Free Money

The time is coming soon where we each get $600 from the government ($1200 for me and austin)...I don't really get it, but anyway...

I read a really interesting blog post on consumerism that prompted me thinking...

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2008/04/29/the-gratitude-economy/

What will I spend my check on? Although I am inspired by the authors pledge to give the money to charity, I'm not sure I'm that noble. Some housemates of mine have said they will spend theirs on the local economy only by spending it at small local businesses. I thought this was a great idea, but not really sure what I could buy from a local small business. Then again, I may just spend it on starting my own local, small business, but that's another story.

Or, since I've been thinking about buying local food lately but have struggled with the expensiveness of it, maybe I could use it for the following which could move us toward the 100 mile diet (we are inheriting a chest freezer which will help make this possible):

1 CSA veggie share, 1 fruit share: $360 + $100 (http://www.groundworklawrence.org/English%20Docs%20no%20work%20trade.pdf)

1 CSA winter share: $225 (http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M12580)

1/2 pig (butchered of course): $2.40/lb based upon hanging weight plus the slaughter house processing fees, Slaughter Fees: $12.50 per half, .30 per pound for cutting and packaging (based upon hanging weight) .07 per pound for disposal (based upon 50% of hanging weight) and any smoking and bacon slicing charges (typically around $20.00 for half a hog). = (2.4 +.3 +.07 )/lb x 80 lbs +12.50 + 20 = $254. 10 (http://winrosefarm.com/pigs.htm)

weekly fresh eggs: $4.50/dozen x 52 weeks = $234 (http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M20068)

several chickens: $12/chicken (4-5 lbs) x ?15 chickens = $180

Several bags of dried beans: ?$100 (http://www.meadowsmirth.com/index.html)

1 bag local flour: from Upingill Farm, in Gill, MA: ?$50

Total: $1278.10

Ok, so I'll have to spend $78 of my own money, but that's not too bad...

I still have to find some local cheeses and a local milk supplier, but it's a start :-)

What will you spend your $1200 on???

***update*** well, we ended up spending our money on starting our own small business, we'll have to buy the food next year :-)

80's Party!

Well, if there's one thing that's awesome about having a huge house full of people, its having a huge party! Friday we had an awesome time partying it up in 80's style. Here are some pics, and there are many more but I didn't want to put up too many pics of people without permission...so here's just a sampling...

Ah, 80's food, hmm, it seems like we all just ate junk in the 80's

Eating Developments

I've been thinking a lot about food lately. Back in Early Febuary I was convinced by a friend to check out and try the "South Beach Diet". Now on first hearing this title I was not convinced since I've done all sorts of things like this before and have always failed and gotten very grumpy (including a very brief trial of eating only fruits and veggies before a trip to Virginia Beach that resulted in an emotional breakdown and lasted a mere 2 days). But, I read the book and was quickly convinced that this was a way of eating that made sense for my health so I gave it a two week trial. The basic premise is just to give up all processed foods, sugar, and saturated fats. So, I've been eating lean meats and dairy, lots of veggies, some fruit (lower sugar ones), nuts, whole grain breads, and I guess that's about it (except all the cheating I tend to do on weekends)

That was over 2 months ago. I lost 8-9 lbs in the first month and have stayed at that since; so that was pretty cool. I've actually learned a lot of new cooking skills, especially ways to make veggies tast good. And, I've actually lowered my trigycerides and cholesterol significantly.

Anyway, that's just the background for this post. Since I've been thinking a lot more about eating foods in their natural state, I've been thinking about what's in food and where it comes from. Also, my recent gardening has prompted me to think about maybe growing some of my own stuff (although I've failed in that area in the past as well). And I'm starting to become a proponent of anything local and non-corporate.

So, today, Austin and I went to the library and got some books out that have already started to fascinate me. Here are the four we've checked out:

Plenty: One man, One woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally.

This book is also known as the 100 mile-diet. I've gotten about 50 pages into it and already want to give it a try. The 100 mile-diet means eating only items that are grown or raised within 100 miles of where you live. It sounds awefully difficult, but so fascinating and fun. We've been talking for a while about buying a whole pig or cow from a local farm, getting it butchered (yes, mom and dad I know we could do this ourselves, but it so much easier this way), and keeping the various cuts in a chest freezer until we eat it all up.

2nd book: Solar Gardening: Growing Vegetables Year-Round the American Intensive Way.

This book may just help my green-thumb develop. There detailed instructions on many things, and we are planning on building a little green-house in the back of our house off the door to the basement.

3rd book: City Gardening: Planting, Maintaining, and Designing the Urban Garden (no picture online). This one's pretty self- explanatory.

4th book: Good House, Cheap House

This one Austin picked out, since he's always interested in how to build from scratch a super energy efficiant house someday that's super small. This was partially inspired by a Lawrence company: http://www.powerhouse-enterprises.com/

The weather here has been totally awesome so we spent the day at some local gardens reading outside, and planning out when and how we may be able to put our new ideas into practice.

Not so green-thumb :-(

So, I've discovered that I do not have the gift of gardening. No, it will be a skill I will have to practice over and over. My little seedlings were doing wonderfully, all popping up and having about 2-4 leaves each. I decided to bring them down from the attic and start putting them outside during the day for more sun; so I made a stop at the sink to water them a bit. I had some problems using the sprayer from the sink and ended up soaking them a little too much, apparently, since the next morning they were all DEAD! That was several days ago and they are still dead :-(. So I will be starting over from scratch. Oh dear...I need to invest in a spray bottle to avoid this disaster again. I'll update with more pictures when I get new seedlings.

House Retreat

We had our first annual house retreat two weeks ago at a bed and breakfast up in the mountains in NH and it was tons of fun! Here's the guys doing some climbing up some rocks at the Basin.
It sure was beautiful in the snow

Here's our newest house-mates to be this fall who were able to join us
And here's the group before our trip up Mt. Washington in the cog railway
Here's a snow battle between Austin and Dave as close to the top as the train would take us

And this is us at our awesome dinner at the B&B, it was delicious!

New Garden Pics

Here are our seedlings as of Monday, March 24th :-)

Adventures in Gardening

Our third summer in the "Garden" House is approaching, so this year we decided to get prepared nice and early by planting our seeds indoors. Steph and I headed over to a local family-owned garden supply store and were thrilled to have help from the nice owner who told us when we needed to plant which seeds and which containers and soil to get (good thing cause we are clue-less). I've decided to keep track of our progress on the blog, both so I'll be motivated to record things, and so that I may learn and remember things for next year.
I chose mostly herbs and flowers to plant since the year before last we planted several squashes and veggies which were soon gobbled up by our pesky neighbors (a groundhog and several skunks). Also, in our patio area we have sun only from around 11am to 2pm so I don't think it's the greatest place to grow veggies. Therefore, I chose some nice looking flowers to plant that say they grow in shade or part-shade.

Based on the advice of the man at the garden store, here is what we choose to plant on March 8th:

Herbs: Basil, Cilantro, Oregano, Thyme, Savory, Parsley, and Sage
Flowers: Columbine (P), Lobelia (A), Coleus (A), Impatiens (A), and Viola's (A).
Veggies: Eggplant (Steph only)

Here are pics of our completed seed plantings which we placed next to a window in the attic that gets a lot of sun.

Out-side Clean-up

We've had a few warmer days around here (meaning it was above freezing and most of the snow actually melted) so we all have the spring fever feeling again. So, Austin and I headed outside for some early spring outdoor cleaning up in preparation for our summer garden/patio. We had a random mish-mash of dead plants and junk out on our patio which desparately needed some freshening up. And finally, after a several month absence, I have a camera again and was able to take before and afters....so here you go...

Before:

After: Before:After:

Before:After:

Before:
After:

Wild West

We just got back from a trip to the wild west visting Missy's parents. We got to go to Cheyenne for 2 nights and then we spent 2 nights in Estes Park, Colorado on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Forest. We got to see beautiful scenery and some really cool wild animals, as you'll see in our pics:

If you look closely you'll notice a big horn sheep that we saw on the roadside: And here are some coyotes.

We saw about 200 Elk on our drive through part of the national park, here was a large group just chilling out in the road.


And of course, here's the fam in our little cabin we stayed in

Here's a mule deer we also saw standing in the road
It was a nice 4 day vacation but we are very tired from the red-eye flight home. Maybe one of these days we'll visit Wyoming in the summer so we'll get to actually get out of the car and hike a little.

Christmas Tree 07

This saturday the house went out to hunt down this years tree. Since the Christmas Tree Farm we went to last year was turned into soccer fields we had to travel a little further to Haverhill. Here's us getting ready to leave, it was about 20 degrees out with lots of wind. We learned when we called the tree farm that the biggest trees were half price because they were trying to get rid of them. The first tree we saw was one of those and we had our eyes on it from the beginning because it was perfect:
It sure was monsterous, though, measuring in at 11.5ft tall and 9ft in diameter.

We voted, and by a vote of 5 to 2 we chose the HUGE tree. After much sawing, the tree was brought down.

Theo was very interested in this whole process.

We got it in the truck and I think it may actually be bigger than the truck :-)

And finally we got it home and decorated, and cleaned up underneath with Theo's help.

And finally, after all that work we have a beautiful tree :-) that takes up half of our study. Isn't Christmas great?