival of Trees' Green Team (we sort recyclables out of the festival's waste stream, saving upwards of $3000 in tipping fees so more money goes to Hospice, Hospital, and another health agency).
  

Time and Happiness: Those things without which there's really no point.

• Nordic walking to enjoy the fall sunsets and warm afternoons
• fiction reading (second-hand or borrowed books)
• making digital photo collages of our year's travels for our scrapbook
  

Putting the Freezer in Order

I meant to do this early in the summer before I bought more beef, more chicken, more shrimp ... well, you get the idea. Now harvest is burgeoning and I knew there were some older things I want to move out of the freezer to make room for some of this year's stuff.

It's a small freezer but I filled three coolers with its contents after I unplugged it. I would have had to get out another cooler but last summer's rhubarb and strawberries went upstairs to go into rhubarb-strawberry sauce I'm canning tonight. Some of this year's rhubarb went up too. One package of shrimp and the last package of last summer's blueberries went to the refrigerator's freezer (I wanted to make room for two quarts of this summer's wild blueberries!).

I half filled a pail with hot water, put it in the freezer, and closed the lid. I went upstairs to type in the inventory I had made into a spreadsheet. An hour later all the frost had fallen from the sides. I scooped it out (one large piece I carried outside and it landed with a satisfying thunk on the walkway in a dozen pieces or so) and washed everything down. Then I played around with storage containers in the bottom of the freezer for holding smaller things.

The freezer still ended up being pretty full, but it's organized now and I have a list of its contents posted in the kitchen!

Drinking Rhubarb...

The rhubarb is still growing because I water it if there's been more than 4 days without rain and I only pick a third of it when I do pick it.

We went away to the southwest the last week of July and first of August. I picked the rhubarb before we left and stuck it in the freezer. When we got back, it was ready to pick again and I got enough for a gallon of wine, 4 pint jars of drink concentrate, and a 9"x13" crisp.

I had a gallon of rhubarb wine fermenting: it was the batch that I made with some elderflowers steeped in it. It was actually ready to bottle and tasted quite fine; it should be really nice by Christmas. I've been making concentrate with some spearmint steeped in it, so I did the same for this batch of wine. The spearmint had grown like crazy too. Half of what I picked went into the new batch of concentrate.

I bottled up the first batch of rhubarb wine in glass bottles. This middle batch I put into 2 liter plastic bottles that I'll decant later into bottles I empty from wine I have on hand.

I have about 24 pints of drink concentrate on basement shelf. In this hot summer I've managed to already drink up what I made last year. I'll probably use a half dozen pints before fall really sets in. It's a very low calorie refresher (1 pint has 1/4 c organic sugar; 1 pint makes 8 12 oz glasses of beverage -- less than 2 tsp of sugar per glass). Its sweetness is much less than that of any commercial iced tea or lemonade. I get a slight lift from what sugar is in it, but not enough to raise my metabolism (make me hotter!).

The rhubarb wine is a like a dry, light white wine. The batches with elderflower steeping or spearmint steeping will probably make good spritzers.

I love drinking rhubarb!

Vitamin B-12 and Health

An interesting thing happended to me the first week of June: I found out I have a vitamin B12 deficiency. I'm not a vegetarian, I'm not a vegan -- I do eat meat products once a day and I eat red meat usually twice a week.

I found out because I signed up for a program here in Ontario to get complete physicals to those who do not have a family physician. So we signed up with a nurse practicioner about 30 km away. No more sitting in the emergency waiting room when wondering if the cold I have is maybe pneumonia or bronchitis. The first phase of the complete physical is a complete round of tests -- six vials of blood -- but my insulin level is okay, so is iron, my cholestral is a little high. I'll get more definitive information on the start of heart and circulatory system when the cardiologist comes back from summer vacation. But the NP called me in when she found I had the vitamin B12 deficiency.

So why is vitamin B12 important? It impacts red blood cell development, your metalobolism (and subsequently your energy level), and your circadian cycle (sleeping through the night!). It also affects your nervous system too.

On the NP's recommendation, I went to a health food store and got a substantial vitamin B12 supplement. Since taking it I've noticed a real increase in energy (I do stuff in the morning, afternoon, and evening), sleeping better (usually a solid four hours before stirring away for a needed run to the washroom), a change in appetite so that cravings for high-energy (and often high-calorie) foods have vastly decreased, more stamina when I'm out bicycling, and less tingling in my arms and hands.

I still have to find out why my body has gotten so bad at absorbing vitamin B12. The health food store owner said that as we age we produce less of the enzymes needed to absorb vitamin B12 from food. I don't know if there is any healthy way to reverse/ameliorate that.

The Massive Diabetes Association Donation

I should have taken a picture: two stuffed boxes and four garbage bags that filled the bench on our porch. All gone now, taken by the Canadian Diabetes Association, who will sell it to Value Village, who will sell it to thrifty shoppers.

One bag was clothes and cloth. Another was a bread maker: I do no-knead artisan bread all the time now and I can store the pot I use for it where the bread maker used to be. The third bag contained a rice cooker: it did the rice nice enough, but it was horrible to clean the cover and my thermal cooker does a nicer job with far less mess and a lot less energy too; I'm storing a classic cast iron Dutch oven that I just purchased at a yard sale in that space. The fourth bag was a big plastic grater/strainer thing that I never used. I'll appreciate having the storage space back, probably for food stock-up (beans that I can cook in the Dutch oven in our fire pit if the Catastrophe comes).

One box I started several months ago with a few items that never gotten taken when offered on Freecycle. I kept adding more things as I came across them this spring: travel Scrabble which we never use, a cream whipper which uses gas cartridges (my manual egg beater works just fine for small amounts of cream), an expandable plastic water carrier, and other things I don't remember because that's how important they were to me!

The last box had a wicker wine rack we never used, a light we never used, and some books I'd not yet taken in to the library for their semi-annual book sales.

The Hell of Asparagus

So I had to pick the beginning of heat spell to make an opportune purchase of 10 asparagus crowns at the farmers' market.

Then I had to plant them...

... but first I had to decide where to put the asparagus bed.

Oh, did I mention that we've been having a very dry spring so the ground is turning into a brick? Each asparagus crown requires a square foot. They have to be placed 8 inches below the ground surface -- and covered over two inches at time as they grow. That's a lot of shovelling! I'm glad I didn't buy 20 or 30 crowns!

I wandered around with my tape measure in hand, finding plenty of spaces that wouldn't work. I didn't really relish digging up a 2 foot by 10 foot patch of heavy sod (I have heavy sod because we don't water our grass, which forces it to root to about 4" below the surface). Then, aha, the space between the two melon boxes spanned by a trellis and covered with boards that do a mediocre job of stifling the couch grass. I measured it: 36 inches by 60 inches. I took up the boards and on Sunday night I watered the spot so it would be softer to dig.

Monday morning I was out before 7 am. I watered the would-be asparagus patch again and then went on to water everything else that I had planted the night before because Sunday had been the big Ecology Park plant sale and I bought 14 tomato plants, 4 pepper plants, 4 parsley, a wild plum tree, and a blueberry bush and they all had to be planted before the heat got them.

I got out the big garden cart to hold the dirt that I would be layering back into the patch, a spade, a round tip shovel (holds more dirt than the spade and a longer reach for dumping into the cart), and a bin for the couch grass and bindweed roots that would go out as green waste and not into my compost heap. Our local green waste program does high-temperature composting; my humble piles can't reliably cook things such as bindweed and couch grass roots.

The watering I had done softened up the patch nicely (and the boards had hoarded some moisture in the soil as well). It's sandy loamy. I cut the long side of the rectangle between the two boxes with the shovel, then another line a shovel blade length in. I got into a rhythm of cut a scoop, throw it into the big cart, shake dirt off the roots and/or pull them out of the soil, and toss the roots into the bin.

Only two thirds of dirt was removed when the big cart filled up. So I toddled off the get the smaller cart off the shop shed wall. I got the patch dug out and leveled at several inches below the sod root line. How to keep the couch grass and bindweed invading the new patch? I had plastic corrugated board from the box my greenhouse came in two years ago, so I cut lengths of that to line the empty patch (with overlapping ends) and keep out invasive roots.

By then the sweat was pouring off me, the sun was beginning to fully hit the patch area, and it wasn't even 9 in the morning. Should I plant the roots or wait until evening? If I put down the little heaps of compost that the crowns would rest on and I dampened the roots, they should be all right. I filled a bucket with compost and made 10 little mounds. The crowns were in a plastic bag; keeping them in the cellar had kept them from drying out. I put some water over them. I laid out the crowns two at a time and quickly covered them with soil from the smaller cart. The last third of the cart I dumped in the middle of the patch and then smoothed. I soaked it down and covered it over with the melon trellis so the neighborhood cats wouldn't use it as a litter box.

I'll see if I score an asparagus heaven in two years' time!

Dandelion and Other Wines

The dandelions have been popping their blooms two weeks ahead of time. I went out today to harvest two quarts of petals for a gallon (five bottles) of wine.

It's a lot of work. I'm not clear how I was able to do two batches of wine last year. Maybe I just don't have the energy I had in early May last year. Maybe my biological clock is not in sync with the early warm weather here (though it still gets cool at night).

It's important to get full-blown yellow bloom for the most flavor. You don't want to get any green leaves or stems mixed in with them either or you'll have bitter wine. I have some small scissors that are just perfect to clip the petals and leave the stem and all the little green leaves that form the outside of the blossom bud behind.

It seems this year that the blooms are smaller. Many are closer to quarters rather than being bigger than loonies. That means nearly twice as many blooms are needed to make two quarts.

I'm hoping I get good elderflowers this year. You only need twenty bloom heads to make a gallon of wine. Easy-peasy compared to the two thousand or so dandelion blooms I clipped!

Then there's rhubarb. It makes a wine that you can combine with other wines and it will take on their flavor. I know that rhubarb ade made with an elderflower in it tastes divine. Or possibly with a spearmint wine -- if my spearmint spreads like the peppermint does. (Peppermint I prefer for tea.)

All something to think about as I have a glass of rhubarb ade (from last year's concentrate) and read some of The DaVinci Code in the sun outside.

Is This Really April?

It was unseasonally warm where we were on vacation: highs in the nineties (Fahrenheit) in Williamsburg, Virginia the last three days we were there. It was unseasonally warm here in Peterbrough as well. We came back the Wednesday after Easter. I hastily uncovered the garlic and the herbs. I got out the heat mat and began sprouting seeds.

It's now the last week of April. Our grass could really use a cut. The rhubarb is almost ready to pick. The dandelions are ready to pick for wine -- it wasn't until Mother's Day last year that they were ready. By Mother's Day this year they will be all fluff and gone.

I've got strawberries blossoming. I covered them one night we had frost so they wouldn't all die. Will I finally get red currents this year? I don't know. It looks like the bush is blossoming but I'm hoping it's not done it too soon.

I put my tomato seedlings in the green house -- after I fixed the vent lifter. Without venting, the inside temperature easily tops 100 F.

As far as April showers bringing any May flowers ... we haven't had any rain for nearly two weeks. The one rain we did have only half-filled one of my two rain barrels.

At least I'm not worrying that the hose will freeze overnight. It's just not getting that cold.

Eating Down the Fridge

In two weeks we'll be gone away for more than a month. I want to have the fridge empty and turn it off when we go.

Yes, we'll "cheat" by throwing some things in the freezer, but that's all right and is the last resort.

Some of the things we'll have "eat down":

• eggs
• milk (extra bag(s) go in the freezer)
• mushrooms (last will probably go on travel pizza)
  
• peppers of all colours (last will go on the travel pizza)
• andouille sausage -- one portion will probably go in the freezer downstairs
• cheese
• margarine
• citrus
• apples
• broccoli
• carrots
• zucchini
• pickles (maybe a small amount will travel with us)
• canned fruit
• jam
• baking yeast (into cold storage for that)
• hemp seeds (freezer)
• salad dressing (travel with us?)
• celery
  
• roasted red pepper sauce
• relish
• chipolte mustard
• soy sauce
• fish sauce
• lemon juice
• frozen veg (to the freezer of course)
• frozen seafood (ditto)
• frozen meat (ditto)
• frozen fruit (ditto)

The obvious strategy is to clear out what is not already frozen first. We may pass some things to family and neighbors as well towards the end.

Afternote: the fridge did not get completely eaten down. My husband was adamant that we not turn it off while we were away. We did lower the temperature and I was able to wash out bins and clean a couple of shelves. It was a much nicer fridge to come home to.

The Electronics De-clutter

My husband has a room that he uses as an office and a studio. He took out all the old lathe and plaster and partial cellulose insulation. After building out the wall studs to 6 inches, he insulated, vapor-barriered, sheathed in OSB, applied pine paneling, painted and over-stained. The wall now look great and it is the warmest room in the house.

He's also gotten rid of a lot of other stuff. The electronics de-clutter began because he wanted to get rid of a metal secretary cabinet that had sorts of old things in it: a couple of inkjet printers with their dried-out cartridges, cables, dried-out dry-erase markers. I had a bag of obsolete computer stuff upstairs.

Then when we began putting the pile together so I could move it to the car a half dozen more boxes and things came out of the renovated room: an old music keyboard with one irreparable key, a subwoofer, a couple of speakers, a box of auxillary cards, a box of old modems and cables, a small bag of old inkjet cartridges. It filled half the cargo space of our Honda CRV.

At the hazardous waste depot they had a big box for computer electronics, another big box for other electronics, and the inkjet cartridges had to be dropped off at the station that took paints, stains, and household petroleum-derivative products.

The car left pleasantly lighter and we have more space in the house.

Winter Collages

We cleaned out the attic preparatory to upping the insulation to R-50 (recommended here in Ontario). We found a lot of old barn boards and a lot of pieces of plywood panelling, the stuff that is all wood (and glue) with scribed "board" lines one side and prepainted white; the reverse side is plain medium brown grain. We recognized that some of the barn board was candidate for art work and the panelling could be used the side of small boxes or for small shelves.

I was in a local gallery which was selling packages of Japanese paper scraps, so I picked one up, thinking I could use it for collages.

I was straightening up my craft room after Christmas and I came across a stack of art gallery postcards and an old French book on animals in Africa with black ink drawings. Hmmm, collage material, I thought. I was starting a Year of Creativity too and I thought some collages might be a nice project as part of that.

I went out to the shop shed and cut up a stack of 6" x 6" pieces of panelling in the week between Christmas and New Year's. Then three weeks later I cut another stack, some of them 7" or more to a side.

I found a tin to keep the cards, paper, and scissors in. An old Olay creme jar was perfect for white glue. I had some roller-ball pens for text and signing the backs, brushes for applying the glue, and ergonomic tweezers I picked up at a Cape Cod flea market for handling small pieces.

Ideas came to me as I browsed through the art card, the book, and the paper pieces. I'd cut and layout, then glue everything together.


It's been a very artful January!

The "Root Cellar" Box

I have a cold room behind the kitchen. When the cold weather arrives, we seal it off -- completely -- from the rest of the house. I stuck a thermometer in there this year. It read 40 deg F or lower while the kitchen on the other side of the wall read 65 deg F. It's colder because it has horrible windows (double panes of bare, bulky glass which will make great cold frame covers when we replace the windows next year -- they slide in wooden grooves and are quite drafty) and not much insulation anywhere. The wall between it and the kitchen is insulated and we've created a barrier + door in the 4 foot wide opening between the two.

Our basement is small and the presence of the gas furnace down there keeps it too warm to keep many root cellar crops for long. Squash does well. There's a corner where I can put a bucket of apples. But potatoes, onions, and carrots invariably sprout.

I had a large plastic box with an attached deep lid, left over Reflectix from the door, and left over insulation from the attic. I constructed a false floor in the box and stuffed it with insulation. More insulation went in the lid and sides and was covered with the Reflectix. I placed the finished box towards the kitchen wall side of the room.

I put in onions, red onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, mandarins and grapefruit in mid-December. The last of the mandarins were used (and still in excellent shape) the last week of January. We went away the first two weeks of February, turning down the heat in the house to 60 deg F. When we came back, the carrots were frozen -- they were in plastic and in the section of the box furthest from the wall. But sweet potatoes in plastic in the middle of the box were moldy (they went to the compost). The rest of the produce was fine. A key point coming out of this is to not store items in plastic. Those in cloth or heavy paper bags were fine.

We'll see how things go the rest of February.

Hoped For Heights in 2010

This is the first day of January, customary for resolutions and predictions. I'm not much for either, but there are things I hope to do/experience/work for in 2010:

• my first grape harvest from my vines
• more elderberries
• more black raspberries
• more kayaking: the Otonabee from Peterborough to Rice Lake, going through some of the Trent-Severn locks, Lake Tahoe, inside the Outer Barrier Islands of North Carolina, anywhere in Colorado, somewhere near Myrtle Beach, anywhere in Virginia
• using my electric bike for grocery market days in fair weather
• closing off a root cellar space in our basement
• set up a solar panel charging station for rechargable batteries
• converting the boulevard in front of our house away from grass
• insulating under the house (basement, crawl space)
• installing storm doors
• more decluttering!
• exploring the possibility of bee-keeping
• more carrots from the garden
• more home-grown potatoes
• a longer lettuce and greens season
• more solar cooking
• more solar dehydrating (if I get the sunshine!)

Notice all the "ing" words? That implies process -- now and into the future!