Soap Box Rant - GO!

Smithfield pork is the latest company to fire Paula Deen for her use of racist language. Bravo! There is no room in this growing, changing world for that kind of backwards thinking. However, Smithfield got a little high and mighty with their PR statement confirming the firing -

"Smithfield is determined to be an ethical food industry leader and it is important that our values and those of our spokespeople are properly aligned."

Ethical?! Maybe they forgot about how their CAFO's treat their pigs? (YouTube it - if you dare. It's brutal to watch.) Or how their "swine effluent" (poop and chemical lagoons) do irreparable damage to the ecosystems in the areas that call their ginormous factory farms home? Or, maybe they forgot that they feed obscene amounts of antibiotics and ARSENIC to their swine and eventually, consumers? All above board and a-ok, according to them.

The word/s the Paula Deen used/uses are unforgivably ugly and have no place in our society and earned her her walking papers. The people at Smithfield congratulating themselves as being ethical? It's a flat out lie and damn near as offensive to me. Anything to make a buck, seems to be a mantra that Smithfield and Deen share - maybe they've been "properly aligned" all along?

Not Keeping Up with the Joneses, part deux

Oy.

I'm 80% back to where I was, oh, almost 3 years ago. Back in the Summer good ol' 2010, when we first bought this place, I was kinda kicking butt and taking names farm/garden/house-wise. Between Bill and I, we kept the lawn mowed, the flower beds mostly weeded, and the critters and kids safe, well fed and generally presentable. Darn those were good times!

Fast forward to the present. The yard is straight-up out of control, the girls are old enough to dress and style themselves, for better or worse (trust me, sometimes it's worse!), the house hasn't had a top-to-bottom cleaning since I don't know when, and the laundry... sweet baby jeebus, the laundry.

I feel like I'm treading water. I get the house mostly caught up, then it's time to put the garden in, and the house falls massively behind. Then the reverse happens, it's Autumn, and I can mostly quit stressing about the yard and garden and focus on the house, then a metric crap-ton of leaves fall and the rains hit and turn our yard and garden into muck soup, which will take massive cleanup come Spring...and the cycle continues.

I can't keep up. I can't mentally juggle the nutritional needs of four humans and 50+ critters and keep my carpet vacuumed and have a clean car and volunteer at the girls' schools and make my own cheese and keep my sanity. Something has to give.

So this school year, I didn't volunteer. So far, I haven't made cheese, though that is not something I want to give up, I just can't find the time for it just now, and my loss is the pigs' gain - they're big fans of our goat milk. My car is littered with latte cups and other weird odds and ends, and has a trunk full of clothes that I've been meaning to drop by the Salvation Army for, seriously, months now. On the whole, it doesn't bother me too much, because I know what my priorities are and why, but to the outside observer who doesn't know the backstory on our year of crap, it probably looks like I'm a giant slacker and a half-assed mom, and that bothers me.

So what do I do? Do I run myself ragged trying to keep up appearances when, deep down, I'm not terribly bothered by the fact that I have a dandelion forest in my front yard and a ring-around-the-tub? Or do I focus on the stuff that I feel really satisfies me - canning weird flavors of jam, knitting a million dishcloths, cooking from scratch and having dinner on the beach with my family?

It's no contest. I choose the experience of togetherness over the facade of always having it together.

Now, how do I make myself ok enough with my choice to hold my head up high and not explain or apologize for my messy car, my cluttered porch or my daughter's whack-a-doo self-styled hair? Seriously - how?

Homegrown Lavender Soap

Bill and I made our second batch of soap yesterday, we're calling it Homegrown Lavender.

The soap is still caustic, so I can't poke and prod it like I'd like to, but I can smell it and take its picture, so viola.

It looks like most of the poppy seeds have floated to the top, so there'll be a scrubby side and a non-scrubby side to this soap. Interesting...

As you can see, the color is not perfect. We chose to use all-natural scents and tints in our soaps, so they tend not to be the technicolor explosion that synthetically colored soaps are. I'd rather err on the side of boring at this point. Trying to imagine myself standing behind a product made with laboratory-designed scents and colors makes me squirm. Our beautiful goat milk deserves better than that!

As much as I'm not crazy in love with this color, I have to concede that it has improved drastically overnight. When we first poured it into the mold (a fancy term for a cardboard box lined with visqueen), it was the brownish-grey of elderly oatmeal.

Six more weeks until it's ready to use and sell. We'll be right down to the wire as far as selling this at our bazaars. I'm going to buy some pH strips at the homebrew store so that I can make doubly sure that this is completely saponified and 100% safe and gentle before offering it for sale. And while I'm at the homebrew store I might pick up a little citric acid, so I can give these homemade bath bombs a go too. They use a lot of the same ingredients that we already have on hand for soap making, and I think they'd be a neat complimentary product to offer alongside the soap and knitted washcloths and scrubbies.

It's a little weird that my Postmodern Milkmaid ventures have taken a toiletry-esque turn, after having been pretty much all about apparel last year. Hopefully, using the lessons learned from last year's sales, and the unique resources that are available to us through our little farm (goat milk, homegrown botanicals) we'll get a little leg up this year, and set ourselves apart from some of the other makers and crafters.

Six weeks until we know for sure if any of this worked, let alone whether or not people find it appealing. That niggling little worry should be great for my insomnia!

Back to knitting my face off in the meantime. ;)

Waste

I've always been a frugal creature; not one to waste unnecessarily, and a bit of a pack rat when it comes to anything I perceive as potentially having a little life left in it. It's a blessing and a curse, really, in terms of the oddments and "junk" that I stockpile save. It is a relatively small percentage of the time that I end up doing anything with those spare buttons that come with my husband's work shirts, as he usually manages to wear the shirts out well before the buttons can go missing, but, even still, I can't just throw them away. I just... can't.

So I'm the first to admit that there can be too much of a good thing in terms of saving stuff. The HUGE exception to that rule in my book is food. There is always a body - be it human, chicken, ruminant, insect or microbe - that could use up that food's energy to a productive end and, in many cases, also produce a useful by-product (eggs, milk, compost, penicillin) besides. Therefore it pains me when I see any food irretrievably wasted.

To clarify exactly what I mean by irretrievably wasted, I'd define it like this - Useful potential energy that is irresponsibly cast off in such a way that renders it permanently unavailable for use by another living thing. Humans are the only ones who make waste like this.

If your family doesn't finish their dinner, saving the leftovers, composting them or sharing the food with critters would all be viable non-waste alternatives for taking advantage of the potential energy that is the raison d'etre, the very definition of food, and therefore a reasonable use of the food's energetic potential. Really, just about anything besides entombing it in non-biodegradable packaging and burying it 50 feet deep under thousands of tons of other trash, making it totally impossible to ever degrade, would be a reasonable use of the food energy. It's actually pretty easy to do.

Even so, it isn't unheard of to read tales of gross mismanagement of perfectly edible produce, as detailed in this story about an "unauthorized" public garden that was needlessly destroyed days before being harvested. As if that weren't tragedy enough, the ruined crops were then taken to a landfill and disposed of. I mean... why?

Irretrievable waste is hands-down the most complete waste of food, but there are others, though much less egregious, that still get under my skin. 

A major frustration that I'm experiencing a lot lately has to do with unharvested fruit trees. Washington state is known the world over for it's amazing apples. They grow almost effortlessly here, which is no doubt part of the reason that they are nearly as ubiquitous in our neighborhoods, parks and woodlands as the Douglas Fir is. But maybe having affordable, world-class apples available at the supermarket year-round has caused us to overlook the miracle of free food growing in our own front yards?

In Autumn, you can't help but notice all of the beautiful apples, pears, walnuts and hazelnuts hanging heavy in the trees, begging to be picked. And yet a vast majority of the time, the fruit will be left to drop and rot, perfect fodder for squirrels, yellow jackets and hungry deer, but seen as somehow less than their shiny supermarket counterparts, and therefore unfit and unworthy of human consumption. Have we lost our minds?

Yet another article (I've been reading a lot...) discusses just how much food we Americans waste on account of our acquired snobbiness and our reckless there's always more where that came from attitude. To illustrate just how insanely, ridiculously picky we've become as food shoppers, the article offers this bit of advice to producers and retailers for taking better advantage of "imperfect" produce -

Companies should look for alternatives in their supply chain, such as making so-called baby carrots out of carrots too bent to be sold whole at the retail level.

*Shakes Head* This is for real. People are going without and we're splitting hairs over carrot presentability. Phase two of my emotional reaction to this article (after weeping interspersed with multiple face-palms) was anger. I'm pissed, and that makes me loud, especially when it comes to things I feel passionately about. Taking care of people is one of those things.

I am only one person, but I am 100% responsible for choosing the food eaten by 4 people, 2 dogs, 20 chickens, 9 goats, 2 bunnies, 2 parakeets and one sassy turtle, therefore, my resolve to use food responsibly and with thanks has an impact that should not be, and indeed, is not taken lightly. I can participate in the system that keeps these problems going, or I can refuse, and take care of my family and farm on terms that both my head and my heart can live with.

Therefore, I resolve to grow, buy and use food even more responsibly than I have. I will buy less, grow and forage more, preserve more and use the food we do buy, find and grow as fully as can be done, and with all the respect it deserves.

Please join me.

Has your food been "slimed"?

Photos and videos of a substance ominously named "pink slime" have been making the rounds on social networks and in headlines for a few months now. Most of these videos depict a bright pink colored paste that is comprised of mechanically separated meat. Sometimes it's chicken, sometimes beef, pork or turkey, but it is all destined for processed food products, some of which might end up in you or, more likely, your kids' bellies.

Don't believe it? I don't want to either, but here it is, the grisly truth:



If you or your family are eating processed foods that contain this gunk, you are not only eating "cuts" of meat that aren't fit for most dog foods, but you're also consuming a product that has been "cleaned" (aka - soaked in) ammonium hydroxide.

This aspect of the meat processing protocol is obviously not something that fast food restaurants or the USDA think that you need to know about, because they consider it a process, not an ingredient. Are they asking us to believe that no trace of the ammonia remains in the meat after it has been marinated in the stuff? Seriously?

Apparently so, because the USDA has not required any special labeling for processed meat products that have been treated thusly, and it is estimated that up to 70% of the ground beef on the market has been processed this way. The beef and chicken products in your child's school lunch have almost certainly been through this process and the people who choose to purchase this chemical drenched food on behalf of you and your kids have the nerve to refer to it as "safe" and "wholesome". !!!

Why would they put caustic chemicals in your food? Because the folks in charge of food safety at the USDA have decided that the minuscule chance that there could be E. coli or Salmonella contamination in your meat products necessitates carpet-bombing it with caustic sterilizers. If meat is raised, slaughtered and handled with care and common sense cleanliness practices instead of living it's life knee deep in sewage in a CAFO and then cranked through a rendering plant, the odds of it ever needing such extreme treatments are virtually none. Fear has brought us here, but isn't this "food" what we should be afraid of?

My very favorite food crusader, Jamie Oliver, breaks it down in the video below. Please watch, and better yet - show it to your kids. I'm very conscious of the food my kids eat, but watching this has made me want to redouble my efforts to keep these "foods" out of my kids' mouths and bellies.



I became a farmer in part to ensure that I knew exactly what was going into my family's mouths. Obviously, not everyone can take that route. The steps that anyone can take to avoid and reject this notion of food are these-

Stay informed! Read labels, ask hard questions. You have every right to know the story behind your food.

Advocate! Let the people who are making these food choices on behalf of us all know that these are unacceptable practices. Make your preference for truly wholesome, recognizable food known!

Reject! Refuse to eat or serve foods made with these highly processed ingredients. For me, this will mean packing my kids' lunches everyday. A great pass/fail test for food - if your Grandma wouldn't recognize the ingredients, don't eat it!

Food For All!

"Food for All" was the mantra of a conference on food quality and equity that I attended this past weekend, the Sustainable South Sound Food Summit.

It was primarily a brainstorming session on the six topics that comprise the "Whole Measures Food Systems" concept. The six core ideas that comprise a Whole Food System are-

*Justice and Fairness
*Thriving Local Economies
*Vibrant Farms
*Healthy People
*Strong Communities
*Sustainable Ecosystems

Before breaking into groups to discuss the specific topics within the whole measures food system, we were provided some statistics about the current state of our county and state as related to family and individuals' access to wholesome food (farmers markets, grocery stores, food banks, meals on wheels, etc.), SNAP benefits (food stamps) and the WIC program. I was surprised and saddened to hear that in my wonderful, progressive community, that 1 in 10 people are still "food insecure", meaning that at any given time, they do not know where their next meal is coming from.

How can this be, in the land of plenty?

The other stat that literally sent gasps up in the room was that more than 50% of SNAP benefits are redeemed at convenience stores. I find that heartbreaking.

It would be a gross oversimplification, and indeed simply unfair to say that these convenience store shoppers are all frittering away their food budget on junk foods. The fact of the matter is, that many of the citizens that qualify for these benefits also face challenges with transportation, and therefore utilize convenience stores more often, simply because of their convenient location and 24/7 accessibility.

It can't be ignored though, that some do choose to use their food dollars on non-nutritive choices like soda, sports drinks and snack foods (as do an alarming number of non-food stamp users), and are thereby really not taking the best advantage of their food dollar.

So the challenge on this particular front is multi-faceted.

1 - How do we make better choices more accessible to everyone - our elderly, shut-ins, latchkey kids, homeless, working parents, students, etc.? Everyone.

2 - How can we make wholesome foods competitive with pre-packaged, ready-to-eat convenience foods like chips, hot dogs, lunchables, candy, etc., as far as ease of preparation, portability, price point and so forth?

3 - How do we cultivate a taste for good food in populations that have grown used to eating substandard, highly processed "foods"?

4 - (And this is one of my major pet peeves) How do we remove the stigma that organic and whole foods are upscale or unattainable luxuries?

Keep in mind that this is just one of many aspects of the emerging food crisis. If Fritos and Twinkies weren't made with federally subsidized GMO crops, they wouldn't be cheaper than their wholesome counterparts. So without going too crazy-political on you, I'd encourage you to think about, and learn more about our country's highly flawed farm bill, and how it has, after starting out with the best of intentions, become one of the smaller-scale, non-"big Ag" farmer's greatest enemies. Boiling it down to bare bones, our tax dollars are helping "Big Ag" turn out soulless, nutritionally inferior, cloned food. :(

I could probably go on forever about my feelings and ideas surrounding farming, food and food policy, but in the interest of getting this post up, after laboring over and pecking at it for nearly a week now, I'm going to hit publish post now, with the promise that I will be back to finish this thought/tirade another time. :)

The Battle Hymn of the Chicken Mother

Today my mood/health pendulum has swung back in the direction of blehh. I'm having another one of my sleep-a-thon weeks, and my dag-gum sinuses are back at it again. I feel very guilty on days like these when I am a total sniffling, snorting couch potato, even knowing that my fatigue is legit, because I feel like I'm not giving 100% to my family, critters, friends and other commitments. I baled on being an usher at Junior Programs today, now that, my friends, is lazy.

But laziness and fatigue don't win the day altogether. When I reflect on what I get done around here, even on a sick day, well, I don't feel so bad. Here's what I did today -

6:30 - Wake up, shower
6:55 - Wake kiddos
7:00 - Loaf on the couch half asleep, directing children to eat their breakfast and get a move on.
7:30 - Additional child badgering. Seriously, who takes 30 minutes to eat a piece of toast?
7:40 - Send kids out for critter patrol, start preparing goat rations.
8:00 - Go chip frozen goat water. Attempt to top off goat water, only to find that the hoses have all frozen overnight. Bring a 5-gallon bucket into the shower to fill with warm water.
8:05 - Carry 40 pounds of sloshing water a few hundred yards through semi-frozen mud to very thirsty goats.
8:20 - Kids finish getting ready for school as I bellow reminders to pack library books and brush teeth.
8:30 - Drive kids to school.
8:40 - Fall asleep on the couch while Facebooking. :(
10:30 - Wake up in a panic remembering that I'm supposed to be at Jr Programs in an hour. Decide to beg out, since I feel like I've been kicked in the face by an elephant, and could go for another nap.
11:00 - Finally give up on 2nd nap out of guilt for not having done laundry or gone to give my critters a proper visit yet today. Grrr...
11:10 - Bring snacks to the goaties and get my snuggles, bring bread and lettuce to the hens (who are locked in the run do to high hawk activity) and am greeted with soft clucks and much flapping.
Noon - Start laundry that I should have done yesterday. Oops.
Noon 'til 2ish - Drifting throughout the house doing weird little odds and ends that I'd never really think about as "chores", per say, like misting my shiitake mushroom patch, sterilizing the syringes for Chardy's antibiotic shots, digging up all of the books and dvd's that need to be returned to the library (Seriously - with the late fees I pay, they could build a wing of the library in our family's name.), taking out something for dinner, composing a grocery list, etc., etc.

Not too bad for a lazy day! It sure as heck helps to have a very supportive husband, kids who are old enough to dress themselves and tell time, a pizza man on speed dial and a lot of very supportive friends and family. They carry through my physical/emotional funks until I can get myself sorted out again.

So next time you get frustrated with yourself for not being on top of your game, take a minute to really think through what you've done with your day. We do more than we realize, even when we're not 100%. And it's worth remembering that acclaim and perfection aren't really what mothering is about. I'll take my loving, imperfect, spunky lovebugs over uptight, overachieving, high strung superstars any day. I am a Chicken Mom. I fawn over my babies, but don't hold them so close that they can't experience the world for themselves. I try to make the best nest that I can for them, but encourage them to also seek their own adventures, often against my own better judgement. I let them know that I love and accept them a million different ways, and they do the same for me. I'm allowed lazy days on the couch, because of the people and support systems that I am surrounded with, two of whom I gave birth to. They take me as I am and I them, or we all try to at least. They are growing up to be good people with good hearts and love and empathy to spare, and imperfect me and my underachieving ways had a hand in that. Take that, Tiger Mom.

Tell our President to stop GMO alfalfa!

Here is a link to a site called Take Action, (which I found via Organic Gardening Magazine) hosting an email campaign to plead for President Obama's intervention in the scheduled release of genetically modified alfalfa. If you value the very concept of organic, unmolested foods, then stopping GMO alfalfa from being released is imperative.

Alfalfa is the mainstay of most dairy animals as well as other creatures - anything that eats grass, hay or pellets - cows, sheep, goats, horses, rabbits, even guinea pigs and hamsters - are consumers of alfalfa to some degree. Genetically modified alfalfa presents a risk to our country's ENTIRE alfalfa supply, as it's pollen can easily be spread and contaminate neighboring organic/non-GMO alfalfa, as has been the case with GMO soy.

Montsanto's GMO products have a long and ugly history of destroying biological diversity and wiping out organic/non-gmo farms with their legal bullying. (Google "Montsanto" and note that the auto-fill result #2 is "Montsanto evil".)

I could rail on this topic for days, but will instead simply ask you to look into it for yourself and offer you some resources for doing so.

Movies (Most of which are available through Netflix, if not your local library.)

*Food Inc.
*The Botany of Desire
*Food Matters

Books (Some of these books are old favorites, some have come highly recommended and are on my library waiting list.)

*The Omnivore's Dilemma
*Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
*Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness
*The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture

Online

* Wikipedia's entry on GMO's A basic introduction to concept & process genetically modifying organisms.
*Organic Farming Research Foundation
*Non-GMO Project Information on third party certified, GMO-free products and information about the risks involved in growing and using GMO crops.
* Agricultural Giant Battles Small Farmers, CBS News
*OrganicConsumers.org A call to action against Montsanto and the Obama administration's green-lighting widespread use of GMO seed in agriculture, and to require "truth in labeling" of products produced with genetically modified plants and animals.


Here is Take Action's pre-written letter, including my additions (the last two paragraphs) below. If you are as impassioned about this matter as I am, I urge you to send your own letter and get the word out to other to please do the same.

Dear President Obama,


The USDA has approved Monsanto's Roundup Ready genetically engineered alfalfa. This is the wrong decision and will likely lead to wide spread contamination of other crops, including organic alfalfa. You have the power to stop this. I urge you to reject the USDA's approval of genetically engineered alfalfa.

I care about the integrity of the food I eat, and don't want organic and other non-genetically engineered crops to be contaminated by genetically engineered alfalfa. Please take immediate action to stop this approval.

Once this frightening genie is out of the bottle, there is no going back. Please don't let hard working, small organic farmers like me and my family down by forever tainting American alfalfa solely for the benefit of a corporation who has no one's interests at heart but their own.

I have faith that you will do the right thing and stop GMO alfalfa from being released. Please don't let us down!

Sincerely,
Michelle Jackson,
Boggy Hollow Farm

SPEAK NOW and stop this irreversible agent from permanently altering another precious life form! Save your food!!!

Give Your Garbage the Granola Treatment

Since so many folks choose this time of a year to try new things, I thought this the perfect opportunity to challenge you to "Granola your Garbage".

This is going to be an ongoing lecture series of posts about different aspects of reducing waste in your household by recycling, composting, reusing/re-purposing and changing your shopping habits. To the existing mantra of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, I'd add Refuse and Reach Out.

Today's post is about Refusing. Some of these suggestions are probably already alive and well in your household. If you see something listed here that you haven't tried before, think it over. Every little bit honestly does help, so where's the harm? ;)

Ways to Refuse to contribute to over consumption and waste -

*When shopping -

*Refuse to have your item/s bagged at the store if you have just one or two items or for something that is already well packaged. Why do I need a plastic bag to contain my 4-pack of toilet paper again?

*When you're buying produce - do you really need one of those flimsy plastic bags for a two apples or a bunch of bananas? If you really do need one, consider bringing a few from home instead. I even use old bread bags to hold my more loosey-goosey produce or bulk items. Granola-friendly places like food co-ops and farmers markets won't blink twice when you pull out your crinkly old bread bag or reusable plastic container to carry your green beans or walnuts home in.

*Use sustainably produced reusable shopping bags whenever possible. This one falls in between reuse and refuse. The main problem with reusable shopping bags for most folks is that they often forget to bring them into the store when they shop. The way that I manage to remember to bring mine shopping is to fold them up and jam them in my purse just as soon as I empty them at home. Then, the next time I go anywhere in the car, grocery store or not, they go back to the car with me via my purse and are tossed onto the front passenger seat, where I can see and (theoretically, at least) remember them. The bottom line here is, refuse to create waste by using reusable goods whenever possible. For every plastic bag you take home, another one has to be made. Take yourself out of that cycle.

Remember too, that reusable bags aren't just for the grocery store. I also bring mine into Target, the library, Costco, etc.

*Refuse to buy items with excessive packaging. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to buy in bulk, though you can save money and materials when you do. You can refuse to pay for wasteful packaging by buying bagged refills for things like hand soap, household cleaners (if you don't make your own), etc.

Kids' toys are a real killer on the packaging front too. It has been my personal experience that the more tie downs, wire twists and styrofoam inside of a toy's package, the more that-

a) That toy is likely cheaply made (but not cheaply bought), less sturdy, non-educational and generally devoid of redeeming value. It'd also probably survive a nuclear holocaust intact. I'm lookin' at you, Barbie.

b) You can bet your sweet bippy that that toy came from the other side of the planet and was thusly packaged for it's incredible journey.

*Refuse to buy goods made from endangered, war-torn and virgin sources. I've been buying recycled paper products for several years now, and according to this sign I saw in (of all places) the bathroom stall at the Seattle Aquarium-



I'm saving trees left and right! :) Our household uses recycled paper, tissues, toilet paper and paper towels and I have no complaints about their quality.

On the dramatically darker side of this same coin, we have the other two categories, endangered and war-torn sources. I myself would a million times rather go without than think about anyone or anything suffering for my comfort. My husband has an acquaintance from Sierra Leone who has told him before that the movie "Blood Diamond" wasn't too far off from what was happening in his hometown. That put me off of diamonds for good! Baubles are pretty, but people are dying for our vanity.

The same goes for endangered plants and animals and anything else that is irresponsibly harvested or produced. If you can get by with a kinder, gentler alternative, or better yet, just go without, why wouldn't you?

I'm certainly not perfect and don't expect you to be. I'm just asking you to consider consuming with a conscience. Pause for just a minute before buying and think of your kids, your grandkids, etc. Is this moments comfort worth losing a given resource forever? Is it worth some else's having to go without?

Up next in this series - Reach Out. :)

It's the Water - Keepin' it Real, Oly-style

Even if you've never been to, never heard of my home town of Olympia, odds are you've still heard of our beer.



Olympia Beer has always been considered a working-man's type of beer. A simple, refreshing lager, who's biggest selling point, as well as it's slogan was "the water". The brewery was located right next to the Deschutes river, and essentially right on top of one of our city's many artesian springs, thus providing multiple sources of naturally ultra-pure water for brewing. Leopold Schmidt, the founder of the Olympia brewery, recognized that starting with pure, crystal-clear artesian water was the key to making a superior beer. Around here, it seems that people agreed. Olympia beer was once carried by nearly every tavern and pub in the Pacific Northwest and was the preferred beer for my Grandpa's generation. Alas, long story short, the Schmidt family sold the brewery, which eventually ended up being owned by Miller (who was at that time partly owned by the evil Philip Morris Company), who rather quickly after purchasing the plant, decided that it wasn't profitable enough and summarily shuttered the brewery for good, choosing instead to brew Olympia beer out of it's Irwindale, California plant.

If you're still with me after this seemingly random crash course in the ups and downs of our local beer, hang in there, I'm getting to my point. ;)

The basis, the inspiration and the slogan for Olympia beer has always been "It's the Water", and once upon a time it was. Now the artesian wells that used to supply and endless flow of naturally perfect water sit unused, their precious water re-routed to storm drains and sewage pipes, an utter waste. Meanwhile, Miller is making our city's beer with God knows what kind of municipal, probably chlorinated, fluoridated water that they simply filter the bejeezus out of. It's not the same.

And so after paragraphs of rambling and bitching, I finally arrive at my point. I will not go gently into that good night. I am an Olympia girl, born and raised and a tree-hugging granola to boot. There still exist just a handful of the once abundant artesian spring wells around town, the best known of which is in a downtown parking lot, of all places, flowing quite unglamourously out of crooked pipe, burbling 24/7 for anyone who wants a cool drink. And many do! People bring empty milk jugs and giant Culligan water bottles down to the Diamond Lot to fill with the one-of-a-kind water. Local restaurants boast about serving the artesian water. It's reputation is such that it is a selling point for them.

So, when Bill and I held our mini brew-fest this past weekend, it was a no-brainer that we would use the artesian water as the basis for our wine and beer. It may not be fancy, but the difference in taste - especially when compared with our well water - is obvious. The result is a better, purer-tasting brew, with the fringe benefit of stickin' it to the man. Awww yeahhh....

And so it is with my stubborn, hippy chick, fight-the-power attitude that a new, finnicky generation of home brewers like us insist on sticking by the old ways for the sake of (barring any brewing mishaps) a superior brew. I think you'll agree that not only is it the water that makes all the difference, but the passion for the craft.

If you ever find yourself in our soggy little neck of the woods, stop by and have a pint of Bill's Pilsner (tentatively named "The Billsner") or a glass of my rhubarb wine and tell me if you can taste the difference. ;)

Can All You Can

I came upon these old war-era posters from Good Potato via (not so) Urban Hennery.

I sure wish that more people felt the same way about farming and conservation these days. Why does it seem to take times of great need or strife to get people to do what they ought to do every day anyway?

Enjoy the images, and check out www.good-potato.com for more neat old posters.

Queen of the Compost Heap

When it comes to garbage and recycling, I can be a little neurotic. I hesitate to label myself OCD, and yet I definitely have my neuroses about most things "trash" related.

With our diaper days long behind us, our family of four now generates a modest 35-gallons of garbage (as in, that destined for a landfill) every two weeks. Try as I might to whittle that number further down, with holidays, spring cleaning, purging closets and what-not, I almost always manage to nearly fill our 35-gallon can by trash day. Though I'd love to be producing even less trash, I already drive myself - not to mention my family members - quite crazy with my militant recycling and composting rules.

In spite of my kids having been raised from day one of their lives knowing about the rules and importance of recycling, I am still forever fishing perfectly recyclable items out of our trash cans that they have wantonly tossed. I know it's a little nutty to dig an empty paper towel roll out of the garbage, but my conscience honestly can't stomach throwing away forever something that has at least one more incarnation left in it. And don't even get me started on throwing away food - that has spawned a madness all its own.

An example of this would be what I call my compost hierarchy.

When it comes to kitchen scraps, the order is this -

If the food item can be eaten by a chicken, rabbit or turtle, the critters get first dibs. I figure that I'll be getting this back for the compost heap eventually anyway, at least in the case of the hens and the bunnies, in an enhanced form, no less.

If it can't be eaten by the critters, and isn't meat, dairy or bread product, then it goes into the Worm bin (our "cool" compost pile*). We end up putting a lot of egg shells, onion peels (that chickens shouldn't eat), coffee grounds and spoiled fruits & veggies in this bin. (*We also have a "hot" compost pile, which I'll delve into on another day.)

If it can't be eaten by critters or put into the worm bin, it goes into what our city calls the "organics bin". The organics bin is largely responsible for our household's reduction in garbage. We're allowed to put otherwise uncompostable items like meat, dairy & bread products, as well as "food soiled paper"/aka drive-thru packaging, Starbucks cups, pizza boxes, paper towels, etc., into the bin. We also put undesirable yard waste like dandelions gone to seed and blackberry brambles into the organics bin, as the city processes the lot through a massive, high heat digester that can break down and combine all of these materials, rendering a "soil-like" product (their words, not mine).

The result of all these rules and sorting is that -

A) We have cut our landfill garbage contribution more than half in the past year.

B) Between free-ranging and supplementing with kitchen scraps, our animals eat better food and cost us less to feed.

C) We save a bundle by making our own compost.

D) We have begun a symbiotic relationship between our soil, plants and animals, along the lines of permaculture gardening, wherein we feed our animals and ourselves, as much as possible, what we grow on our own land. We use collected rainwater to irrigate, fallen leaves and needles to mulch, and chicken & bunny poo to fertilize the very same plants that will feed us all. The same is basically true for the chickens, we feed them, and they feed us, and on it goes.

So in the end, I really do feel like all of the nagging and uptight compost sorting is worth the trouble. My garden and critters are happy and well fed, and I shave a few bucks off of the garbage bill every month, but most of all, I have an easier time living with myself when I know that I'm doing what's healthiest and just plain right for the land and for the lives in my charge.

This is not a stunt!

I've been struggling to find my energy and motivation to get up and get things done around here lately, mainly in the garden, but also around the house. I'd really like to organize and simplify, since physically ordered things in my environment seem to have a direct impact on reducing my mental clutter.

In my search for motivation & energy, I've upped my vitamin D intake, bought some fresh flowers for the house and have taken to reading more books on the subject of simplifying, taking control and otherwise sorting out one's life. Unfortunately, more and more of these books that lure me in with their supposed tales and tips of a streamlined and fulfilling life are really just "stunt books".

Two of the best known of these stunt books are Julie & Julia, and my beloved Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. In A,V,M, the author challenges her family to adhere to a relatively strict set of rules for living a low impact lifestyle for a set period of time - one year. Though I really do love that book and found it highly motivating at this time last year, in the wake of its success, a landslide of less than stellar copycats have hit the market and I just keep on falling for 'em, only to be disappointed by how shallow and insincere that most of them turn out to be.

The latest such book touted "live better with less!". Naturally, I had to check it out. Yeah... no.

The author chose one item/service/habit to give up for one month at a time for a year. Some of her sacrifices included giving up reading the New York Times for a month, not eating chocolate, not swearing, etc. Another title follows a woman's "experiment" to live her life per the doctrine of Oprah. While there's nothing wrong with experimenting with changes in one's lifestyle and habits, I find these sorts of choices being represented as meaningful or worse still as "sacrifice" to be downright offensive. If you want to try something new in your life, go for it! If it works out, great! If not, well, it was worth trying. However, not every half-baked crack at being a vegan, buying a farm or giving up coffee deserves a book deal. It completely devalues the actual sacrifice and hard work of good folks trying to improve their lives and change the world for the sake of bettering it, not for just landing themselves a fat paycheck.

This appliance will self-destruct in 3 ...2 ...

We've been having clothes dryer issues lately, which may or may not be attributable to a rodent of some sort making a home in our crawlspace. The dryer's misbehavior coincided with the discovery of the varmint break-in, thereby leading us to believe that the two were connected. About the time that the mystery critter started living under the house, the dryer stopped venting to the outside, and began making a weird high-pitched whine. One friend suggested that our dryer hose might have been obstructed by a nest or a stash of winter walnuts, so we took things apart and checked them out. Even after thoroughly cleaning and re-sealing the dryer vent hose, the dryer is still producing the weird noise, but seems to be drying clothes well enough. So I'm debating on calling out the dryer repair man to see what's what, and I am positively dreading it.

If you have needed a service call for an appliance lately, you'll be familiar with all of the little joys that accompany it - the vague appointment time, the minimum service charge, and often in my experience, the cranky attitude. Am I the only one who feels like I pay $90+ to have an insolent little old man come into my home and shame me for the way I treat my appliances? As if that weren't irritating enough, add to that the fact that with increasing frequency, any given appliance can be deemed unfixable by virtue of - a) the complexity of accessing the problem area b) the impossibility of obtaining a now-obsolete part c) the cost of repair being the same as or greater than the cost of replacing the appliance altogether.

This "problem" is actually a well-designed scheme called Planned Obsolescence that exists to encourage our consumption of the "latest and greatest" that the world of technology has to offer, and trading heaps of money for heaps of trash. It is so commonplace that even the most steadfastly Granola among us is likely to question the wisdom of fixing a however-many-years-old clothes dryer for $300 or buying a spanking-new energy efficient one for four hundred.

But what happens to the old one? Why is that one little cog so complicated and expensive that it is worth everyones while to junk a hundred-plus pounds of metal and plastic in favor of another that will also, inevitably fail? We covet shiny new things, and the manufacturers and marketers of the world have seized upon that by designing products with an inborn propensity for failure. They don't want you to repair your microwave, they want you to toss it out and upgrade. Have you ever even heard of anyone repairing a microwave?

This is just another area where our culture has given in to our lazier nature and taken the path of least resistance, and we need to stop it, NOW. Next time you're faced with repairing or replacing an appliance or anything else, take just a few seconds to think about the process that your choice sets in motion and the consequences of it.

Ok - I'll get down off of the soapbox now and back away slowly... for now.

For more info and opinions on the evils of planned obsolescence -

The New York Times, December 10, 2008

These Days in French Life - A wonderful blog - one of my very favorites! (Update - Unfortunately Rianna has decided to no longer publish her blog publicly.)