November 12, 2009 at 5:51 pm (Energy, Musings)
It’s been a tough day, oh people of the Internet. I was working from home today due to health issues that, try though I might, I cannot wish, medic, or magic away. I got a request to present information on a project I’ve been working on for over 2 years to a very high-up person at the university, and I couldn’t fill it because I couldn’t be certain I’d not puke on him if I went in. So my boss had to take herself away from another very important meeting to cover for me. This is incredibly hard for me to deal with. I feel like I have total job fail.
Then there’s the crummy energy news: the IEA has been covering up how dire the world oil situation is, largely due to pressure from Americans who don’t want people to panic. Remember how badly that blip of $4/gallon gas threw off the economy? That’s going to become the norm, folks. The only silver lining there is that maybe it’ll slow down global warming, which makes me think Michigan will look like the Dust Bowl in my lifetime. We sure won’t be flying in strawberries from California and chicken from China, and I don’t know if Michigan can feed itself. We’re in a better position than many states: far from an ocean coast, plenty of fresh water (though some places have lots of groundwater pollutants), a diverse and fairly healthy agricultural base, and lots of arable land…which is tilled solely by diesel-powered tractors, outside a few Amish farms and “wacko” organic veggie plots.
And speaking of Michigan, a report from the Pew Center on the States tells us that Michigan is likely going to have California-like money problems in the near future. And a dozen other states, too. How bad is it going to get here? We already have 15+% unemployment (over 20% in Detroit). I’m incredibly grateful to have a job (don’t think about today’s job fail, don’t think about today’s job fail) and there are only slight, very distant rumblings that either my or my husband’s jobs might be in jeopardy, but I’m worried about my family and people around me.
I feel really impotent today. I can’t even go out and garden, which is my usual answer for despair of any sort, what with the dark and the health today.
What do you do when it all just seems like too much bad news you can’t do anything about?
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November 10, 2009 at 8:57 pm (Preserving Traditions)
Ok, it probably doesn’t look all that different to you (which is kinda the point), but I’ve finally gotten http://preservingtraditions.org/ up and running and not just pointing at the WordPress blog. You’ll notice the calendar is a little more slick, and there’s a prominent link to our Flickr photo group. (Please contribute photos!) The “about” page also has details on our second location, in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
Enjoy!
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November 9, 2009 at 10:06 am (Organic gardening, local food)
Ok, I think I know what my winter project is…starting an indoor citrus orchard!
http://simple-green-frugal-co-op.blogspot.com/2009/11/grow-your-own-citrus-meyer-lemons.html
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November 5, 2009 at 11:29 am (Energy, Food security, carbon budget, green living)
I realized the other day that the next realistic steps my household might take to reduce carbon emissions are to carpool more (we commute to work together but could add up to 2 more people in our car) and to move to geothermal heat.
Geothermal systems – even with the rebates – would probably cost $15,000. That’s a ton of money. Even supposing we had $15K to spend on a system (and that’s a big “if”), would it be the best way to spend it? What would truly be the most carbon-reduction-bang for fifteen thousand bucks?
Some initial ideas:
- Help 15 households insulate their attics to R-60
- Buy super-efficient furnaces for several households
- Help 3-5 farmers build hoophouses to produce local veggies through the winter
- Invest in a “neighborhood energy startup” with a gasifier (makes heat and electricity and biodiesel), possibly with a permaculture system of greenhouses, coppice groves, etc.
- Just buy land and start a coppice grove for sustainable heating fuel production, and possibly invest in a pelletizer
- Some kind of education program? I’m thinking the actual return is hard to measure, and it’s not education about global warming that folks around here lack.
Anyone have data on any of these? Or other ideas? bonus points for things that are done once and keep on saving energy and reducing emissions without any further attention or work.
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October 26, 2009 at 12:56 pm (local food)
Well, that was odd. Something about the sausage from this pig makes my heart race! It’s only got pork, black pepper, sage, salt, and brown sugar. Huh. The plain pork is great (and the bacon is out-of-this-world), but the sausage isn’t doing it for me.
Luckily, I have friends who like sausage, especially cheap happy sausage, so hopefully I can convert this into a variety of spicy pig that doesn’t send my heart galloping for the door…
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October 21, 2009 at 1:34 pm (Cooking, Food origins, Food preservation, Food security, local food)
Naming our food is a long tradition in my family, starting with Boris the Bull, who I believed would cause my parents’ divorce (do YOU really understand how large a whole steer is? Yeah, us neither…). Last year we bought half a hog and named it Eric. This year’s participant has been dubbed Señor Porcus. No absent referent here!
We picked up our 1/2 hog from Old Pine Farm on Oct. 17th. They have a very nice farm – hogs are pastured with some supplemental feed, not confined to a muddy sty. They are slaughtered on-farm and then sent to the butcher, so there’s no travel stress for the pigs. I feel extremely grateful that we have such a farm near us, and that we can afford to buy our food from them.
Looks like we ended up with about 85 lb of meat (for $300, including cutting and smoking, so somewhere around $3.50/lb). Old Pine Farm is unusual in that they charge a flat price for your hog, no matter what size, and they do not charge extra for cutting and smoking. You get to pick how you’d like your meat cut up. Here’s what we got – showing our strong preference for sausage and pulled pork in this house! My only complaint so far is that the meat is wrapped in Saran Wrap, which I find hard to remove from the meat. Hopefully it will fend off freezer burn – since there’s no air inside the wrapping, it should do that. So long as the wrap is thick enough. We’ll see.
- Loin roast: 10lb in 3 large packages. Wonder if we should have gotten this sliced into chops?
- Shoulder roast: 20+lb in about 10 packages (will become pulled pork)
- Bulk Sausage: 18 one-pound packages
- Smoked kielbasa: 10 – two to four links per pkg
- Ground pork: 6 – 1.5 lb packs
- Bacon: 5 lb in one-pound blocks
- Smoked hocks: 8lb in 2 hocks
- Ribs, pork butt, other misc: 8lb
- Plus about 5 pounds of soup bones and 5 lb of fat for lard
- The tail, the bladder, and possibly the squeal for the Cooking with Laura Project, which I will get to in a few weeks
This filled 2 large coolers and a paper grocery bag; it takes up about 2/3 of our tiny 7cu ft chest freezer and close to half the space above the fridge.
I think this was a steal for $300. I think prices are going up for next year, and they will be worth it.
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October 17, 2009 at 10:53 am (Cooking, green living)
A couple weeks ago, I finally bought a thermal cooking pot. It’s been on my radar for a long time, and I finally splurged. The basic idea is that it’s a pot-in-a-Thermos. You put your ingredients in the inner pot and bring it to a boil on the stove, then put that pot into the insulated outer pot, close the lid, and the food cooks using the retained heat. It’s sort of like a countertop version of haybox cooking, and the idea is to save energy and keep from heating up your kitchen when cooking.
I’ve learned that this gizmo has definite strong and weak points. I’m honestly not sure I’d recommend buying one; they are pretty pricey and it doesn’t do everything I’d hoped it would. Still, it works really well for some things, and I can’t stop experimenting! I thought I’d post the results of my experiments to date, so if you’re considering getting one, you can make a really informed decision. Details after the cut: Read the rest of this entry »
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October 8, 2009 at 9:35 am (Preserving Traditions)
Just a note – instead of reposting things I’m posting over at Preserving Traditions, I’ve added a feed on the left side. As I add things over there, the title, date, and a link will show up here, and you can follow the link if you’re interested.
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October 5, 2009 at 2:03 pm (Musings)
It’s been a very full summer for me. I’ve mentioned most of these things before, but the quick-and-dirty list of what’s been keeping me busy includes
- Increasing the garden from 200sf to about 1000sf (plus 250sf I didn’t get around to planting)
- Growing eight crops I’ve never grown before
- Learning to pickle (and putting up something like 20 quarts of pickles)
- Running Preserving Traditions events once a month
- …plus 2 preserving “work days,” the chicken harvest workshop, and a “how to stock a storage pantry” workshop
- Arranging merchandising for Preserving Traditions through Downtown Home and Garden
- Helping Mary Fox start a second branch of PT in West Bloomfield
- Having my day job blossom into a very busy and highly creative (and mission-critical) phase, including developing a course I’ll be teaching in October
- And, oh, trying to have a life with a husband and friends and family and such.
It’s been hard. I took on too much, frankly. I’ve stayed on top of the stress better than I ever have in the past, with only a few minor breakdowns, but this is in no way sustainable. I’m ready for bed around 9 every night and have a hard time getting up to exercise most mornings. I don’t feel like I have much “me” left to share with my sweetie and friends. If people need me, I get instantly frazzled because I have no reserves, even though I’m (just barely) staying on top of the day-to-day stuff. This will continue for a couple more weeks, because I’ve made commitments through October that I won’t back out of, but I’m not taking on anything new for a while. When I do, I will be much more careful about how much I commit to.
The problem is, there is so much that I *could* be doing. Things that I really, seriously want to do. More workshops, more venues, more topics. There’s so much I could give but…I can’t. Sustainable living means sustaining me, too. If I burn out, I won’t be teaching *anything*.
At some point this summer, this phrase dropped into my head: I have done enough, for now. That might mean that for today, I’ve done enough. The dishes can wait until tomorrow. The weeds can wait until the weekend. The workshop can be planned later. Cooking with Laura will be a winter project. For now, I’ve done enough and what I really need to do is to rest.
There will always be more that could be done. I will never finish my to-do list. So all I can do is draw a circle around what part of this big Work is mine, and as they say, “Do all I can do and still get up and do it again tomorrow.”
That being said, I’ve had a weekend with lots of time to write, so I’ve “stocked up” on blog posts here and at Preserving Traditions (see the new feed on the left side) so you’ll be getting details on many of these projects in the next week or two.
Have you rested lately?
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September 27, 2009 at 5:38 pm (Grange, Preserving Traditions)
When I can move my arms again, I’ll tell you all about Apple Day at the Grange (including making cider) and the chicken harvest workshop.
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