Living-Deliberately.com

Getting two kids off to camp is not quite as easy as I thought it would be. Health form fiascoes…one camp didn’t send one at all, leaving no time to get a doctor’s sig, and the other has  sat at the ped’s office for 3 weeks, only to be faxed today after a few phone calls. Of course the laundry was behind…I hadn’t looked at the dress code for my daughter’s camp and had to make last mintute adjustments without going to the store. I’m telling you…for someone out there, there’s a business selling prepacked luggage for kids: bug spray (non-aresol), sunblock, underwear (that they probably won’t change all week), socks (that will probably get left at camp), bedding, towels, outfits that meet code, look cute (for the girls), yet are not “too nice” and can be hiked in, flashlights (and batteries), stamps and postcards (so the parent’s can imagine their kids will write but…..).

Whilst doing the above, stupid songs from one’s own camp experience will stick to your brain like glue. I spent too much time feeling angsty about my first camp year: Lake Ellen with my cousin Gina (who comments here), when I was my daughter’s age. All I remember is that more than once I got separated from my group and ended up in different classes than the one I was supposed to be in. The kind old man who ran the woodshop didn’t mind having me around, and rather than return me to my group, made multiple wooden cars with me all week long.

Somewhere in there I went to the clerk of the court to get a new driver’s license but will have to go back Monday, assuming I can find my birth certificate. I salvaged 15 pallets from the recycling center, which I finally found, and actually recycled my paper, glass, and plastic for the first time in a year (we don’t have one at our dump). Got some web work done, strained the ginger ale and Kvass (’nother post, ‘nother day). Made for a crazy day. Oh, and we’ve had violent thunder storms that aren’t done yet; guess the notorious “spring storms” for this area, which also make our insurance premiums high, finally got around to visiting our skies.

I ramble because I procrastinate. My kiddos are going away for their first week long sleep-away camps. Not to the same place; a decision I’ve questioned hourly since making it.  I’m excited for them and anticipatory of the quiet week we’ll have here and at the same time wishing the clock would tick a little slower. It can’t have been that long since my own 9-year old toes swam in that cold lake…since that Wednesday afternoon when we lifted him up and saw we had a boy…since we laid her on a pillow for him to see and he stared in awe at his purple-as-a-grape princess sister. We’ve had every safety conversation one can have before hand; they are packed and ready to assult me with what will, no-doubt, be some rank laundry 8 days from now. Kids Grow. This is good.

Yesterday was deliriously happy. Really joyous….buoyant even. It was exhausting: out the door with everybody by 8 am, breakfast on the go, 13 stores, 5 trips to public bathrooms with my potty-learning toddler, a rain storm mid-way, a tight budget, home at 5. Along the way we dropped into visit friends, bumped into friends, got phone calls from friends. And through the day ran this thread of delight; real, smiling, freedom. Why?

A few things: I had a meal plan. I LOVE approaching tasks with a plan. I had cash, not plastic or paper. I LOVE knowing what I need to work within and solving the problem. I love knowing that when I’m done, I’m done. I had a mission: a renewed committment to buying reused, reclaimed, and 2nd hand items, which took me into a few of my favorite places: thrift stores, antique stores, and the Habitat Home store. I found a bargain: I can absolutely FEEL when what I’m looking for is there somewhere and finding it is pure satisfaction.

There’s a bigger mind-shift at work here though…. for months we’ve been talking about where we’d move. We have a pro/con sheet for 4 very different locations, including staying here. I have a blog exploring one of those options; an option that goes so far as to require a new language. Every project we’ve planned has been in keeping with needing to sell in as early as 6 months and we’ve put on hold every project that would have been in the direction of why we wanted to move out here in the first place: micro-farming, small scale homesteading, and the country atmosphere.

We’ve deliberated to the point of paralysis. In the meantime, the bad neighbors have receeded into a context of sorts (apparently it’s common practice out here for newcomers to have repeated police calls made on them as sort of offense method by the locals; we are hardly the first). And I have one truly remarkable neighbor, who I must write about soon, who has done much to change the landscape of our daily interactions out here. In the meantime, David has been reading about agrarianism again, the days are longer, and the garden is flourishing, making us both long to extend it. In the meantime, the days are warm and breezy and the nights cool and starlit, the exact climate that drew us to Tennessee two years ago, and we’ve wondered if we were out of our minds to consider leaving it.

It was like the clouds clearing and the sun coming out, all of a sudden. Maybe we will still move. But we will NOT live our lives on hold in the meantime. Saying out loud took us out of the Land of Indecision and got back On The Same Page. What resulted was immediate peace and an overwhelming feeling of freedom.

So my step was light yesterday. I stayed within my budget and bought beautiful food for my family. Since milk is up everywhere, instead of buying the common stuff, I got non-homogenized, truly-whole, locally produced, milk at the co-op. We bought more seeds to double our garden while it’s still the growing season. Talking last night while the fireflies flew around our porch, we realized that we’d both begun to visualize the exact same projects, in the same order, for the rest of the year. That kind of shared vision in marriage is a rich blessing when it happens and it builds a force and momentum that can scarecely be stopped.

Onward!

p.s I may have had a breakthrough of inspiration regarding the pets as well….we have seen no mice or snakes since we’ve lived here, which I’m sure is because of the cats. They *are* contributing animals and caring for them is a common-enough problem. I can manage their food and I think there may be a way to do my own vetting….shots and vet supplies are available to farmers to do their own stuff. I couldn’t spay/neuter them but I think I can get the rest myself.  It’s a good thing too…. two more joined the ranks yesterday. Uncle, an Everett look-a-like, and Holstein, a black and white kitten from someone else’s litter. We have yet to see Sacha’s pups but they are most certainly somewhere under the kitchen.

So I’m doing this water thing and power thing and gettin’ all navel-gazy and while hanging out in pathtofreedom’s archives (in between web projects and dog chasing while baby napped), I stumble upon THIS gem!!! It starts with “unshampoo“, something I’ve been thinking about but haven’t had much luck with…it is, after all, hard to find anything that really works with waist-length thick hair. Washing it is it’s own water crisis! Anyhooo…..onward to her home page and I discover…

The Riot for Austerity…How Low Can You Go????

A reduction in personal carbon emissions and outflow by 90%. I’m still shaking, trying to figure out if I’m really up for that! But I’m WAY inspired!  First of all, it’s the very first time I’ve ever “met” someone (and yes, she’ll be in the book LOL) who also has done a cloth-tp experiment.  She too has a larger-than-average family and I’m sure faces many of the same challenges as do I; that makes what she does seem more approachable. I’m marvelling yet again at the internet, which brings people who would otherwise not know anything about each other, into some kind of similar project like this. She’s a got a yahoogroup for the challenge (yes, I’m joining) and I wish her much, much traffic for her efforts! Bringing people in, baby step by baby step into changing our world and repairing some of the mistakes of the past, is a wonderful thing and I wish her all the best.

So now….what can I cut by 90%? This will require some thought. Anyone want to join me?

Below, in a post about my water reusage experiment, my friend Angela sent me a chart about this region’s water charges. That promted me to look more closely at my water and electricity bills and to do a little math….if Tia is doing math either the sky is falling or I’m preturbed to distraction and major disclaimer: my math is often wrong.

But if it’s not, we pay more than twice per unit of water than unit of electricity. Cutting back on power usage is pretty easy: you just use less of the things that plug in. Some of it is easier than others….for instance, the lightbulb switch is fairly simple, lights can be turned off during the day and appliances can be unplugged. Some would have a hard time not using their AC for as long as we do but others would have an easier time replacing a horridly-inefficient refridgerator than us.  And saving electricity (and gas) is hot in the news because of the carbon emissions/global warming stuff.

But water….I think we really take that for granted. And it strikes me today how much EASIER it is to both conserve electricity and renew the source. If coal isn’t good, there’s nuclear…and wind, the sun, and  even water. But if we run out of water???? I know deserts have experirenced this and some parts of the world with long periods of drought.  But I’m guessing our average American pretty much takes for granted that when they walk to the spigot and turn it, water (and clean water at that) will flow. Watering restrictions are often ignored or curiously arranged (neighborhoods can’t water but golf courses can?).

Well anway, of almost no matter to me right now is the “average american”….I’m staring my own wastefullness right in the face.  Our toilets guzzle huge amounts of water. That monster fridge? Not only being an energy hog it also drains about a gallon of water a day onto my floor.  I wash my dishes with running water, at full force, because I detest putting my hands into a dishpan and will procrastinate on the chore if it set up is like that. Running (hot) water with a sponge/soap dispenser, washing and rinsing at the same time, means the dishes get washed. But saving the water to reuse is pretty dang easy and saves 15 gallons a day. And, David can easily rig our drain to take the greywater out, into an enclosed barrel with a spigot. It would pay for itself quickly.

The numbers don’t seem too high…50 for water, 50 for power. Still, I’m looking at the bigger picture and not getting hung on philosophy. What can I do with my footprint to be responsible? And, our phone stuff, with cell and internet, plus the obnoxious conditions this company places on customers is over 200/month. I find that to be ridiciclous outflow of resources. I’d much rather be spending some of that “waste” on better milk for my kids or more seeds for the garden or on a date night with David.  I’d rather support a local farmer, growing what I can’t, than let all my dishwater go down the drain. I live in a place where most weeks, water falls from the sky for free. I think I’d be a fool not to learn to use it more wisely.

Tips on how to reuse and recycle stuff!

I don’t use a microwave at all, but did you know you can make your own microwave popcorn?!?! COOL!

I’ve linked to this site recently but you gotta see this  page!! Oh man!! I am seriously hungry for some cinnamon rolls now! And I love, love, love her cool stainless counter….but someone needs to make me some of these; I have neither the space nor the time. YUM though!

I actually know folks out here living a similar lifestyle to these folks…and while I think for now I’ll use the “off grid” tips to become less-energy dependant, it’s nice to see there are other netflix-internet users finding a way to both address energy concerns AND living in this tech-age.

In looking for some info on my home-made ginger ale  project, I found this site (and the answer to what to do about my build-up of gas in the bottle…release and chill!)

I’ve been considering our water usage because:

• water here costs more than electricity
• we’ve had drought conditions for most of May and June
• in learning more about Mexico, we’ve read about how chronic their water situation is, and it indeed gives one pause.

It’s true that a rain barrel, complete with a spigot at the bottom and an enclosed top is on my little list of “dream green purchases”. It’s also true that we go through a lot of water around here! On a normal week I do at least 12-15 loads of laundry, wash dishes with running water 3 x a day, and let the kids play in the hose at least once a week. I also water the garden every other day (not the grass) and we have 6 people showering a few times a week (not every day).

I decided to just run a little experiment in my kitchen. I got a 5 gallon bucket and set it next to the sink. I reduced my water pressure to just over a steady trickle (I usually blast it near full capacity).  I washed each dish with another dish underneath to catch the “grey water” and then drained that lower dish into the bucket. I turned the water off to suds/scrub each dish with my handheld soap/sponge combo.  My findings? Even with lots of water still doing down the drain, I make enough waste water in each session to nearly FILL my 5 gallon bucket. Each day’s bucket contributions water over 3/4 of the garden!!

Now, yes it’s cool that I’m using the water twice.  And I doubt there is much that could have shown me how much water could be reused without doing an experiment like this to wow my socks off. But I am stunned to imagine how much we could get from showers, the laundry, and rainwater.  I have tended to work more on my electric bills and phone bills, definitely the food bill…now I have a real way to work on my water bill!  I can’t even fathom how much water gets used, single time, on lawns and swimming pools.

Experiment number two: making my own ginger ale!! The recipe is in my Nourishing Tradtions book and it’s so easy I had to give it a try. Basically it’s grated fresh ginger, lime juice, salt, rapadura, whey and water. After just one day it has started to carbonate itself, even though the recipe indicates to strain it and mix with carbonated water when ready to drink.

Has anyone made their own sodas before? One thing I’m noticing is that the pressure is building; I periodically release it to keep the bottle from bursting. But the recipe did not indicate this would happen so I’m befuddled. Will be doing some research.

Snack ideas for this week: frozen bananas in a variety of ways….plain, dipped in chocolate and nuts, caramel and nuts, peanut butter and granola…the kids can’t wait!

I don’t think Gazelle’s in nature growl, but this red-headed one does.

Dave never said step 3 would be even harder than step 2 but my fellow-TMMer over at the Monkey parade did….and honey, she was tellin’ the TRUTH.

Without debt bills coming in it was easy to allocate all that money to other stuff. Our kids needed dental work that insurance only partly covers, gas prices are soaring, and a bunch of activities we participate in kicked it up a knotch in May and June. Combine that with a bit of slack now that we don’t owe creditors, use of the debit card more than green cash, being too busy to meal plan in detail, and enjoying crab cakes, ice cream, and gettin’ a little crazy with the cell phone minutes and the nuts and bolts result is that while we are living off of what we make without debt, we are NOT SAVING, which means our TMM got a little derailed.

And I’m feelin’ frazzled, sometimes just as anxious as when we owed others and weren’t sure how we’d make it all stretch to keep ‘em all quiet. Which, in truth, is RIDICULOUS because it’s all “in house” now…we can’t blame anyone else for the choices we make and we are creating our own stress. Well, enough is enough before this gets outta hand.

I reworked our budget, ignoring my income (which will all go to savings), and taking into account a recent raise on David’s end. By they way….that is a real, vibrant red warning flag: when you get a pay raise and still feel anxious, there is something seriously wrong with your habits.  It’s all on paper and we’re going back to cash and envelopes. No debit card for awhile until we establish new habits.  Groceries are $600 a month FIRM, up $200 a month from our darkest TMM days in step 2, so I’ll not be gripin’.  That means I also sat down and made a two-week meal plan and a list for the trip this week. I’ll be talking to the co-op about making bulk orders and hopefully reduce my trip to K-town from twice a month to once.

The good news: the great weather, cooling rains, and the little valley our house is tucked in means we still haven’t turned on our AC! Our power bill is right at $50 a month and I could still do a little here and there to painless bring it down. I’m getting Gazelle Intense with that cell phone too; it’s our only phone communication but we always go over our minutes due to the aburdly limiting plan we’re locked into. I can do better with it and bring that bill down.

Reality Check is in place. This is the first day of the rest of my life LOL…the day after my birthday. I want step 3 conquered by this time next year.

This was the garden a month ago, the day I got the seeds and plants in.

This is it now:

The above shows how I like to mix it up. Green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers, all planted closely together but with support from the back and all will grow to a different height.

I’m so glad I added in a few brightly colored flowers.

The yellow squash is HUGE. Next time, I’ll plant the lettuces under the squash because those need some shelter from the direct sun and this would be perfect. As it is, the coleus loves hanging out under there…the rasperberries not so much. And the cucumbers in the back are very happy!

First Tomato.

Some of the kittens, from front to back: Sookie (short for Sucanat, since she’s sweet and we don’t eat sugar!), Sushie (the calico), Custard, Sprout, and Baby Grey (the mother to Custard, Sushie, and Stripes). Not pictured: Everett, Sam, Stripes, and peanut.

In other animal news…we thought Sascha the stray had left. Turns out…she got our crawlspace open and birthed puppies under our house. We have no idea how many yet…they are WAY under there. We are totally befuddled as to what to do with all these animals! We can’t afford to feed them all, vetting is out of the question financially, there is no animal control out here, and they ALL come to our house. It is very disturbing.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturidly and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to it’s lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness out of it, and publish it’s meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

This, of course, is the quote that gave the name for my blog a few years ago. I re-read it today as part of the writing I’m doing on my book and every time, it’s just as inspiring as the first. Routing out all the “fake” in my world….living honestly and with integrity, even when it’s not always positive but mean even… giving a “true account”. It’s the essense for me; it’s what empowers the marrow-sucking. Because there can be no real savoring of life if we romanticizing reality or not confronting the ugly in the world; if we cling to the artificial that is all we’ll be left with in the end.

• I was in the grocery store and the lady in front of me in line was asking the teenage boy checker to please look at her package of maxi pads and tell her if she could get her money back if she wasn’t satisfied with how the product “performed”.  Oh that poor, poor kid….
• One of my children thinks Armadillos are an underused asset. For instance, this child thinks that armadillos could be trained in teams to pull carriages. And, that there should be some kind of system to “harvest” their armour for use in defense or security systems.  Or at least, strong handbags…
• No,  9 cats, 1 resident dog, 2 visiting strays, and 3 chickens wasn’t enough…while meeting a friend at a feed store to get my kiddo back (he spent a few days at her house this week for camp) I capitulated to the children’s cries for baby chicks. We now have 1 white arucana and 2 barred rocks to add to our little flock. And The Three Red Hens weren’t striking from egg laying after all…they’d just found a place to hide them and we recieved a large clutch from them today. Now let’s just hope we have no roosters by mistake….

What is the cost of milk where you live? We’d been going through about a gallon a day so  I haven’t been buying good, organic stuff. I couldn’t bring myself to pay $5.00 a gallon. Then, with lent earlier this year, when we couldn’t completely cut out dairy, we scaled it back to 3 gallons a week; basically I bought it on grocery day (our fridge is so small it will only hold 3 gallons) and didn’t go back for more later in the week. I know that gas prices have a large effect on milk prices, I know that milk is artificially low in cost because the expense isn’t benefiting the farmer much but rather the steps in between the farmer and the consumer….and when our gas tipped $3.00 a gallon, the milk went up to $5.00. Well, $4.89, but whose quibbling?

Methinks I should’ve been buying the good, hormone-free stuff all along.

So getting goats is back on our table of discussion. Actually, the entire urban homestead idea is back front and center. In addition to moving to Mexico, we also are considering a move into town (Oak Ridge) OR buying the neighbor’s house and land here, which would give us nearly 2 acres. Their land is sunnier, providing for a bigger garden and most certainly goats and chickens. We’d eliminate the “bad renter” issue that is currently there. The trade-offs involve lots of driving still and the somewhat uncertainty of how long we will work out here. Not working out here but living out here is not sustainable, unless my book is a huge raving success and we have more flexibility. I do indeed have great hopes for the book but would prefer to not factor the uncertainty of that into real-time decisions.

But milk goats and more birds could have a huge effect on the cost of our food. We sit a bit paralyzed out here right now, directing our project energy into things that will be necessary for selling the house next year rather than getting a micro-farm going.  I suspect the price of food is only going to go up, up, up and my quality desires are also going up, up, up.  Any move of any kind is going to have to take those concerns very seriously.

Anyway….it’s what we’re thinking about.

In other news, we have two new blogs up. David’s Deliberatus and my Exercise365.

AS IF I needed any other goading to dream of mac-ownership! Dreaming of technological items is not something I typically do…however… the iphone is just about beyond imagination. Feature after feature led to surprised gasping… how do they DO that? It reminds of me of days in childhood spent in a corner of the living room, behind Daddy’s recliner, with a cardboard box and “inventing” something with powers just because it made sense to me…nevermind if anything could actually do it. Somewhere, somehow, I imagine some creative thinkers threw out “the box” and just said, “what do we want it to do?” rather than “what will current technology let us do?”

The only question the news story didn’t answer for me is, “how durable is that touch screen around small children????”

I sure didn’t! Dr. Dunaway wrote about it on his blog and it indeed hilarious…sigh. Words and the way we use them matter. My word-lovin’ hubby, who is also in the process of beginning his own blog to be released later this week,  is going to love the point this post makes. Warning: set all liquids aside first!

I can hardly believe it’s late June and we still haven’t turned on our AC yet! We’ve never pushed it this far into the year…our power bill came back yesterday at $55.00! Fans have kept it cool in the afternoon and the mornings are down right chilly some days. Amazing.

The afternoons can be pretty toasty though and despite yesterday’s rain, we are feeling the effects of the same drought many others are going through. We mowed yesterday in dusty clouds but the well-mulched garden is doing fantastic! I’ll post pics when I get s’more batteries.

Tonight’s dinner was yummy…and cool, light, and refreshing too, which is why I’m bloggin’ it. Crab salad on greens and a fresh, local tomato (lettuce was from my garden), and rice pudding, recipe courtesy the crock-pot cookbook that came with the new crock my mom sent me for my birthday!

Side note: said crock is huge and has a timer…it can fit two fryers or one really fat roaster and can even bake a cake! Graduating into appliances that better serve a family with kids going into the teen years, after having lived with small “just the two of us” stuff for too many years, is a GOOD THING.

Onward. Crab salad:

2 pouches of ready-to-eat crab

juice of one nice and ripe lemon (or two more paltry offerings)

1/4 c of fresh cilantro (or a few T’s of dried…I don’t really measure)

garlic to taste, served your favorite method: I like minced

1 chopped bell pepper

3-4 chopped mushrooms

salt and pepper to taste

mayo to make nice and wet…it all becomes your dressing so don’t make it too dry.

Mix it and serve it on torn lettuce greens and chopped tomato. It’s good to let it sit for a half hour or in the fridge before serving to let it all mingle.

The rice pudding:

cook 1 c. of rice (raw, which makes more than that cooked….duh )

mix in:

1 T. butter

about 1/2 c. golden raisins (or does it matter if they are brown? I don’t think they really taste that much different)

some cinnamon and nutmeg and a tiny pinch of salt

about 1/4 c. of rapadura (or sugar if you must); I could have used more  of  this.

The recipe called for 1 c. milk. I was out so I used 4 T. whipping cream and 1/2 c. whole milk yogurt and it was groovy. I bet sour cream would have worked too. Dairy is often quite interchangeable.

3 beaten egg yolks.

If you mix it while the rice is hot, do it in little bits with a whisk so the egg doesn’t cook. Get it all in the crock pot and cook about 2 hours on high.

Nirvana: adding an avacado to the crab salad. But I was out.

Last night I dreamt of a giant puzzle.  The edge was assembled and some patches of the middle. Multiple hands were working on it’s completion. I could see (but can not remember exactly now) what the fininshed picture looked like, set up nearby for the puzzle workers. In the dream, I felt that tense anxiety that I feel when I myself work a big puzzle…knowing it will all come together but not knowing exactly how that will happen from the outset. It’s “one piece at a time” and “one piece leads to another” and “light unto my path”, which battles against peaceful acceptance for those feeling in a hurry. I knew in the dream the puzzle was my life. I had a few pieces before me and a finished goal and everything needed on the table before me, but still that tense anxiety about how it’s all going to fit together. I suppose upon waking the analogy fits quite well: trial and error, observation and rational effort, input from others, a goal and master-plan…somehow or other it all gets done as the pieces and days fit together.