A better life - one step at a time

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!

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.
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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!

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.

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. :-)

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.

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.