I realized this week how much more efficient and self-sufficient our family has become in the past year or so. I look around my kitchen, and I see dozens of jars of herbs and spices we've grown ourselves and dried for later use. On my countertop are two large crocks of home-brew vinegar that should provide us with enough yummy marinades and salad dressing for a whole year, plus a little to give away. If my winemaking efforts bear good fruit, I anticipate that we will buy very little wine in the coming year - maybe just a bottle or two of merlot for my hubby. We are beginning to brew our own beer as well. On the counter nearest the stove as I speak are two regular and two small loaves, plus six hoagie style rolls of whole grain homemade bread having its final, slow rise before baking. A jar of very yummy smelling sauerkraut is just about ready to open and taste - probably by this weekend.
We're buying a large part of our food these days in bulk from local sources - we have whole grains, beans, soybeans, rice and dried seasonings and milk in the storage room at all times now. We're using the dried milk to augment our storebought, as well as to make kefir, yogurt, cultured buttermilk and soft cheeses at home. Nearly all of one wall in the storeroom is lined with jars of home-canned fruits, fruit syrups, fruit sauces, condiments, pickles, applesauces and apple butter. I'm making plans right now to learn how to pressure can meats and beans, so we will soon have quick meals that we like ready in just a few minutes on our busier days. I'm about to have a go at learning to make home-made sausages, and I even made some home-made potato chips this weekend!
All of this does entail some extra work - but more than that, it requires a lifestyle and attitude change. I'm finding that the more we buy in bulk and the less time I spend at the grocery stores, the more we save in grocery money AND in time. All those highly processed convenience foods are not so convenient when you check the nutrition you're getting (or rather, not getting) and add in the extra money you have to earn to pay for them and the extra time you have to take to shop and bring them home.
Making things like wine and vinegar and bread doesn't take much real time out of my busy day, and it returns heaps of benefits for the time actually spent. It's also fun to watch them transform from ingredients to finished product. It's good to know that a lot of what we're eating these days didn't have to travel a thousand miles or more to get here. But, we're doing more than just learning to eat locally - we're trading in our high consumption, low quality lifestyle for a higher quality and more sustainable one. I think the key here for us is doing it slowly and deliberately - picking the things we can do or can learn to do and integrating them one at a time into our life and our daily routine before adding more. It's good to take back responsibility and accountability for at least some of what we put into our bodies, and to be able to know that we're getting more from what we do eat, but I definitely don't want to replace one high-stress situation with another!
We definitely still have a long way to go - but looking around me this past week - Thanksgiving week - I can definitely see that we're on the right road. And it feels good!
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Last week of November and counting!
Well, we've still got the central heat in the house off - at least, it's not on automatic yet. We've had to turn it on for an hour or two a couple of mornings this week to take the edge off the morning chill in the house, but it's not running 24/7 yet. This house apparently has a fair bit of solar gain during the day and loses that gain very slowly at night due to being partly underground. So with luck we'll be able to eek another couple of weeks or more out of that and not have to actually turn the heating on for good for a while. I'm frankly amazed that we've been able to go this long - I suppose we could have gone this long in years past, but never knew to try. It will be interesting to compare our electricity and gas usage for this autumn with the previous three autumns and see if we've managed to cut that down.
Sauerkraut is coming along nicely - smells just as it should and we're planning to taste it soon. We're planning a second jar tomorrow, and perhaps more after that if I can get another good deal on cabbage. We're also going to try making some kimchee soon. I should make a corned beef so we can have Reuben samiches with the kraut. (Home made corned beef is super, super, super easy and much better for you than store bought - I'll post the recipe at the end of this note.) Wheat beer is in the fridge to cold stabilize in preparation for bottling, and the wines have finally begun slowing down a bit after that last racking. The vinegars are still making more "mother" so I'm leaving them to finish up a bit longer, although they probably could be used now as they are. I'm really looking forward to putting all these lovely things in bottles and setting them down in the store room to age! I've always wanted a storeroom like I have now, and I'm having a blast using it!
So, here's the corned beef recipe:
* Morton's TenderQuick salt - navy blue bag in the spice section, usually on the bottom shelf.
* Lean beef roast - that's the beauty of making your own - you can use *good* beef
* water - plain cold tap water is fine
* "Pickling spice" (or if you can't find that, mix peppercorns, red pepper flakes, crushed bay leaves, whole coriander and mustard seed in a combination that pleases you.)
Find a large, non metallic container with a lid. A gallon glass jar or a couple of half gallon canning jars with lids work well. Or you can use a small, clean, plastic food grade bucket, or even a large, deep ceramic or plastic bowl with a makeshift cover. Just remember that whatever you use, it has to be deep enough for the meat to stay submerged in brine, and the whole thing needs to be able to fit into your refrigerator.
Cut the meat into chunks, or leave it whole. Chunks 4 inches on a side or thereabouts cure faster than a whole roast, but it's up to you whether to cut the roast smaller or not. Rinse the meat in clean, cool water and put it into your clean non-metallic container. Mix enough brine in a 1:8 ratio of Morton's salt to water to fully cover the meat, and pour it in. Throw in a handful of spices, put the lid on, and set it in the fridge to cure. Chunks will be ready to eat in about 4 days, but larger pieces might take up to 10. Fish out what you want, cook it however you like, and leave the rest in the brine for later. Up to a point, it just keeps getting more flavorful.
That's it! Corned beef at home is so simple and fast there's no reason to pay exorbitant prices for fatty, low quality corned brisket packed in brine at the store. Making your own means you control how much fat is in the final product, and also how spicy it is. You don't even have to add spices if you don't like them, it's your choice and won't affect the curing at all. You can also use plain kosher or canning salt instead of the Morton's, but it won't look like, and may not taste like, the corned beef you've had in the past. But if you have a thing about nitrates, give it a try on a small scale and see how you like it.
.
Sauerkraut is coming along nicely - smells just as it should and we're planning to taste it soon. We're planning a second jar tomorrow, and perhaps more after that if I can get another good deal on cabbage. We're also going to try making some kimchee soon. I should make a corned beef so we can have Reuben samiches with the kraut. (Home made corned beef is super, super, super easy and much better for you than store bought - I'll post the recipe at the end of this note.) Wheat beer is in the fridge to cold stabilize in preparation for bottling, and the wines have finally begun slowing down a bit after that last racking. The vinegars are still making more "mother" so I'm leaving them to finish up a bit longer, although they probably could be used now as they are. I'm really looking forward to putting all these lovely things in bottles and setting them down in the store room to age! I've always wanted a storeroom like I have now, and I'm having a blast using it!
So, here's the corned beef recipe:
* Morton's TenderQuick salt - navy blue bag in the spice section, usually on the bottom shelf.
* Lean beef roast - that's the beauty of making your own - you can use *good* beef
* water - plain cold tap water is fine
* "Pickling spice" (or if you can't find that, mix peppercorns, red pepper flakes, crushed bay leaves, whole coriander and mustard seed in a combination that pleases you.)
Find a large, non metallic container with a lid. A gallon glass jar or a couple of half gallon canning jars with lids work well. Or you can use a small, clean, plastic food grade bucket, or even a large, deep ceramic or plastic bowl with a makeshift cover. Just remember that whatever you use, it has to be deep enough for the meat to stay submerged in brine, and the whole thing needs to be able to fit into your refrigerator.
Cut the meat into chunks, or leave it whole. Chunks 4 inches on a side or thereabouts cure faster than a whole roast, but it's up to you whether to cut the roast smaller or not. Rinse the meat in clean, cool water and put it into your clean non-metallic container. Mix enough brine in a 1:8 ratio of Morton's salt to water to fully cover the meat, and pour it in. Throw in a handful of spices, put the lid on, and set it in the fridge to cure. Chunks will be ready to eat in about 4 days, but larger pieces might take up to 10. Fish out what you want, cook it however you like, and leave the rest in the brine for later. Up to a point, it just keeps getting more flavorful.
That's it! Corned beef at home is so simple and fast there's no reason to pay exorbitant prices for fatty, low quality corned brisket packed in brine at the store. Making your own means you control how much fat is in the final product, and also how spicy it is. You don't even have to add spices if you don't like them, it's your choice and won't affect the curing at all. You can also use plain kosher or canning salt instead of the Morton's, but it won't look like, and may not taste like, the corned beef you've had in the past. But if you have a thing about nitrates, give it a try on a small scale and see how you like it.
.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Second Week of November, and Counting!
Yay! It's the second week of November, and we still haven't turned on our central heat. My grown son that lives with us has had the gas heating stove on a few times in the mornings (he lives in the finished basement area, and it's always colder there) but we have so far been able to avoid turning on the central heat for the rest of the house, in spite of an early cold snap and three early snowfalls. Our house is a split level with double paned windows, and a large greenroom/sunroom on the southeastern side - so between that and the sun, plus human activities like cooking, the house stays a very cozy 60-70 degrees.
We will have to turn the heat on eventually - our winters temps here can dip pretty low at times - sometimes into the minus teens. But for now, it feels good to eek yet another day out of the natural warmth of the earth and the sun. The next step for us is for me to conduct an "energy audit" of all the appliances and such in our home. I want to unplug things we aren't using, so they don't "vampire" power out of the system even when they aren't on. I plan to grab a few more power strips so I can plug things like the TV and DVD into that, and cut them all off from the power supply with the flip of just one switch.
I'm also learning how to live with fewer lights on during the day. If I want to read, for instance, instead of lighting up a dim interior room, I can go out into the sunroom where there is always plenty of light even on rainy days and a nice comfy couch to boot. Heck, reading out there with all the green stuff and the tiny goldfish pond isn't a hardship. Make a nice cuppa, bring a small table to put things on, and I'm all set for a lovely afternoon.
What's surprising to me is that instead of adding more stress to my already over-stressed life, doing more of the "home-y" things I've been doing lately (baking, making wine and vinegar and such) seem to be reducing my stress load. I'm not completely sure why this is so - but I suspect that it's concentrating my mental and physical energies into more productive things, giving me a greater sense of control over my destiny, and also giving me a sense of security and stability that helps override the stressy stuff. Whatever the reason for this change for the better, I'll take it!
We will have to turn the heat on eventually - our winters temps here can dip pretty low at times - sometimes into the minus teens. But for now, it feels good to eek yet another day out of the natural warmth of the earth and the sun. The next step for us is for me to conduct an "energy audit" of all the appliances and such in our home. I want to unplug things we aren't using, so they don't "vampire" power out of the system even when they aren't on. I plan to grab a few more power strips so I can plug things like the TV and DVD into that, and cut them all off from the power supply with the flip of just one switch.
I'm also learning how to live with fewer lights on during the day. If I want to read, for instance, instead of lighting up a dim interior room, I can go out into the sunroom where there is always plenty of light even on rainy days and a nice comfy couch to boot. Heck, reading out there with all the green stuff and the tiny goldfish pond isn't a hardship. Make a nice cuppa, bring a small table to put things on, and I'm all set for a lovely afternoon.
What's surprising to me is that instead of adding more stress to my already over-stressed life, doing more of the "home-y" things I've been doing lately (baking, making wine and vinegar and such) seem to be reducing my stress load. I'm not completely sure why this is so - but I suspect that it's concentrating my mental and physical energies into more productive things, giving me a greater sense of control over my destiny, and also giving me a sense of security and stability that helps override the stressy stuff. Whatever the reason for this change for the better, I'll take it!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Note to self - check on the water!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7030889,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303716,00.html
The state of Georgia gets an average of 50 inches of rain a year, has numerous rivers and streams and several federally funded reservoirs to hold their "excess" water for public use. In spite of this embarassment of water riches (well, compared to most western states, anyway) the citizens of Georgia have effectively just about run out of water this fall. That's pretty scary, if you think about it. What caused this to happen?
A drought which began just a year and a half ago has definitely taxed water reserves. Critics also cite poor planning, which allowed several opportunities to build state funded reservoirs to boost the federal reservoir system to pass by the wayside due to corporate selfishness and political posturing. (One of the pushes to build more reservoirs was apparently deliberately scuttled when construction companies discovered they wouldn't be able to build and sell expensive, fancy homes on the new "lakeside lots"...) Another problem, at least reading between the lines here, seems to be rampant consumavore water usage by the 9 million residents of the state and a near total lack of planning to deal with the water needs of the state's burgeoning population.
Let's face it - a one year drought, while unfortunate, isn't enough to make a well-run state water system run nearly completely dry. Heck, I've lived in areas where the residents get by on a quarter of the annual rainfall that Georgia normally gets, and droughts of 5-7 years in a row are not uncommon. While the water situation at the end of a long drought can be pretty scary, I've never seen one even close to the desperate situation facing the citizens of the peach state now. All nine million of them.
If I'd had to guess a year ago which state would be facing a water crisis this year, I certainly wouldn't have named Georgia! I'd probably have guessed one of the western, water-poor states - but I suppose relatively water-poor states probably have a much better grasp of the need to conserve their precious fresh water supply.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this. When the current drama is over, will the citizens of Georgia learn to reign in their usage and invest in their fresh water infrastructure, or will they continue on blindly until the next water crisis hits and sit around pointing fingers at everyone else again? (If this situation doesn't illustrate the utter futility of relying upon governments and human cooperation and foresight to "save us" from climate change and Peak Oil, I don't know what does - nine million people sat around on their collective butts and let themselves run out of WATER, for pity's sake!)
Note to self: get some good, solid information on the municipal water supplies locally, and see how much more we can conserve here at home.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303716,00.html
The state of Georgia gets an average of 50 inches of rain a year, has numerous rivers and streams and several federally funded reservoirs to hold their "excess" water for public use. In spite of this embarassment of water riches (well, compared to most western states, anyway) the citizens of Georgia have effectively just about run out of water this fall. That's pretty scary, if you think about it. What caused this to happen?
A drought which began just a year and a half ago has definitely taxed water reserves. Critics also cite poor planning, which allowed several opportunities to build state funded reservoirs to boost the federal reservoir system to pass by the wayside due to corporate selfishness and political posturing. (One of the pushes to build more reservoirs was apparently deliberately scuttled when construction companies discovered they wouldn't be able to build and sell expensive, fancy homes on the new "lakeside lots"...) Another problem, at least reading between the lines here, seems to be rampant consumavore water usage by the 9 million residents of the state and a near total lack of planning to deal with the water needs of the state's burgeoning population.
Let's face it - a one year drought, while unfortunate, isn't enough to make a well-run state water system run nearly completely dry. Heck, I've lived in areas where the residents get by on a quarter of the annual rainfall that Georgia normally gets, and droughts of 5-7 years in a row are not uncommon. While the water situation at the end of a long drought can be pretty scary, I've never seen one even close to the desperate situation facing the citizens of the peach state now. All nine million of them.
If I'd had to guess a year ago which state would be facing a water crisis this year, I certainly wouldn't have named Georgia! I'd probably have guessed one of the western, water-poor states - but I suppose relatively water-poor states probably have a much better grasp of the need to conserve their precious fresh water supply.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this. When the current drama is over, will the citizens of Georgia learn to reign in their usage and invest in their fresh water infrastructure, or will they continue on blindly until the next water crisis hits and sit around pointing fingers at everyone else again? (If this situation doesn't illustrate the utter futility of relying upon governments and human cooperation and foresight to "save us" from climate change and Peak Oil, I don't know what does - nine million people sat around on their collective butts and let themselves run out of WATER, for pity's sake!)
Note to self: get some good, solid information on the municipal water supplies locally, and see how much more we can conserve here at home.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Making your own dishwasher detergent works!
We ran out of the stuff we normally use this week, and I figured this would be a good time to try the home-made dishwasher detergent recipe I've bookmarked on the sidebar (points to the link to non-toxic house cleaning "over there...") I wasn't sure how well it would work, and neither was my husband, but he agreed to give it a trial run. So we did.
I'm happy to report that it works at least as well as the stuff we've been buying in plastic bottles. My husband is still concerned that it might haze the glassware after a while, but has agreed to give it a longer trial to see if that happens. So we're using homemade dishwashing detergent for the time being. I'm a happy camper. Besides being a lot cheaper, it's also a lot less harmful to the waterways. I kind of miss the lemony smell of our old stuff (silly, I know - but every little bit of joy counts when doing drudgery work!) but not enough to keep using it if this keeps working out so well. I made a larger batch of the mix tonight, put it in a reusable plastic lidded tub, threw in a small salvaged scoop, and we're all set. (Hey, I just realized - no more toxic, hulking plastic bottles to discard, either! The ingredients all come in biodegradable cardboard boxes. )
Now I'm going through the other recipes I have marked to see what's next on the list. :-)
I'm happy to report that it works at least as well as the stuff we've been buying in plastic bottles. My husband is still concerned that it might haze the glassware after a while, but has agreed to give it a longer trial to see if that happens. So we're using homemade dishwashing detergent for the time being. I'm a happy camper. Besides being a lot cheaper, it's also a lot less harmful to the waterways. I kind of miss the lemony smell of our old stuff (silly, I know - but every little bit of joy counts when doing drudgery work!) but not enough to keep using it if this keeps working out so well. I made a larger batch of the mix tonight, put it in a reusable plastic lidded tub, threw in a small salvaged scoop, and we're all set. (Hey, I just realized - no more toxic, hulking plastic bottles to discard, either! The ingredients all come in biodegradable cardboard boxes. )
Now I'm going through the other recipes I have marked to see what's next on the list. :-)
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Putting one’s own mask on first
Global warming and climate change. Peak Oil. Economic collapse. Social unrest. War.
You can’t read news these days without reading a dire prediction of one stripe or another. Global warming, once an object of derision, is now becoming widely accepted as fact. Peak Oil is starting to make inroads into the public mindset, and we all know what is happening in the US stock market and in the Middle East. I’m not a betting person, but if I were, I’d say that given all the issues that seem to be coming to a head at the same time, it’s a pretty safe assumption that life as we know it is changing. It’s only a question of how much, how fast, and how soon.
A lot of other people are making this assumption, too. I see them all over the ‘net, trying to come to grips with the impending changes and grappling with the problem of what to do in the interim to prepare. This appears to be causing a lot of folks some serious anxiety. I see people every day begging for some sort of timeline, some sort of prediction they can use to build their plans around, but from what I’ve seen no one really has anything solid in that respect to offer. There are simply too many variables to consider, and too much we still don’t know about a lot of the issues driving things like global warming and climate change. We. Just. Don’t. Know. And that’s what seems to be driving everyone nuts.
I’ve also struggled with the question of what – if anything – I should be doing to help my community, my family and me weather the changes that are coming. Something happened this past week, however, that has helped me find my own particular path. This past weekend I flew to see my mother in another state (yes, naughty me, FLEW – but being in college full time I didn’t have time to spare to leave Thursday evening, then drive 16 hours each way and still make it back to class on Monday.) It was a typical airplane trip, cramped, noisy and smelly. But something from this trip caused a light bulb to go off in my head. During our preflight safety lecture, the attendant said something I’ve heard a dozen times before – but I heard it this time in a new way. He said “if cabin pressure should be lost, and you are traveling with someone who may need assistance, be sure to put your own oxygen mask on first, and then help that person with theirs.” In any emergency, it is the duty of the people who want to be able to help others to see to their own safety first. If they don’t see to themselves first, then they won’t be able to help anyone else. This is not selfishness; this is common, practical sense.
After thinking this through a bit, I realized that I have a lot of work to do in the next few years – on me. For instance, I’m currently overweight and out of shape. I waste far too much of everything, time included. I’m not nearly disciplined enough in my personal habits, and while I know more about living on basics and making things from scratch than most people, there are still a lot of areas I need to explore and skills I need to add before I can feel that I’m where I want to be. I also need to spend some more time working on my inner life – feeding my spirituality, managing my thoughts, dealing with my feelings.
What about helping others? Well, frankly - most folks aren't ready to do much in their own lives to prepare for an uncertain future. It may be years before the average person on the street, so to speak, even has this sort of thing showing up on their radar. Spending much time on "spreading awareness" at this point is probably a waste of my time and effort. So the choice facing me is - do I spend this time in such a way that I can become a more whole person and be able to better help others when needed, or do I continue to live as I have in the past and as a result have little to offer anyone else when crunch time hits?
This week, after thinking hard on that choice, I have made the decision to put my own mask on first.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Adding miles biked/walked
I need some incentive and a way to keep myself motivated to walk or bike instead of drive, so I've added a new counter to my blog sidebar. I hope to see that tiny little number go way high in the next few months! But at any rate, it'll help me to be able to see my progress, and that's a good thing. Every few weeks I'll calculate how much gas I've saved, as an added bit of reporting.
Hey, it's worked with the plastic bags, and it's a good reminder for me that even little changes add up in time.
Hey, it's worked with the plastic bags, and it's a good reminder for me that even little changes add up in time.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The Fed is doing what???
From the front page of Reuter's online. On the 1/2% rate cut a while back, ALAN SKRAINKA, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGI
ST, EDWARD JONES, ST. LOUIS sez:
ST, EDWARD JONES, ST. LOUIS sez: "This is very good news. The Fed is taking out a little insurance policy. Maybe they were a bit behind but now they're catching up. They're on the ball, they're mining the store, and will take aggressive action to prevent the economy from slipping into recession."
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Friday, October 12, 2007
Nanking Cherries and Niches
When we moved into this house three years ago, we inherited a very nice fruiting Nanking Cherry hedge. It's very pretty in the spring, has nice dense foliage in the summer, and makes tons of itty bitty "cherries." The problem is, although the cherries have an interesting flavor when freshly picked, they have largish pits for their small size, they are not very strongly flavored and the flesh is very watery. That means they aren't really good for fresh eating, pies, or jam. Most people here grow the bushes as ornamentals and let the birds have all of the fruit. But what we've discovered is they do make a tasty juice, and using the steam juicer to process them seems to concentrate their mild flavor. The resulting juice is good warm or over ice with a touch of sugar to counteract the tartness and bring out even more of the cherry taste.This year we juiced all of the cherries we picked. We still had a couple of gallons of the juice after drinking our fill of it straight, so I made cherry syrup with some of it and then tipped a bit of vinegar "mother" into one of the partial gallon jugs and let it sit for three months in the storage room. I just took the vinegar out today to check it and POW! That's some great vinegar, if still a bit brash, so I'm letting it sit and mellow out till the end of the year. The other jug sat waiting in the fridge over the summer (it was pasteurized by the steam juicing so it was as good as "canned.") Today I took it out and checked it and then dropped a sterilizing Campden tablet into it just for good measure. Tomorrow I will drop some Montrachet wine yeast in there and let it turn into cherry wine. I have a jug of plum juice from earlier this week sitting right alongside it that will be turning into plum wine at the same time. These will be my first batches of homemade fruit wine. It should be an interesting project! Apple cider vinegar and apple wine are next on the roster. Then it's time to start some meads and beers for the dark winter months.
The thing I like most about this is feeling like I've finally found the best use, a "niche" if you will, for the Nankings. It's a good feeling to take something that is only marginally useful or currently under-used and turn it into something more valuable. We have two sweet cherry trees growing up that will eventually provide us with cherries that are much nicer for eating fresh, making jam and pies, and general canning. But thanks to discovering that niche, the Nankings will always have their special spot in the pantry as vinegar, syrup, juice and wine.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
101 Uses for Plums
101 Uses for Italian Plums is a book I want to write some day. We have tons of plums every year - well, not tons, but we do get at least 60 pounds a year from our three immature trees in the back yard. That's a lot of plums.
The first year we were here we ate a bunch of them fresh, and dried the rest. The second year we branched out into jam. Our third fall here we added home-fermented plum vinegar - which turned out to be some of the best vinegar either of us had ever tasted. This year, our fourth, we are drying some, juicing some for vinegar, plum syrup and possibly a small batch of plum wine, and making some into plum puree for jam and sauces. I'm already planning to make plum butter and plum conserve with some of the puree.
Along the way we've discovered several interesting uses for dried plums. For instance, dried plums make a wonderful Plum Walnut bread. They also can be diced and make great substitutes for raisins in cookies and baked goods. We're also planning to mince a few of the dried plums and add spices and dried raspberry leaves to make our own Plum Spice herbal tea for winter. I plan to try some of our dried plums in a plum "pudding" for the holidays this year, as well.
Our three trees are nowhere near their full size, so I won't be shocked if in five years our harvest is closer to 100 pounds every fall. But if I can keep finding new ways to use them, it'll be worth all the work to put them up. When we start to get more than we can comfortably use for these recipes, I guess we can always juice them and just can the juice for drinking straight. But that's about as far as my imagination has taken me on this, so I suppose I need to get out Google and see what else I can find.
It's a lot of work to grow, harvest and process all this fruit, but it's a comforting sort of work. In the process, we are learning how to use more of what we have to make staple foods and tasty treats and condiments our family loves to eat. If all the vinegars we make this year turn out, we will have all the tasty vinegar we need to make salad dressings, marinades and other condiments this next whole year. We are already self sufficient on jams and jellies and fruit syrups for pancakes and home-made sodas. We haven't bought raisins in months. And I managed to re-create one of our favorite artisan breads in a healthier whole grain version, using mostly local or home made products. So besides being good food and giving us interesting projects to do, it's also helping us to live a more sustainable life in general. Little steps? Yes, but if you take enough little steps eventually you will get where you want to go.
The only problem is, all the apples are ready next!
The first year we were here we ate a bunch of them fresh, and dried the rest. The second year we branched out into jam. Our third fall here we added home-fermented plum vinegar - which turned out to be some of the best vinegar either of us had ever tasted. This year, our fourth, we are drying some, juicing some for vinegar, plum syrup and possibly a small batch of plum wine, and making some into plum puree for jam and sauces. I'm already planning to make plum butter and plum conserve with some of the puree.
Along the way we've discovered several interesting uses for dried plums. For instance, dried plums make a wonderful Plum Walnut bread. They also can be diced and make great substitutes for raisins in cookies and baked goods. We're also planning to mince a few of the dried plums and add spices and dried raspberry leaves to make our own Plum Spice herbal tea for winter. I plan to try some of our dried plums in a plum "pudding" for the holidays this year, as well.
Our three trees are nowhere near their full size, so I won't be shocked if in five years our harvest is closer to 100 pounds every fall. But if I can keep finding new ways to use them, it'll be worth all the work to put them up. When we start to get more than we can comfortably use for these recipes, I guess we can always juice them and just can the juice for drinking straight. But that's about as far as my imagination has taken me on this, so I suppose I need to get out Google and see what else I can find.
It's a lot of work to grow, harvest and process all this fruit, but it's a comforting sort of work. In the process, we are learning how to use more of what we have to make staple foods and tasty treats and condiments our family loves to eat. If all the vinegars we make this year turn out, we will have all the tasty vinegar we need to make salad dressings, marinades and other condiments this next whole year. We are already self sufficient on jams and jellies and fruit syrups for pancakes and home-made sodas. We haven't bought raisins in months. And I managed to re-create one of our favorite artisan breads in a healthier whole grain version, using mostly local or home made products. So besides being good food and giving us interesting projects to do, it's also helping us to live a more sustainable life in general. Little steps? Yes, but if you take enough little steps eventually you will get where you want to go.
The only problem is, all the apples are ready next!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
It finally happened...
...someone got cranky about my reusable bags at a small town grocery store the other day. :-(
But, after listening to this elderly guy complain for several minutes, I kind of got the feeling he gets cranky about a lot of things. So I'm not going to let it worry me. I explained to him why I used them, but he didn't seem to care. When I politely asked, he couldn't even tell me why he didn't like them. All he seemed to care about was that they were different from what he is used to using when he bags groceries and he didn't like "different." This wasn't a Wal-mart superstore or anything, either - it was just a laid back small town grocery store with just a few customers checking out at any given time - so even if it did take him a few seconds longer to bag stuff up with an unfamiliar bag, I doubt it really added that much extra work to his day.
I found his excessively grumpy attitude both mildly amusing and mildly annoying. I kind of hope someone talked to him after his complaining fit, because at least in my case it made me think less of the store and may make me a little reluctant to shop there again. But I'm definitely not giving up my bags. Can't please all the people all the time, eh?
But, after listening to this elderly guy complain for several minutes, I kind of got the feeling he gets cranky about a lot of things. So I'm not going to let it worry me. I explained to him why I used them, but he didn't seem to care. When I politely asked, he couldn't even tell me why he didn't like them. All he seemed to care about was that they were different from what he is used to using when he bags groceries and he didn't like "different." This wasn't a Wal-mart superstore or anything, either - it was just a laid back small town grocery store with just a few customers checking out at any given time - so even if it did take him a few seconds longer to bag stuff up with an unfamiliar bag, I doubt it really added that much extra work to his day.
I found his excessively grumpy attitude both mildly amusing and mildly annoying. I kind of hope someone talked to him after his complaining fit, because at least in my case it made me think less of the store and may make me a little reluctant to shop there again. But I'm definitely not giving up my bags. Can't please all the people all the time, eh?
Monday, October 1, 2007
The numbers are in....
...and over the past three weeks we've driven 655 mostly-city miles on the big family SUV-type wagon, which got only about 16.3 miles per gallon on average. So over that three weeks we burned about 40 gallons of gasoline. That means we used 13.33 gallons per week driving over 200 miles during each 7 day time frame. Extrapolated out over the course of a year, that means we will average about 693 gallons of gasoline used in one year.
Okay, so now I know. Eeek.
Fifty percent of that would be getting my gas usage down to 6.5 gallons per week. Time to pump the bike tires up, I think, and ride to school and the library tomorrow. I'll reset the trip meter and fill the tank back up, and see where I am in a month's time.
Okay, so now I know. Eeek.
Fifty percent of that would be getting my gas usage down to 6.5 gallons per week. Time to pump the bike tires up, I think, and ride to school and the library tomorrow. I'll reset the trip meter and fill the tank back up, and see where I am in a month's time.
Monday, September 24, 2007
What I'm doing to help cut down on mindless consumption
None of these tips are new, or earthshattering in any way, but they are effective and worth repeating. What it all boils down to, to my mind, is learning to become mindful of what you consume. That is not as easy as it sounds. Most of us here in the US have been raised to be mindless consumavores. It's the American Way - endless, mindless consumption is what makes our funny little hallucinated economic gears turn 'round and 'round. So actually thinking about and making conscious decisions about what we use is something that has to be learned.
1. If there are two lights on in the room and you don't need them both, turn one off. If you are leaving the room for even five minutes, turn the lights off.
2. Natural lighting is often more than sufficient for most tasks during the day. Only use artificial lighting when it's really needed. I've discovered that flipping on the lights when you enter a room is often more habit than anything.
3. Carefully monitor children's use of lighting. Flip off lights when they are not in their room, and make it a habit to check after they have used the bathroom to make sure they turned off the lights there, too. If the main light fixture in their room is one that takes multiple bulbs, consider using low-wattage bulbs, or only filling half the slots. Make it easy for the curtains or blinds to be opened to allow natural light in.
4. Don't let the water run excessively long when preparing a shower. Run it just long enough to get the water warm. If you don't have a water saving shower head, consider turning on the water pressure only half-way while showering, and/or actually turning it off while soaping up and scrubbing or shaving.
5. Don't run the sink water while you brush your teeth - turn it off and on as needed or use a cup.
6. Don't throw away leftovers - they make wonderful lunches and it saves money when you don't have to use fuel to cook again, or buy another meal's worth of food to serve. If you can save five dollars per adult, per day on lunch during the week (a very conservative estimate for purchased meals outside the home) that adds up to over $1,200.00 a year per person in monetary savings, not to mention less damage to the environment from waste.
7. Buy dry goods in bulk, repackage into reusable containers at home where needed, thus saving packaging waste and money. It's also nice to have a well-stocked pantry - it cuts down on trips to the store and on the late night aggravation when you find out as you are tucking your little guy or gal into bed that you are expected to send 2 dozen baked treats to school the next morning! For those of us that live where weather can become a bit dangerous, it's also quite nice to know that you won't be needing to head out in a snowstorm late at night for an emergency store run. There are many things worth risking your life for - but imho toilet paper is not one of them.
8. Every time a light bulb burns out, consider carefully whether you can replace it with a more efficient bulb (compact fluorescent) or a lower wattage bulb. In fact, if it is one of many in a particular room, you may decide you do not need to replace it at all. But if you do, stop and think for a minute about what you can do to use the opportunity to lower your household's consumption. If you do this for year or two, nearly every light in your house can be using less electricity.
9. Many things can be reused if you keep your eyes open for the opportunity. Even things like plastic bags can often be reused at least once. If you reuse something JUST ONCE, you've effectively cut your usage of that particular item by 50%, without even trying hard - and fifty percent is not a trivial amount! If you still think it is, think for a moment about how it would be to have fifty percent less room in your home, or fifty percent less distance to commute every day, or fifty percent less laundry to wash, or fifty percent less income. I'll bet fifty percent doesn't seem so trivial once you've thought about it that way, does it?
1. If there are two lights on in the room and you don't need them both, turn one off. If you are leaving the room for even five minutes, turn the lights off.
2. Natural lighting is often more than sufficient for most tasks during the day. Only use artificial lighting when it's really needed. I've discovered that flipping on the lights when you enter a room is often more habit than anything.
3. Carefully monitor children's use of lighting. Flip off lights when they are not in their room, and make it a habit to check after they have used the bathroom to make sure they turned off the lights there, too. If the main light fixture in their room is one that takes multiple bulbs, consider using low-wattage bulbs, or only filling half the slots. Make it easy for the curtains or blinds to be opened to allow natural light in.
4. Don't let the water run excessively long when preparing a shower. Run it just long enough to get the water warm. If you don't have a water saving shower head, consider turning on the water pressure only half-way while showering, and/or actually turning it off while soaping up and scrubbing or shaving.
5. Don't run the sink water while you brush your teeth - turn it off and on as needed or use a cup.
6. Don't throw away leftovers - they make wonderful lunches and it saves money when you don't have to use fuel to cook again, or buy another meal's worth of food to serve. If you can save five dollars per adult, per day on lunch during the week (a very conservative estimate for purchased meals outside the home) that adds up to over $1,200.00 a year per person in monetary savings, not to mention less damage to the environment from waste.
7. Buy dry goods in bulk, repackage into reusable containers at home where needed, thus saving packaging waste and money. It's also nice to have a well-stocked pantry - it cuts down on trips to the store and on the late night aggravation when you find out as you are tucking your little guy or gal into bed that you are expected to send 2 dozen baked treats to school the next morning! For those of us that live where weather can become a bit dangerous, it's also quite nice to know that you won't be needing to head out in a snowstorm late at night for an emergency store run. There are many things worth risking your life for - but imho toilet paper is not one of them.
8. Every time a light bulb burns out, consider carefully whether you can replace it with a more efficient bulb (compact fluorescent) or a lower wattage bulb. In fact, if it is one of many in a particular room, you may decide you do not need to replace it at all. But if you do, stop and think for a minute about what you can do to use the opportunity to lower your household's consumption. If you do this for year or two, nearly every light in your house can be using less electricity.
9. Many things can be reused if you keep your eyes open for the opportunity. Even things like plastic bags can often be reused at least once. If you reuse something JUST ONCE, you've effectively cut your usage of that particular item by 50%, without even trying hard - and fifty percent is not a trivial amount! If you still think it is, think for a moment about how it would be to have fifty percent less room in your home, or fifty percent less distance to commute every day, or fifty percent less laundry to wash, or fifty percent less income. I'll bet fifty percent doesn't seem so trivial once you've thought about it that way, does it?
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Progress, progress! (paring down & reusable bags)
Well, the pile of garage-salable stuff in one bay of the garage is stacking up nicely. I've managed to work my way around 2/3rds of the kitchen or more, and only have two major areas left to declutter, pare down and reorganize. It's amazing how much you can get rid of if you really put your mind to it. My guess is the trick will be keeping it pared down!
After several months, I am finally getting the reusable bag gig down pat. I have actually started to amass an interesting collection of different types of reusable bags. I have five of the general cloth bags that are analogous to the plastic ones. I also have one bag with partitions that I got for free at Fred Meyer - it's great for holding six bottled items in a way that they don't clank around and crack. Then there is the insulated bag for frozen things. I also have two longer handled standard canvas totes I've accumulated from somewhere, and some new cotton mesh drawstring bags for dry produce items like fruits, winter squash and roots. Finally, there are the reusable "life extending" ziplocks for the wet stuff like lettuces and such. All of this fits into a lightweight compact foldable backpack, which is roomy enough to also hold my wallet, keys and cell phone.
I like this system so much that I've ordered four more of the basic bags, and after trying (unsuccessfully) to figure out how to fit two full size pork loins into them (I finally had to haul the loins out to the car unbagged, and the end of one split open in the car on the way home) I ordered an extra large duffle type bag for oversized items. I think this should allow me to have bags for pretty much every purchase that really needs to be bagged. I got almost all of my bags from http://www.reusablebags.com.
Beyond the enviromental impact, the best thing about using these bags instead of the plastic bags supplied by the store is that these don't rip and spill all your stuff onto the ground when you are least expecting it. Not only that, they hold twice as much by both weight and volume as the flimsy plastic ones, which means fewer bags to haul in when I get home. Yes, they often do weigh twice as much, but so far it has not been an issue. I mean, we're only talking at the most 10-15 pounds each even when they are loaded down with canned goods. I believe the maximum carrying capacity of the basic bags is well over 20 pounds each, so they can handle pretty much any type of normal grocery items.
The response I get at the store has overwhelmingly been positive. I have had some baggers look a bit confused by the bags at first, but no one has ever given me the impression that they would rather I hadn't brought them. I do try to speak up early to let the checkers know I have my own bags and that I prefer to use them, plus I open them up from their stuff sacks and lay them out on the counter so they are easy for the bagger to reach and load.
Oh, another way I've found to save on bagging is to have the baggers not bag things that really don't need it. For instance, gallon jugs of milk, which come with their own handles. Having gallon jugs of milk in bags really isn't necessary, so I told the baggers this week not to bother, unless it would be violating store policy. The young man who was helping me said 'No, it's not a problem - what YOU want IS store policy!" Wow. You don't often hear that sort of thing these days, do you?
After several months, I am finally getting the reusable bag gig down pat. I have actually started to amass an interesting collection of different types of reusable bags. I have five of the general cloth bags that are analogous to the plastic ones. I also have one bag with partitions that I got for free at Fred Meyer - it's great for holding six bottled items in a way that they don't clank around and crack. Then there is the insulated bag for frozen things. I also have two longer handled standard canvas totes I've accumulated from somewhere, and some new cotton mesh drawstring bags for dry produce items like fruits, winter squash and roots. Finally, there are the reusable "life extending" ziplocks for the wet stuff like lettuces and such. All of this fits into a lightweight compact foldable backpack, which is roomy enough to also hold my wallet, keys and cell phone.
I like this system so much that I've ordered four more of the basic bags, and after trying (unsuccessfully) to figure out how to fit two full size pork loins into them (I finally had to haul the loins out to the car unbagged, and the end of one split open in the car on the way home) I ordered an extra large duffle type bag for oversized items. I think this should allow me to have bags for pretty much every purchase that really needs to be bagged. I got almost all of my bags from http://www.reusablebags.com.
Beyond the enviromental impact, the best thing about using these bags instead of the plastic bags supplied by the store is that these don't rip and spill all your stuff onto the ground when you are least expecting it. Not only that, they hold twice as much by both weight and volume as the flimsy plastic ones, which means fewer bags to haul in when I get home. Yes, they often do weigh twice as much, but so far it has not been an issue. I mean, we're only talking at the most 10-15 pounds each even when they are loaded down with canned goods. I believe the maximum carrying capacity of the basic bags is well over 20 pounds each, so they can handle pretty much any type of normal grocery items.
The response I get at the store has overwhelmingly been positive. I have had some baggers look a bit confused by the bags at first, but no one has ever given me the impression that they would rather I hadn't brought them. I do try to speak up early to let the checkers know I have my own bags and that I prefer to use them, plus I open them up from their stuff sacks and lay them out on the counter so they are easy for the bagger to reach and load.
Oh, another way I've found to save on bagging is to have the baggers not bag things that really don't need it. For instance, gallon jugs of milk, which come with their own handles. Having gallon jugs of milk in bags really isn't necessary, so I told the baggers this week not to bother, unless it would be violating store policy. The young man who was helping me said 'No, it's not a problem - what YOU want IS store policy!" Wow. You don't often hear that sort of thing these days, do you?
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Putting my kitchen on a diet
My kitchen bugs me. The cabinets are overstuffed with "stuff" and some of them are so bad that if you open the door too quickly things fall out onto the ceramic tile floor and break. I can't find a lot of items I use or would like to use more often. We have multiples of some items that we simply don't need multiples of. I bought a really neat modular food storage system for putting away and saving leftovers, but I kept the mishmash of plastic food storage oddities I was using before. I have some lovely glass pie pans which bake the very best crusts, but I also still have a half dozen cheapie tin ones cluttering up the shelves that I never use. The top of the refrigerator hadn't been cleaned since who knows when. I think you get the picture.
So last night, I began to slowly pare down and organize my kitchen. It's going to take a while, but I think it'll pay huge dividends in sanity and efficiency once I've finished. The first place I worked on was our cabinet above the trash compactor. It had been set up as more or less a larger version of the ubiquitous kitchen "junk drawer" (and yes, we have one of those, too, which I will get to later...) and was one of the cabinets things have been routinely falling out of. So I completely emptied it out, sorted the mess, threw away a large part of it, and refilled the cabinet with small appliances I like to use on a regular basis, but which were always on top shelves and very difficult for me to reach. One tiny bit of sanity reclaimed.
That made me feel so good that I just started working my way around the room. Next was the top of the refrigerator, and I won't even say how much junk and dust and grime I found there. I'll just leave it to the imagination - but be sure to imagine a lot. However, it's gone now and the only things still up there are three large bags of bulk cold cereal that I will be transferring to large pourable containers tomorrow. The cabinet above the fridge is also now cleared out and is home to a few things I use very seldom, but don't want to have to hike downstairs for when I need them. Things like the family-size Salton Yogurt Maker, and an extra small crockpot.
After that, I began to tackle the pantry wall. I consolidated all the dry goods cannisters and put them up high, and put the stuff that gets used every day in the two middle shelves. We now have a shelf just for items we use for bringing lunches to work and school - no more bleary-eyed digging in multiple cabinets in the morning looking for thermos jars and lunch kits and lids for the mess. I then pulled out the mish-mash of plastic containers and lids made obsolete by the new modular stuff and set them aside for the garage sale we'll be having in a couple of weeks. I also pulled out baking multiples like the tin pie pans and set many of them aside for resale. I took a good look at where and how things were being stored, and moved them around to where large items like oil containers no longer have to lay on their sides and leak because they are not able to stand upright on the shelves. That one change alone probably gained me back a handful of sorely needed sanity points.
I'm not finished by a long shot - but I have made significant improvements in just an evening's work. I am planning to work on it more this afternoon and evening, and after class tomorrow I will take a trip to the Don Aslett cleaning store here in town to pick up some specialty cleaning items like a cobwebber and a ceiling fan brush. I don't know what happened to the ones I had in Texas, but apparently they didn't make the move with me, and I'm tired of doing these chores without the proper tools. They are fairly inexpensive to buy, and save sanity points every time they are used. And believe me, I can use all the sanity points I can get these days!
So last night, I began to slowly pare down and organize my kitchen. It's going to take a while, but I think it'll pay huge dividends in sanity and efficiency once I've finished. The first place I worked on was our cabinet above the trash compactor. It had been set up as more or less a larger version of the ubiquitous kitchen "junk drawer" (and yes, we have one of those, too, which I will get to later...) and was one of the cabinets things have been routinely falling out of. So I completely emptied it out, sorted the mess, threw away a large part of it, and refilled the cabinet with small appliances I like to use on a regular basis, but which were always on top shelves and very difficult for me to reach. One tiny bit of sanity reclaimed.
That made me feel so good that I just started working my way around the room. Next was the top of the refrigerator, and I won't even say how much junk and dust and grime I found there. I'll just leave it to the imagination - but be sure to imagine a lot. However, it's gone now and the only things still up there are three large bags of bulk cold cereal that I will be transferring to large pourable containers tomorrow. The cabinet above the fridge is also now cleared out and is home to a few things I use very seldom, but don't want to have to hike downstairs for when I need them. Things like the family-size Salton Yogurt Maker, and an extra small crockpot.
After that, I began to tackle the pantry wall. I consolidated all the dry goods cannisters and put them up high, and put the stuff that gets used every day in the two middle shelves. We now have a shelf just for items we use for bringing lunches to work and school - no more bleary-eyed digging in multiple cabinets in the morning looking for thermos jars and lunch kits and lids for the mess. I then pulled out the mish-mash of plastic containers and lids made obsolete by the new modular stuff and set them aside for the garage sale we'll be having in a couple of weeks. I also pulled out baking multiples like the tin pie pans and set many of them aside for resale. I took a good look at where and how things were being stored, and moved them around to where large items like oil containers no longer have to lay on their sides and leak because they are not able to stand upright on the shelves. That one change alone probably gained me back a handful of sorely needed sanity points.
I'm not finished by a long shot - but I have made significant improvements in just an evening's work. I am planning to work on it more this afternoon and evening, and after class tomorrow I will take a trip to the Don Aslett cleaning store here in town to pick up some specialty cleaning items like a cobwebber and a ceiling fan brush. I don't know what happened to the ones I had in Texas, but apparently they didn't make the move with me, and I'm tired of doing these chores without the proper tools. They are fairly inexpensive to buy, and save sanity points every time they are used. And believe me, I can use all the sanity points I can get these days!
Musings on the stock market and interest rates
Although I don't always see eye to eye with Jim Kunstler, I think he really hit on something in one of his posts earlier this month. In particular, this...
"In healthier times, finance was but one part of the economy, the means for raising capital investment to apply to productive activity. For the past two decades, we have allowed it to become an end in itself." Link.
Earlier this summer, as part of my ongoing work on my Business degree, I was required to take a couple of courses in finance. Those courses were a real eye-opener, to say the least. By the time the semester was over, my opinion of the modern finance world pretty much matched Mr. Kunstler's views above: somewhere along the way, companies changed their mission from that of making money by creating quality products for sale to customers, to making money by creating ephemeral on-paper "wealth" for their investors. It's to the point now where I'd have to say that for many companies, the product is no more than a secondary consideration - merely the means to accomplish their first priority of increasing their stock prices and thereby their ability to borrow and leverage. In other words, they are no longer in the business of selling things, they now are in the business of being in business, which is a totally different subject all together.
I think this obsession with stock prices has contributed much to the decline of quality in this country. In a business climate where a percentage point or two difference in profits can send your stock reeling one way or the other, the bottom line has become god. CEO's are now the untouchable high priesthood of this god. Want proof? Look at their salaries and pensions - and look at their severance packages when they fail to deliver the promised rains and bumper-crops. Where else on earth, except maybe politics, are people so richly rewarded for being failures?
So what do I think this means for those of us living mostly on the outside of the ongoing mass hallucination? Well, for one thing, higher prices and scarcity now and possibly for the foreseeable future as hallucinated wealth bubbles, like the sub-prime mortgage bubble, start to collapse one by one in a chain reaction. Companies are already beginning to fold as their paper wealth is decreased by stock price cuts to the point where they cannot service their own leveraged debts and therefore are force to admit they are insolvent. Fewer companies means fewer goods and services available, higher prices from reduced competition, fewer jobs to be had, and collateral damage via unpaid invoices to suppliers and other creditors. If you carefully sniff the air, you can probably already smell the scent of carrion wafting from the direction of the markets.
Unfortunately for us, we've allowed our country to become reliant upon these markets to tell us who we are. It drives everything these days, even interest rates. I know the Fed is supposed to control interest rates in order to control the economy, but this is not what I see happening now. If it were, the Fed would not be planning an interest rate cut next week for what appears to be the sole purpose of staunching heavy bleeding from the market. But they are, so I say that this cart-leading-the-horse is proof that things have gone too far and the stock market is now controlling interest rates by default. Put a big enough financial gun to the Fed's head, in other words, and interest rates will change. That is control, for all intents and purposes.
On a related note: if you've never really looked into what sort of "investments" are being made these days in the stock and commodities markets, you really should. If you have had little to no exposure to it before prepare to be a bit shocked and disillusioned. One of the ladies in my class said it well, I believe, when she exclaimed after our professor's lecture on short-selling that next time she got a hankering to go to Vegas, she'd simply get online and try a making few short sells. She felt this would give her just as much gambling thrill as the casinos, but require less hassle and expense for travel, and she wouldn't have to drag her unwilling husband along with her! (Yes, she was serious.)
Like gambling, the stock market is highly reactive to and even driven to a large extent by perceptions and magical thinking. Perception, while not always grounded in reality, is unfortunately a major component in speculative investment. A large part of the investment scene right now is rife with speculation investment in all its amazing permutations. This is worrisome because should perceptions change, speculation bubbles burst, and the stock market collapse, so will our economy. They have, in many important and frightening ways, apparently become one and the same.
"In healthier times, finance was but one part of the economy, the means for raising capital investment to apply to productive activity. For the past two decades, we have allowed it to become an end in itself." Link.
Earlier this summer, as part of my ongoing work on my Business degree, I was required to take a couple of courses in finance. Those courses were a real eye-opener, to say the least. By the time the semester was over, my opinion of the modern finance world pretty much matched Mr. Kunstler's views above: somewhere along the way, companies changed their mission from that of making money by creating quality products for sale to customers, to making money by creating ephemeral on-paper "wealth" for their investors. It's to the point now where I'd have to say that for many companies, the product is no more than a secondary consideration - merely the means to accomplish their first priority of increasing their stock prices and thereby their ability to borrow and leverage. In other words, they are no longer in the business of selling things, they now are in the business of being in business, which is a totally different subject all together.
I think this obsession with stock prices has contributed much to the decline of quality in this country. In a business climate where a percentage point or two difference in profits can send your stock reeling one way or the other, the bottom line has become god. CEO's are now the untouchable high priesthood of this god. Want proof? Look at their salaries and pensions - and look at their severance packages when they fail to deliver the promised rains and bumper-crops. Where else on earth, except maybe politics, are people so richly rewarded for being failures?
So what do I think this means for those of us living mostly on the outside of the ongoing mass hallucination? Well, for one thing, higher prices and scarcity now and possibly for the foreseeable future as hallucinated wealth bubbles, like the sub-prime mortgage bubble, start to collapse one by one in a chain reaction. Companies are already beginning to fold as their paper wealth is decreased by stock price cuts to the point where they cannot service their own leveraged debts and therefore are force to admit they are insolvent. Fewer companies means fewer goods and services available, higher prices from reduced competition, fewer jobs to be had, and collateral damage via unpaid invoices to suppliers and other creditors. If you carefully sniff the air, you can probably already smell the scent of carrion wafting from the direction of the markets.
Unfortunately for us, we've allowed our country to become reliant upon these markets to tell us who we are. It drives everything these days, even interest rates. I know the Fed is supposed to control interest rates in order to control the economy, but this is not what I see happening now. If it were, the Fed would not be planning an interest rate cut next week for what appears to be the sole purpose of staunching heavy bleeding from the market. But they are, so I say that this cart-leading-the-horse is proof that things have gone too far and the stock market is now controlling interest rates by default. Put a big enough financial gun to the Fed's head, in other words, and interest rates will change. That is control, for all intents and purposes.
On a related note: if you've never really looked into what sort of "investments" are being made these days in the stock and commodities markets, you really should. If you have had little to no exposure to it before prepare to be a bit shocked and disillusioned. One of the ladies in my class said it well, I believe, when she exclaimed after our professor's lecture on short-selling that next time she got a hankering to go to Vegas, she'd simply get online and try a making few short sells. She felt this would give her just as much gambling thrill as the casinos, but require less hassle and expense for travel, and she wouldn't have to drag her unwilling husband along with her! (Yes, she was serious.)
Like gambling, the stock market is highly reactive to and even driven to a large extent by perceptions and magical thinking. Perception, while not always grounded in reality, is unfortunately a major component in speculative investment. A large part of the investment scene right now is rife with speculation investment in all its amazing permutations. This is worrisome because should perceptions change, speculation bubbles burst, and the stock market collapse, so will our economy. They have, in many important and frightening ways, apparently become one and the same.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The odometer *must* be lying...
How can I have already driven nearly 140 miles since Monday? *erk*
It looks like I do a lot more driving on a typical week than I imagined. Which is fine, that's what I needed to know. I can't work to reduce my driving until I have some sort of idea how much driving I actually do. (How in the world did people live before motor vehicles? When it took a day of travel by horse or wagon to get to the nearest town, or two days on foot?)
So far this week I've driven to and from school several times, downtown a time or two, and to Idaho Falls and back once. I plan to drive to the farmer's market this weekend, as well to see some friends out of town. At this rate, it wouldn't be a surprise if I racked up 200+ miles on the odometer in just this one week. It's amazing how our off the cuff estimates can be so far off. I wouldn't have guessed even half that much. At this rate I may well be consuming the national average of 500 gallons of gasoline per person per year after all.
Well, on the up-side, I guess that means I've got a lot of room for improvement!
It looks like I do a lot more driving on a typical week than I imagined. Which is fine, that's what I needed to know. I can't work to reduce my driving until I have some sort of idea how much driving I actually do. (How in the world did people live before motor vehicles? When it took a day of travel by horse or wagon to get to the nearest town, or two days on foot?)
So far this week I've driven to and from school several times, downtown a time or two, and to Idaho Falls and back once. I plan to drive to the farmer's market this weekend, as well to see some friends out of town. At this rate, it wouldn't be a surprise if I racked up 200+ miles on the odometer in just this one week. It's amazing how our off the cuff estimates can be so far off. I wouldn't have guessed even half that much. At this rate I may well be consuming the national average of 500 gallons of gasoline per person per year after all.
Well, on the up-side, I guess that means I've got a lot of room for improvement!
Monday, September 10, 2007
First Project - Gasoline
I have no idea how many miles a week/month I typically drive. So for this week, and possibly the next, I'm going to drive a "normal" amount for me and actually keep track of it. I'll drive to and from school, to and from work, out of town to visit some friends a couple of times, and maybe add a trip to the mall or to the craft store. I reset my trip meter and my mileage reading, so by the end of this time I should have my average mpg and my miles to use to calculate my average gas useage. Then it'll be time to start strategizing ways to lower that by at least 33%.
Since part of the purpose of my Reduction Project is to also reduce complexity and overall consumption in my life in general, I plan to alternate making energy reductions with making certain conscious consumption reductions. For instance, I'm going to see if I can reduce the amount of clothing in my closet by at least 50%. I plan to use the 80/20 rule, with only a few exceptions, to clear away any and everything I do not like, or do not routinely wear. Why keep it around?
So, onward.
Since part of the purpose of my Reduction Project is to also reduce complexity and overall consumption in my life in general, I plan to alternate making energy reductions with making certain conscious consumption reductions. For instance, I'm going to see if I can reduce the amount of clothing in my closet by at least 50%. I plan to use the 80/20 rule, with only a few exceptions, to clear away any and everything I do not like, or do not routinely wear. Why keep it around?
So, onward.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Fifty percent reduction in what?
Good question. I suppose the answer is - a fifty percent reduction in whatever I determine necessary to get my "carbon footprint" down to a level that I can accept as "at least minimally responsible." The framework for what I'm planning here is somewhat like what the 90% Reduction (Riot for Austerity) movement is doing. Ninety percent is the figure given as what the average US citizen would have to reduce to hit the globally sustainable level for consumption. I've had a look at what they are doing and while I agree with it in principal, I just can't do that much at this time.
The main sticking points for me are the fact that I've got two part time jobs and also attend college full time. I also have a family, pets, yardwork, housework, etc, and family that lives out of town. This means that I don't have a lot of the time (or the money required to pay someone else to do the extra work) that would be needed to make that sort of change in my life, since the bottom line on things of this sort usually is that you trade chunks of your personal time for a lowering of your consumption/environmental footprint. For instance, you spend an hour or so each week grinding flour and baking your household's bread from scratch, instead of just throwing a few loaves into the basket next time you are at the store. Sometimes that's possible, sometimes it's not. Frankly, I'd love to be able to walk to school and work every single day - about a mile each way- but some days I just can't do it due to time constraints. Some days I will have to take the car, as much as I loathe the thought of backing it out of the garage for just a one mile trip. Unfortunately, some days I simply won't have the extra 15-20 minutes each way to spare in my schedule.
It's sad that I'm so busy some days that I feel I can't even block out an extra 40 minutes, but that's life at the moment. Setting myself up for failure by pretending these constraints don't exist will just add to my stress levels and I sure don't need that, either. So, for me, a more reasonable figure is somewhere around 33-50% reduction in my consumption and lifestyle. By setting the bar towards the higher number it still gives me something to shoot for that should actually be doable in some areas. I hope to do more in a couple of years when I graduate.
So, Fifty Percent it is for now. Time to start making a roadmap to attain that goal!
The main sticking points for me are the fact that I've got two part time jobs and also attend college full time. I also have a family, pets, yardwork, housework, etc, and family that lives out of town. This means that I don't have a lot of the time (or the money required to pay someone else to do the extra work) that would be needed to make that sort of change in my life, since the bottom line on things of this sort usually is that you trade chunks of your personal time for a lowering of your consumption/environmental footprint. For instance, you spend an hour or so each week grinding flour and baking your household's bread from scratch, instead of just throwing a few loaves into the basket next time you are at the store. Sometimes that's possible, sometimes it's not. Frankly, I'd love to be able to walk to school and work every single day - about a mile each way- but some days I just can't do it due to time constraints. Some days I will have to take the car, as much as I loathe the thought of backing it out of the garage for just a one mile trip. Unfortunately, some days I simply won't have the extra 15-20 minutes each way to spare in my schedule.
It's sad that I'm so busy some days that I feel I can't even block out an extra 40 minutes, but that's life at the moment. Setting myself up for failure by pretending these constraints don't exist will just add to my stress levels and I sure don't need that, either. So, for me, a more reasonable figure is somewhere around 33-50% reduction in my consumption and lifestyle. By setting the bar towards the higher number it still gives me something to shoot for that should actually be doable in some areas. I hope to do more in a couple of years when I graduate.
So, Fifty Percent it is for now. Time to start making a roadmap to attain that goal!
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