A Blessed Wandering Mind

I am so very blessed to have a mind that always wanders and never stops! Over the past two weeks, my mind has been jumping around from making my own granola (thanks to my last epiphany) to canning and jamming harvested foods, and now to harvesting useful herbs that I’ve found in what I  thought was an ungodly overgrowth of weeds. This weekend I was able to purchase the National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to Wildflowers (Eastern edition of course) and decided to get right to work identifying what all the flowers were that I was seeing in my jumble of unsightly overgrowth.

View one to the left below my porch that has the most flowers and….

View two to the right which is where I would like to put the garden in next year. A lot of work, I know!

So I knew I had a lot of milkweed (which I knew from last fall, but it was this spring I realized what their flowers looked like), some morning glories, daisies, and of course typical stuff like ragweed, but there were a number of other flowers I didn’t know. My new book helped me out on that.

What a surprise I had last night when I easily identified the yellow flowers to the left in the first photo as common St. John’s Wort! During the winter I take capsules of the stuff which costs me more than $10 a month when the stuff is growing right in my backyard! Needless to say, this got my mind to thinking about harvesting some of it and using that this winter! For those who don’t know much about St. John’s Wort, it’s a wonderful little flower that helps with mild to moderate depression, seasonal and full-time, and anxiety- for me it’s perfect for kicking my mild winter blues. I encourage you to research it a little online if you are interested in learning more about it.

So here begins my next lesson: harvesting medicinal herbs. There will be more to come on this, I’m sure!

Epiphany About Processed Foods

To say that I didn’t know that processed foods are worse for you than whole foods would be a lie. But I admit that I didn’t quite know why. It was this morning, when I was eating my heavily processed corn flake cereal, that a collection of seemingly unconnected bits of data came together into one large and organized jumble of “why”.

I’ve recently started reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and although only partially thought it, I’ve learned a lot about our society’s food systems already, and am thoroughly enjoying it. It was on his section about over processing of corn that I finally realized why processed foods are less nutritious: because they are so heavily broken down to the smallest and most simplest of edible particles that there really isn’t anything left to them. Think of it like cooking vegetables. Your greatest amount of possible nutrients are usually in their raw form. But we tend to like them better (and digest them better) when they are slightly cooked. That’s okay, but of course, the more we cook it, the more nutrients are lost- that’s why quick boiling, or better yet, steaming are best. Just think about overcooked broccoli- it turns to mush, falls apart in the water, and a lot of your once whole broccoli (let alone the nutrients) is no longer easily scooped up to be eaten. This is what happens to processed food! So much so, that a lot of foods (in Pollan’s case, corn products such as cereals) have a later step of reintroducing synthetically produces vitamins and mineral to the food product!

So simply put, the less processed your food it, the more “whole” it is. The more “whole” it is, the more nutrition remains intact, and the better it is for you. Ta-da! A simple explanation, but one I never really learned. There is so much that this book is teaching me, so much more than I could ever type. Less than a hundred pages in and I’m already radically changing my thoughts on what I eat. And by radical, I don’t mean changing all my eating habits and going crazy localvore vegan homesteader, I mean, for once I’m finally opening my eyes and paying more attention to everything I’m eating. It’s a very enjoyable experience. I highly recommend the book to everyone as an enjoyable and educational eye-opener.

Decision Made

My experimental porch gardening and one look at mortgage costs was all I needed to make the decision of having a real garden next year.

My bucket plants helped me to know if I had a black thumb or a green one, and as it turns out, it’s not too black afterall! Everything is alive and well, we’ve already ate our first harvest of spinach and planted a second, and the Swiss chard is beautifully out of control. And as for my previous thought, about not putting a lot of work into the weed lot because we would not be here for long, has changed too. I had a depressing moment about a week ago when I looked at how much a mortgage would cost us each month- not a little more than our rent now, but a LOT more. So after I moped awhile and had a few days to get my head level again (I realized just how much I’m always jumping ahead of myself) I came to accept the fact that we have a great place here and will be here a while longer than I first thought. This then triggered me to start making some more permanent changes around here, including the decision of next year’s garden.

I have also been realizing how much more I would like to produce in order to reduce my dependence on other sources of food. Growing a moderate portion of my own food would have so many positive impacts, it would be silly not to. Sure I will have to put a lot of work into it, but not only would I be reducing my cost of food, I’d be putting better tasting and more nutritious food on the table, and be making a huge environmental impact by reducing my carbon footprint- just think of all the transportation involved in produce from the hugely monoculture, pesticide covered fields to the supermarket. And of course, the educational and spiritual aspects of it all will be personally rewarding. I’m always looking for a new way to help ground myself.

So from now through late winter, I’ll be spending my time reading a lot about food and gardening- personal experiences and technical aspects. This will help me to figure out between now and then how much of the weed plot I’ll have to overcome, what to plant, how and when, and all the other ins and outs of the topic. So if any of you have any recommendations on books or sources of some kind, feel free to comment to let me know!

Taking Advantage of Local

Vermont’s fruit season arrived faster than I thought, but now that it’s here, I’m taking advantage of its bounty. Yesterday my husband and I started out morning out with 40 minutes of strawberry picking up at Wellwood Orchards in Springfield. One mounded flat later, we walked out of there with more than enough strawberries to gorge ourselves on all week, a night of daiquiris, a gift for a friend, and six two-cup bags for later use that will be placed in the freezer.

Not only are they better tasting than those bought in the supermarket, they support local farmers which support your community’s economy, and they are WAY cheaper! How much so? Those large plastic containers (a quart I think) cost usually close to $4.00 in the supermarket. I would estimate that we picked close to the equivalent of ten of those silly plastic containers- maybe more, maybe less, I’m a horrible guesser. But let’s say ten- that would be $40.00 for all that. How much did all of those strawberries cost us? Less than $20.00! The total was around $18.00 for all that. Can you imagine? Getting all that for so little?! Not only do we have plenty to enjoy now, it leaves us with even more for later use for cooking with, or we love to use them for smoothies through the summer, fall, and if we are lucky, in the winter too! So there you have it, a practical, cheap, and environmentally and local friendly practice. Way to feel good about a choice!

I have to post a few more pictures of a cute and amazing little tool I picked up at the same time we paid for our berries. It’s made specifically for hulling strawberries and only cost me $0.99! If you’re interested, click the “more” link below to see this super great little guy!

Economic Changes: Food

Food: we love to eat it, but now we hate to buy it. Not only are Americans having to dish out more for heating fuel and gasoline, two of the greatest staples in our consumer “diet”, but now even the cost of food is on the up! I ask you, is there any relief? Not as long as the price of fuel stays high and we continue to ship our food hundreds and thousands of miles to get to consumers. A new motive to buy local, yes, but that’s not the focus of this article.

You can’t deny it. If you do any type of grocery shopping, there is no doubt you have felt the impact of the gradual and not so gradual price increases. There is just no way you cannot avoid it because the price of everything is up. Monday’s edition of the Nightly News with Brian Williams even said that food inflation is at an 18-year high! Oh, and don’t forget that all the flooding out west destroyed acre upon acre of crops, so it wont be long until that compounds upon everything else. There is just no way around it, the days of cheap food are gone and we all are going to have to re-examine our meal choices.

But there are still options you can take to reduce the amount you are paying without having to live off of Mac & Cheese or Ramen Noodles. Here I give you ten simple steps that I use to reducing my food bill. And feel free to comment in order to add more that I may not have addressed!

Porch Gardening Update

I realized this afternoon that it had been almost a month since I last posted a photo as to the progress of my experimental plantings, so that must be remedied! All three are growing well, but I can see why you would want to space them out in a real garden setting. The chives are coming up a little thin, but that’s not a real problem, the spinach is really branching out, and the rainbow Swiss chard is really taking off! I’m sure we could eat the spinach right now (why not, baby spinach is very popular) and the chives are ready whenever, but I would much rather prefer waiting another couple weeks before indulging if I can.

So there you have it, porch gardening is possible, though not the same as real in ground gardening. I’m just relieved that I have a green thumb! Whew! I kind of like this kind of thing and am definitely looking into some gardening books. When I find some, and if they are helpful and enjoyable, I’ll be sure to post them here.

Economic Changes: Credit and Debt

Although not directly an environmental subject, debt is something that has made a huge impression in our current economic situation. A little more than a year ago, commercials on TV and radio were all about private companies wanting to give you money, but today, those ads have almost disappeared. They have been replaced with companies wanting to help you consolidate and get rid of your overwhelming debt. Not only are Americans now being faced with the growing cost of heating fuel, gasoline, and food (the topic of my next entry), but they are also having to deal with their existing and growing debt. And it doesn’t matter if you owe a credit card company a couple hundred dollars, or a private institution thousands, it can be an extremly stressful and challenging issue to face.

At 23, I have come to the realization that it is near impossible to not live without some debt in your life. It really is a situation of “if it’s not one thing, it’s another.” Credit cards, student loans, mortgages, personal, medical, and automotive loans, these are only a few of the sources of debt that everyone in this country is facing. It’s impact on the current economy is huge, and even a snippet from VPR this this past morning morning says that some analysts (sorry for the vagueness, it was only caught on my way back from grabbing my coffee) are saying that the credit problem we see today will reverberate through the economy for at least another 2 to 4 years. This makes sense even to me, because if you have substantial debt, you know that you cannot get out of it in a matter of months, let alone a year.

I face the issue of growing debt every day. For me, it’s two credit card bills and a massive student loan. Does it stress me out? Yes. Does it at times scare and overwhelm me? Yes. But do I feel as though I have a healthy control over it? Yes. Can everyone get control of their debt? Yes! Let me share some of my strategies.

Economic Changes: Gasoline

As the cost per barrel of petroleum rises, not only is heating fuel on the rise, but it’s sister, gasoline, is also on the up. In a matter of days, everywhere will see regular grade gasoline hit a record high of $4.00 a gallon, if not there already. Here, we only have three cents to go, and that could very well change today. Stuck in our routines, most of us know about how much it should cost us a week to fuel our vehicles. That is, until the prices start changing. Now the $20 that use to fuel us all week is only lasting a few days. Now we’re pumping $30 or more into our tank every week, and that could quickly change as well. With a tight budget, and plenty of other rising cost concerns, we all need to figure out a way to reduce our gasoline consumption.

With a budget to be concerned about, you cannot go out and purchase a new vehicle that is more fuel efficient than the one you currently have. If you live in a rural area, you probably wont be able to find and use public transportation. And if you really live far out there, in what some of us call the “boonies”, you probably wont try to bike to work. So, what can you do to reduce your cost and dependence when none of the conventional “tips” seem to be plausible? I’m finding it to be a lot harder than I thought, but I’ve found that every little ounce of energy saved does make a big difference.

Economic Changes: Heating Fuel

Winters in New England can be brutal. They dominate over the other seasons and seem to last forever. Sometimes we get lucky with short stretches of mild temperatures, but there is no way to get through the winter without some sort of heat source. Electric, solar, gas, oil, or wood are all options, but once your home is outfitted for one system, it can be expensive to change. However, changing your heating system is possible and can be worth the high initial investment, especially if you rely primarily on oil.

Although change is possible for some, many fail to realize the limited options of those who live in apartment buildings. Tenants have some say in how they want to live, but really it is up to the landlord to make the major decisions, including the type of heating system set up. For thousands in the northeast, that means having to purchase fuel oil even if they can’t afford it or want to use it. It becomes a necessary evil. Are there any options for tenants who need to watch their budget and may want to reduce their environmental impact? Yes. Welcome to the winter of 2007-2008 in my old, energy inefficient Vermont apartment.

Economic Changes: Introduction

We hear it every day. No matter where you choose to get your news, there is always talk about how the economy is changing. Typically, it’s for the worse. As oil prices rise, so do the prices of fuel and food. As costs are increasing, bills jump, savings drop, and everything that we thought we had a grasp on begins to slip away. The housing market is down. No one wants to give out loans anymore. Bill collectors seem to be everywhere. And despite what anyone says, it’s hard to adjust quick enough to cope with all this.

We are creatures of comfort and habit. If someone tells us that we have to change something we do in a manner that makes one aspect of our life a little less convenient, we tend to have a problem with that. So when our life demands that we change everything we do, all at once, and in a manner that can seem almost painful, we freak out. Thanks to our oil-reliant nation, many of us are at a point where we’re screaming for help.

Many of us are facing situations that we can’t easily change. How can you carpool or bike to work when you live in the middle of nowhere? How do you reduce your gasoline consumption when you live far from everything? How do you change your heating choices when you live in an apartment? And what do you do when you have a small budget and all the advisable changes that are meant to “help” and way out of reach?? I face these problems everyday and am trying to challenge them. The next few entries will address some of these problems.