Meet my Worm Bin!

I'm absurdly excited about the latest addition to my little home: 1,000 red wiggler worms! At this apartment there is no way for me to compost, not having any outdoor spaces and not qualifying for the city's curbside food scrap collection program. I can't abide the idea of throwing biodegradable food scraps in the garbage, so I decided to do what many green-minded apartment-dwellers before me have done: set up a worm-composting bin!

I did a little internet research, and discovered that I already owned everything I needed, apart from the worms themselves. So I went to work on an old rubbermaid bin with a hammer and a big nail, making air holes according to the specifications I had read about. It made an awful racket, but, not owning a drill, this was the next best option.

I put air holes around the rim of the bin, and in the lid, and drain holes in the bottom of the bin. It sits on another non-punctured lid, which catches any liquid and keeps it off the floor.

The basic layout for a worm bin involves a layer of damp shredded newspaper, then the worms and food scraps, then a layer of drier newspaper.

I ordered my worms online, and had them shipped to my office. I only have a tiny mailbox at home, and no porch or stoop for the postman to leave a package on, and anyway it's been so cold that it would be no good for a box of worms to sit outside for even an hour or two. They have to be taken out of the package, watered and put in their new home as soon as possible, having been packed in dry peat and in the mail for three days (they came from the east coast). Since I only work part-time, I put my coworkers on alert that I was expecting a shipment of live worms (thus simultaneously horrifying them) and asked them to call me if the package turned up when I wasn't at the office. As it turned out, I got the call early on Wednesday afternoon, when I was at my field work and in the middle of my busiest day of the week, when I am going non-stop until I get out of class at 9:30 PM. So I ended up on the bus back to my office at 10 PM to pick up my new friends, and finally got them into their new home at 11 PM that night!

Wetting down the newspaper- I put more in later, turns out this wasn't a sufficient amount.

Bag o'worms

Heap o'worms! I'll admit, there was a little squeamishness involved at this particular stage. Once they're all dispersed through the bin, it's much less apparent how many of them there are!

Leaving the bin in a well-lit area for the first 24 hours encourages the worms to spread out through their new home. 

There was some weeding of the gene pool during the first couple days, as about a 15 of the worms decided to go exploring, and were later found dried to the floor (Ew. Ewewewewewew!). My sources say that this is totally normal, and that there are always a few "dummies" who don't have the sense to stay where their food is. I added a bunch more newspaper (thank you, free Portland newspapers available on many streetcorners...) on top, and that really helps to discourage them from climbing up the sides of the bin too. 

Now, whenever I have food scraps (everything besides meat or dairy, which I still have to throw away, but I don't eat much of those things anyway), I can just pull back the top layer of newspaper, stick them in, cover them back up, and the worms will get to work!

You can see all the nice dark brown castings (worm poop) stuck to everything. It makes the best fertilizer there is, once it builds up a bit. 

Sources differ as to whether it's okay to give the worms citrus, because it can throw off the pH of the bin. I eat a lot of citrus, especially in the winter, and I hate to think of it going to waste, so for now I'll keep adding it, but monitor things closely to make sure the worms stay happy. 

The bin lives under the table/island in my kitchen, where it is easily accessible for me to throw scraps in. There haven't been any escapees in three days, so I think they're settling in well, and I'm very happy to have them here!

Have You Seen My Motivation Anywhere?

I'm going to be a bit of a whiner today. I hope you don't mind too much. I don't expect anyone else to solve my problems, but writing about them in a public space gives me a sense of accountability to the whole wide world, which usually helps me turn things around. So thanks for bearing with me. And look, here's a pretty view from the Portland Japanese Gardens:

I've really been struggling these last couple of weeks with staying on task with schoolwork, keeping my energy up, and limiting my spending. I go through phases like this occasionally, where I end up thinking a lot about the things I like doing and things that make me feel the best about myself, but I don't actually do any of them. It's not how I see myself, and so it's very weird and depressing. I tend to blame it on school (it has been a rough quarter with an extra heavy workload of not-particularly-interesting classes), but that's probably just a cop-out. I have pretty high expectations for myself, and when I don't meet them I get down on myself. Does anyone else have this problem?

First, spending. I did so well all summer with not buying coffee or anything, but now I am buying it two or three times a week, which is mostly just a waste of money. This fall, I've been the one who says, almost on a weekly basis, "Why don't we just go out for dinner?" We're not exactly flush with money, and while Matt reminds me that our spending habits are so much healthier than the average American's, I still feel guilty. I am ok with occasionally eating out, but I prefer to do it as a treat, not because I'm feeling exhausted or stir-crazy. Those are situations in which actually putting in some effort to cook a nice meal will make me feel better, but I go for the easy out. And most of the time we have leftovers in the fridge, so I can't even say "there's nothing to eat."

I haven't been doing my best at work, wasting a lot of time and getting behind on my duties. I am putting off schoolwork until the very last minute, and then freaking out about it. I am getting very little exercise and eating a lot of candy (thanks, Halloween), which is rather hypocritical for a public health student whose focus is on promoting physical activity and good nutrition. I'm just finding it really hard to turn these habits around right now. Maybe it's because I was so busy all summer that I didn't properly catch up with myself before school started, and that has been dragging me down all term. Maybe it's the change to fall weather and short, dark days, getting home after dark and no gardening to do. Maybe it's this silly feeling that I'm getting old and it will be awhile yet before kids or a farm come into my life (note to self: you're 28. You have all the time in the world. 30 is the new 20). Maybe it's the fact that 2012 has just been a generally tough year, full of living paycheck to paycheck, working through difficult relationship stuff, loved ones in and out of the hospital, and otherwise generally stressful. Lots of bright spots (so many friends got married!), but exhausting.

I find that I can tell myself over and over, "I will fix this. Tonight I'll do some knitting/cleaning/cooking/reading instead of crawling into bed and wasting an hour on YouTube." And then I get home and crawl into bed and waste an hour on YouTube. I nag Matt repeatedly to do certain chores, without ever actually giving him time to do them. That's not who I want to be, but it's who I am being right now. Ugh.

I know I can't expect myself to snap out of it all at once. But here's what I'm going to try and focus on for now:

• Getting more exercise. We've been managing a short hike each weekend, which is helping, but during the week I'm sitting so much of the time, and it makes me feel gross and lethargic. This week I've been walking to work, which gives me 15-20 minutes of exercise rather than the 5 minutes I get when I ride my bike. I'm going to try and keep that up, to walk to work every day. I'm trying to stand more, but it's not always an option. I'm going to try and bike from to school once a week, rather than taking the bus, but it's a pretty long ride so I'm going to try to not be hard on myself if I don't do it. 
• Not buying coffee or going out for food. I need to start bringing a thermos of tea with me to school. There's no reason not to. I can fill it in the morning or at work, and then hopefully I won't be so tempted to pay $3 or $4 for coffee or chai at school when I feel the need for comfort, otherwise known as a hot drink. And I'll ask Matt to hold me to the not-eating-out plan, and remind me that by actually cooking something we will both feel so much better and will be saving a lot of money too.
• Buckling down on schoolwork. I have been putting off getting started on a couple of final projects that have me a little bit intimidated. I know from experience that just getting started makes the biggest difference, so if in the next couple of days I can read a few articles and write a few paragraphs, that will get me well on my way.

There are only three more weeks of this term of school, and in spite of how hard this quarter has been, I am really looking forward to the next one. I start my Field Experience in January, finally working in the health promotion field and satisfying one of the final requirements for graduation from my program. I'll also be taking elective classes, so they'll be fun ones that I'm really interested in.

We'll be getting out of town soon, too, which I think will help me work out some of my stir-crazies. We're going up to Medical Lake, Washington (near Spokane) for Thanksgiving, to spend it at my brother and sister-in-law's newly purchased turn-of-the-century farmhouse. I haven't seen it yet, apart from pictures, and I am really excited.

I do feel better having written all of this down, and I appreciate your reading it, if you made it through :) 

We'll be back to regularly scheduled food/chicken/rabbit-related programming next time.

Re-usable Fabric Gift Bags

This year, most of the gifts I give will be "wrapped" in cloth gift bags. I was inspired by the fabric bags used by Soulemama (sorry, I can't get the link to the post to work, but if you search on her site for "fabric gift bags," you will find it), but I wanted the bags to be part of the gift, re-usable for whatever purpose, not just as wrapping. So I made mine with drawstrings, using fabric that is not specifically holiday-themed. All of the fabric was already in my scrap bag, a lot of it from a bundle I bought at a vintage shop this summer.

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These are really easy and fun to make (and I really enjoy picking out the fabric combinations!). I made the basic bags by folding the fabric face-to-face (right side in) and hemming up the sides. Then I added the band for the drawstring by essentially making my own binding. I cut a strip of fabric that, with the short ends hemmed up, was exactly the length of the opening of the bag. I folded folded the long edges under and ironed them down, then folded the "binding" in half and pinned around the fabric all around the bag opening, and sewed it on, leaving the hemmed ends of the band/binding open for inserting the drawstrings. You could also use just piece of fabric for the entire bag, doing a rolled hem for the drawstring, like you would for an elastic waistband on a skirt. I used nice sturdy wool yarn for the drawstrings, but any type of ribbon would be really nice too.

I don't like all the waste and mess that wrapping paper can create, and this is a way to cut down on that, plus it's a nice way of enhancing a gift. And they look so nice under the tree!

Post-Thanksgiving Traditions

In this household, the days after Thanksgiving don't mean standing in endless lines trying to score the best deals on televisions, electronics or any of the other stuff that so much of our society goes so crazy for in the name of giving gifts. Instead, we do what we do on the holidays themselves: stay home or hang out with family, relax, eat lots of good food, and be thankful for all the great non-material things we have. And eat some more good food. Namely, we eat a lot of turkey soup and have pie with every meal. It's a pretty nice way to celebrate.

I've also been reflecting on the passage of time: we realized Thanksgiving morning that the holiday marked exactly six months since we returned home from New Zealand. Six Months. Half a year. It's truly flown, and yet so much has happened since then. Time really is speeding up as I get older, and it's a little unnerving. All the more reason to be thankful for what I've got right now.

Last Thanksgiving we cooked for twelve at the Wavehaven, and this year we had Thanksgiving with Matt's family, cooking up a storm at his dad's house and eating with his parents and sister Jessa, as well as Jessa's roommate and her partner. Dinner was excellent, and we ended up bringing home at least half of the leftovers. I also brought home the turkey carcass, so tomorrow we'll be making a big pot of turkey stock. It's excellent timing, because we just used the last of our chicken stock and don't have anymore chicken in the freezer at the moment, so this is a great substitute, and will go a lot further as well.

We made fresh rolls and apple pie yesterday morning that went to K's house for baking, and I made a second apple pie that stayed home and was baked this morning. It's already nearly half gone :)

 (Click on Photos to Enlarge)

I hope you all had a wonderful day whether or not you celebrate, and enjoy the rest of the weekend! Here are a few more pictures from our Thanksgiving:

 The full and busy kitchen.

Matt and Jessa stuffing the turkey.

 Jessa's divine pumpkin pie (from scratch!)

The lighting didn't work well for my photos of the complete dinner table, but here is one for tradition's sake:

Friday Foraging

These days, for a variety of reasons, Matt and I try to get things for free when we can. Not because we're trying to live off the backs of others or because we're just cheapskates. We're kind of poor, so free is nice, but we also don't like seeing things go to waste. We would rather an item get reused than thrown out, and if good food is available at little or no cost, we'd rather take advantage of it than spend money that could go towards things like paying off student debt. We constantly make use of the Craigslist "free" page, Freecycle, and the awesome free box culture here in Portland. My girlfriends and I swap clothes instead of buying new ones. Matt gets free meat and eggs from his work on a regular basis. We sometimes trade for items with friends. We occasionally dumpster dive for goodies for the compost or the chickens or ourselves (many Portland restaurants and supermarkets have specific dumpsters for food items). And, we have taken to gleaning fruit where we can find it for free. There are a few different fruit trees around that we check on, numerous chestnuts, and today we stopped by a grapevine I spotted in the neighborhood during the summer. It must be ancient, as it is growing up through a fifty-foot-tall fir tree, covering most of the tree, and hanging down into the parking lot of a local business (I'm not saying where :). Only a few clusters of grapes were really ripe (and within reach), but it looks like there are plenty more, hopefully they will ripen soon. I don't know much about grapes, but these ones taste like the Concords that I've had several times.

We'll definitely be checking the vine again in a week or two to see if we can get some more! Yum!

Fridays tend to be pretty simple, relaxing days for us. Right now we both go full tilt at work/school Monday through Thursday, so Friday feels a bit like Saturday. It's the day we sleep in, cook a fancyish breakfast (pancakes and bacon this morning) and catch up with each other a bit. I always like reconnecting with our little homestead on Fridays, especially now that I'm usually gone dark to dark, I don't see much of our various animal friends or the garden during the week.

Here's five of the six hens, digging into some squash rinds from our dinner last night. They LOVED them. About twenty minutes after this picture, nothing remained but a few small bits of rind scattered around the yard! No one's laying yet, all of our young'uns should start to lay around Thanksgiving, unless they decide it's too cold and dark. We're trying to trick Vivian into laying sooner by extending their "day" with a light on a timer that shines into their coop for a few extra hours at night and in the morning. No luck so far.

I spent a chunk of today working on my midterm for my Foundations of Public Health course, and researching for a program analysis I'm doing on the Cooking Matters program and a policy analysis of Oregon's school nutrition policy, which kept me inside (sometime soon I'll write more about the amazing stuff I'm learning these days. I'm completely in the right program, I know it). Tomorrow I'll spend some quality time with the garden. I can see from the windows that all the cover crops are doing well, but we had two frosts this week so I'm not sure if my (tiny, slow!) kale sprouts are alright. It's been wickedly cold, for Portland, and I even managed to leave my warmest, and favorite, gloves on the bus yesterday. I think I'm going to start wearing my weatherproof bike gloves for everyday, they're pretty nice looking and totally waterproof and windproof. Better than buying a new pair, unless I can find some for free :)

Balancing the Compost

Our compost heap has been suffering a bit, oddly from the opposite problem from what has plagued us in the past. It used to be that our compost was always too wet, as we couldn't come by enough brown, carbonaceous material to balance out the amount of green waste and kitchen scraps we produced. These days, with the amount of chicken litter (pine shavings + chicken poop) produced while the chicks were in their brooder box, our compost is heavy on the browns, with too little in the way of greens. This morning I got to work early, before the heat set in, and killed two birds with one stone by cutting back a bunch of herbs that were going wild along the back fence and using them to green up the compost pile.

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The compost heap first thing this morning: mostly brown

The chicken poo does a great job of firing up the compost, but in order for compost to really work, and for the contents to cook themselves and break down quickly, the ratio of nitrogen-rich (green) materials to carbon-rich (brown) materials has to be correct. Different sources claim different ratios as the best ones, but the one that seems to work best for us is one part green to about three parts brown. I think it may have to do with the fact that things are fairly humid and wet around here in general, so a little extra dry material in the pile doesn't hurt. For carbonaceous matter, we use the litter from the chickens, dry leaves, shredded newspaper, and dried roses when I dead-head the rose bushes. The brown materials take longer to decompose, so they need to be in small pieces, not big chunks. I've been pulling all kinds of big sticks out of the bottom of our heap- those would take ages to compost. 

The green material should be in smallish pieces too, but as the fresh green things decay faster, it's not as crucial that they be small. The green, nitrogenous materials we use are all scraps from our kitchen (besides meat and bones, although we do put fish in the compost if it's in very small pieces), weeds from the garden and grass clippings. Lately we've been short on the greens, because we're no longer mowing the lawn (we don't water our lawn, and in this hot weather all the grass has gone brown and isn't growing) and because we are giving more of our kitchen scraps to the chickens, because we want them to have a good varied diet and lots of fun bread and radish tops and veggies to eat in addition to their feed.

So, I set out to cut down this bank of oregano and lemon balm:

And this clump of mint, which was beginning to choke out my winter squash anyway:

We adore lemon balm, but it has a tendency to quickly outrun us, and we have about five patches of it around the house, so we always have a good supply. We also have other patches of oregano, so I cut it all to the ground. I have no concerns whatsoever about the mint growing back (it will be back in a week or so, I have no doubt!) so I cut it down completely as well.

The oregano is a bit too woody to put in the compost, but I added all the lush green lemon balm and mint, cutting it up with pruning shears. Every time I had a nice big green pile on top of the compost heap, I mixed it into the heap with the pitchfork, giving the entire heap a good turning while I was at it. We turn our compost every few weeks, to stir it up, aerate it, and give everything a good chance at getting mixed up together. 

While mixing up the pile, I found that the very bottom was composting well, and I did find a good number of worms and other wormy-type creatures that work at breaking down all the goods into nice dark compost for us. If everything is decomposing properly in a compost pile, that also means that there are lots of invisible microbes hard at work in there too.

 I think the pile already looks so much healthier, and it smells all minty-fresh too :)

Compost also needs occasional watering if it is drying out too much, so with any luck these added greens will decrease the need for us to use water to spur on the decomposition. 

When our current compost heap has been built up for a few more weeks, we'll stop adding to it and start a new one in the middle bin. Then we should be able to get a good rotation going, to have one active heap that we are adding to, and one that is available for us to take from, to enrich the soil in the garden. We have enough time left before fall that maybe our current heap will be ready for us to use when we amend the soil before planting fall crops. 

The nearest bin is where we put woody branches and stems. Some we keep to use as stakes for vegetables in the garden, but most end up in the big yard debris wheelie-bin that is included with our curbside garbage service. I was very excited to find out this week that starting in November, the city is switching the garbage pickup from weekly to every other week, and switching the yard debris pickup from every other week to weekly! This will be a great incentive for people to cut down on garbage, and to compost more! The City of Portland has been running pilot projects that include household food waste in the yard debris collection, and that program is going citywide in November as well! This means that all households will be able to put all their food scraps- meat included- in the yard debris bins, and that means a huge decrease in the amount of waste going into landfills from Portland. I know it will take awhile for people to get used to it, but I'm very proud of my town for taking the initiative to force people to re-think the amount of waste they produce, and to give everyone the option to compost, whether or not they have space to do it at home like we do.

Making Vegetable Stock

I've read many good blog posts about the making and using of various kinds of stock, so I thought I'd throw in my own, focusing particularly on vegetable stock. I have made chicken stock regularly (basically every time we have roast chicken for dinner) for quite some time, but only recently started making vegetable stock. A vegetarian friend suggested the method she uses, which is to keep clean vegetable scraps in a large (gallon-sized) Ziploc bag in the freezer. When the bag is full, it is time to cook down the stock. It worked like a charm! In the course of several weeks' cooking, carrot peelings, bits of onion and leek, the stem sections of green and red peppers, ginger root peels, a couple lemongrass ends, bok choy leaves and stems, etc. all went into the bag, although it took some remembering at first, to keep from putting the leftover bits straight into the compost. When the bag got full, I pulled out my stockpot, emptied the bag in, and filled it with water (about 8 or 9 quarts- this is a 12 quart stock pot).

Once it reached boiling, I let it boil gently for about 45 minutes. Then I let it cool a bit, and strained out all the vegetable matter. Then into freezer containers it went, and into the freezer.

Containers waiting to be filled with fresh veggie stock. 

Making vegetable stock this way gets the most worth out of the vegetables I use in cooking, and I don't have to buy vegetables just for stock. I like that it does not increase what I spend, but increases the nutritional value in any food that I make using the stock. I really like brown rice cooked in vegetable stock instead of water, and we've used it as a base for lots of different soups, sometimes in combination with chicken stock to round out the nutritional value of a meal.

For more information about the making, use, and benefits of stocks, I recommend the Nourishing Traditions cookbook by Sally Fallon.

Why Do I Live the Way I Do?

I’ve been thinking that I need to write a more reflective post, about why it is that I maintain the lifestyle I do and place such value in gardening, simplicity, and lack of investment in the commercial world. Bear with me, because this is not a short explanation!

I define simplicity a little differently than most people. I think that’s where it starts. When I say simplicity, and what I mean by a simple life, is that one is very in tune with their purpose, their ambitions, and the effects of their actions. It is a conscious decision to live a certain way, and with that comes a simplicity of spirit, a clear understanding of one’s self and a lack of many of the complexities of modern life. Let me elaborate.

A lot of who I am has to do with the way I grew up. That may seem like a very obvious statement to make, but it is very true in my case. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that my parents are simple people (that implies that they are ignorant, which couldn’t be further from the truth) or that their life is very simple (not accurate either- they are invested in many aspects of home, community, and environment). But they have always been very sure of the things they want, of the purposes they are dedicated to, and very aware of how they want to live their lives and the way they impact the world. This has been apparent to me from the beginning. My mom and dad are people of steady spirit, a strong but healthy work ethic, and an unwavering dedication to friendship, advocacy, and goodness in general. That, I think, is the kind of simplicity I’m talking about. It’s being sure of yourself, moving steadily forward while always checking your motivations, and not slipping out of your chosen path simply because society tells you to do so or tricks you into thinking you’ll be more comfortable that way. Simple living is achievement through the small things that add up, not through making an earth-shattering discovery or donating a million dollars to charity (though I certainly approve of those achievements as well!). Dad donates blood every month and goes to Middle Eastern and African drumming classes in Spokane with good friends. Mom teaches new gardening skills to her community and is involved in yoga and Zumba classes at the Kalispel Tribe of Indians’ athletic center. My parents take good care of themselves, are involved in their community, and also put in lots of time maintaining their home and property without buying into corporate America. For more on my upbringing and my childhood homestead, read my article in Mother Earth News magazine here.

In the last year I have made many decisions that all add into my version of living simply. I have chosen to only eat pastured meat, because I know that these animals are treated humanely and are fed their natural diet, which dramatically increases the nutritional content of their meat and ensures them a good quality of life. I buy locally whenever I can, because I believe in supporting my local economy, and because buying locally decreases pollution by fossil fuels used in transporting food. I buy most food in bulk, to save money and also to eliminate waste—by bringing my own jars, containers, and produce bags to the bulk section, I am not paying for packaging that will end up in a landfill somewhere. I make a conscious effort to buy items that will last me a long time or that can be reused or remade so that I can get the most value from them and again eliminate the need to throw things away. I grow as much of my own food as I can, because this increases the health and fertility of the earth, saves me money, and increases my own skills, health, and self sufficiency. I look at the ingredients of any processed foods I do end up buying. If I don’t know what one of the ingredients is (or I do know and I don’t want to eat it), chances are I won’t buy it. I freeze vegetable scraps so that they can be made into vegetable stock, to get as much value from my food as possible. I keep myself on a budget of $400 per month beyond costs of rent and utilities. This enables me to save for future education, housing and traveling and makes me think twice about whether a purchase is really worth it. I mend, sew, and crochet so that I can repair and make things for myself and others, rather than supporting commercial industries. I read about simple living, sustainable homemaking, and do-it-yourselfing on a regular (constant!) basis. I don’t own a car, and Matt and I make efforts to cut down on driving his car whenever possible, or at the very least make sure to carpool, to reduce emissions and motivate ourselves to walk or bike instead.

I just read all that, and it sounds like a giant paragraph of bragging. I really don’t mean it that way. But I am proud of how I live, and my purpose here is to help spread the word and educate about this lifestyle and hopefully encourage others to do what they can. No one can do everything exactly as they wish- we are all limited in some way, but to do what you can and feel good about it is the important part. I can personally attest to the benefits of living simply and always making conscious decisions as a consumer. Since changing my diet away from processed foods and commercial meat, my immune system has strengthened unbelievably. Growing my own garden from scratch gives me satisfaction in knowing that I can provide for myself and that I know exactly where my veggies are coming from. Limiting my spending makes me more aware of what it takes to really live well- friends, music, good food, and not too many possessions, but all of them of good quality.


I encourage you to look around your life and see what you can simplify. Simply put, it will be good for your mental and physical health, for your community, and for the planet.

The Garden Commences...and Compost Tribulations

While I will try to integrate other subjects into the blog as I am able, since we are almost to Spring here in Portland you will be hearing a lot about gardening. I hope you find it interesting, because it is at the front of my thoughts and what I want to write about! My love/obsession for gardening has made Matt think I’m a bit of a nutter (possibly the correct conclusion to arrive at when you find your significant other lying on floor by the grow lights, telling her onion starts to “grow, little plantlings, grow!” But hey, this is the first year I’ve had garden possibilities of this caliber, so do I really need a disclaimer?)

I had the day off on Monday for Presidents’ Day, and the forces that be must have been looking kindly on me (which I already knew- Matt and I had already had two days of amazing weekend, but that’s another story) because the entire day was sunny and warm like you wouldn’t believe for February 16th! I already had planned to spend most of my day gardening, and as it was I found every excuse I could to work outside, and ended up spending 4 solid hours in the yard and garden- in a t-shirt. I even had to wear sunscreen! Naturally, it started raining at night, but what a jewel of a day!

Cherry blossoms (!!) outside my bedroom, looking toward the garden.

I had planned simply to plant a few more starts to go under the lights, which I did- Coreopsis, a beautiful tall yellow flower that was always in the garden back home, and some pansies (a long time favorite since the days when my parents tested seeds of new varieties for Organic Gardening Magazine. I was always put in charge of the flowers, and they always had gorgeous new hybrid pansies). This year I planted “Horned Viola Mix” from Johnny’s.

Planting the starts involved mixing another batch of planting mix in a Rubbermaid tub (meaning I got to play in a box of dirt): approximately equal parts peat moss and soil from the garden plot, and then as much good compost as I could find- unfortunately it’s in short supply. Because I failed to lay in a stock of dry leaves in the fall (everything I gathered went on the garden for mulch), I have no “browns” to mix in with the “greens” that are all the kitchen scraps from my apartment, Julie’s apartment, Matt’s apartment, and my office. I love that we are keeping so much food waste out of the garbage, but I really need more browns (dead leaves, straw, sawdust, etc.- carbonaceous things that mix in and help break down the nitrogen-packed kitchen waste). Well, now I have learned my lesson, and this fall, I will lay in a supply of leaves to last the duration. Currently, my compost bin is very wet, kind of stinky, and with hardly any good black compost at the bottom. For now, I am attempting to remedy the problem by adding shredded newspaper and any dry leaves I can find. Funny timing that this had been on my mind, as I got onto the Down to Earth blog this morning, and Rhonda has a series of posts going about enriching soil and making good compost- it’s a really good rundown on the process.

One garlic patch all tidied up (see the tulips invading?)

I spent the rest of my garden time generally cleaning up the yard and garden space- pulling out all the sticks and twigs that had fallen down during the winter, taking down the stakes and twine marking off the garlic beds (now that the garlic is six inches tall they are no longer necessary), tying up the clematis vine on the fence behind the garden and pulling out the dead vine, scouting out all kinds of sprouting bulbs, planting snap peas (Oregon Sugar Pod II from Nichols Garden Nursery), and raking all the sticks and winter debris out of the yard, and stirring the compost.

Everything looks neat and tidy now, and it felt good to get so much sun and so much done!

Accomplishments

My favorite days are the ones when I accomplish a lot. Tuesday night was one of those nights when I got a lot of things done and felt great. I did two loads of laundry (I do laundry at my cousin’s house, three blocks away, so this involved some exercise too), pulled out my sewing machine and did some more mending, made a good dinner, washed dishes, and decorated my Christmas tree!

I forewent the usual Christmas music accompaniment –my soundtrack was Bruce Springsteen. I’ve also been crocheting a new dishcloth, mostly at work, and working on mending that is too detailed for the machine.

I am now in the throes of holiday festivities, with a holiday party at work last week, a wonderful Hanukah party at Leah’s last Saturday, gathering last night with Matt’s family to decorate his dad’s Christmas tree, and an all-staff holiday gathering today. Right now I'm in the middle of working on more gifts! This weekend will include volunteering at the Jesuit High School Alumni food drive (Matt and his sister both went to Jesuit), a holiday party at my house, a holiday party at another friend’s, running lots of errands, and hopefully attending a Celtic fiddle concert!

My family (Mom, Dad, and brother Tighe) is coming to Portland for Christmas this year, so I am also planning and working logistics for that. They will be staying at my cousin Carol’s house, my apartment is just too small for more than two people! I am excited to have a cozy Christmas here in my own space, and do lots of cooking for my family! I’ve been sadly lax on the cooking front lately, as I haven’t really had much time at home with so much going on in the evenings. But this weekend and early next week I will be a cooking maniac, preparing all the traditional holiday food I grew up with. Strangely, I’m most excited about the chex mix! I also need to make a fresh batch of granola before the family arrives, and will cook Christmas Eve dinner for them.

I’ve made a couple nice inroads this week in terms of living sustainably:

• I put a compost jar in the kitchen at work! I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile and finally got around to it. I will take it home to my compost bin every couple of days, but I feel much better now, since a little part of me dies every time I see orange peels and tea bags going into the garbage. Sadly, this effort is involving a little more education than I foresaw, mostly along the lines of “No, actually, foil-lined teabag wrappers are not compostable.” It is a good reminder for me that composting is not such a norm for everyone as it is for me, and that this is good opportunity to open the minds of my little community of coworkers!

• I talked to my landlord and he has ordered me a low-flow showerhead and an aerator for my kitchen sink. Both of these items, and a lot of other water-saving devices, are free to Portland Water Bureau customers. Those of us who are tenants have to get our landlords to order them, because they are the customers, but I feel like any landlord would be happy to do it, because of the savings in money, if not the lower environmental impact. My current showerhead is one of the 5 gallon per minute ones, the new one will be 1.5 gallons per minute. This will save so much in terms of water and money, and also will make my hot water last longer! The aerator will decrease the amount of water that comes out of the kitchen faucet, without decreasing the pressure. My landlord made it sound like he had ordered these for all the apartments in the house!

Mixed in with all this, I continue to work on my personal statement for my application to PSU and round up my letters of recommendation. I anticipate I will be happily busy now through Christmas weekend! I wish you all the happiest of holidays. May you be surrounded by good friends and family, good food and good music!

A Happy Lack of Plastics

Plastic is not biodegradable, and it is a synthetic material, something our bodies can’t handle. That’s enough to make me take a few steps to decrease the number of plastic products I use. I don’t want to ingest any plastic, and I don’t want to create garbage if I don’t have to.

First of all, while I sometimes store food in plastic containers, I NEVER heat food in plastic. I don’t care if it says “microwave safe.” There are plenty of sources out there showing that the denotation “microwave safe” only means that the container won’t melt if you heat it. It does not refer to the safety of your food once it has been heated in the microwave in a plastic container. If you ask me, the fact that a plastic container won’t melt when heated to high temperatures is more dodgy than if it actually did melt. There’s enough research out there to convince me that heating food in plastic is not a good idea- plastic molecules can slough off of plastics and into food when the container or wrapping is heated and cooled repeatedly.

I mostly store food in glass jars and in Pyrex Tupperware-style containers. Unfortunately the latter are fairly expensive, but they are in fact microwave safe in the true sense. As for the jars, I use some canning jars, and the rest are jars that other food products are sold in. I try not to buy food that is packaged in plastic, and if I have to buy peanut butter or something canned, I try to always find it in glass packaging so the jars can be reused. I do freeze a lot of foods in plastic, since any glass besides Pyrex doesn’t usually stand up to freezing, even with room left for the expansion of broth, etc. I have less qualms about freezing in plastic, since I only let things thaw in the plastic and remove before heating.


I cook exclusively in cast iron, ceramic, Pyrex, and stainless steel. Hopefully we all know that “non-stick” pans are a big no-no. For me, all it takes is one good look at a pan that has been sliced up by knives and spatulas and is missing some of its metal lining, lost into food at some point or the other. Cast iron is the original non-stick material, and I swear by it. I’ve stopped using aluminum pans as well. There is some research out there that suggests aluminum is linked to Alzheimers, but from what I can tell, the amount of aluminum you would have to ingest for it to cause dementia is HUGE. Still, I don’t like the idea of molecules of a foreign metal entering my body by any means. (On a side note, aluminum is the active ingredient in most antiperspirants—a substance that is put straight into pores. I began using an aluminum-free deodorant several years ago, made by Adidas, of all people. It is effective and safe, as far as I can tell. I admire Tom’s of Maine as a company, but their aluminum-free deodorants make me smell like a giant hippie).

A few years ago I also got rid of my plastic water bottles, and bought two metal water bottles. One is a Klean Kanteen, made from stainless steel. The other is a Sigg, from the Swiss company. It is made from aluminum, but with a liner that is supposedly proven to not leach anything harmful into the liquid in the bottle. I guess in some ways everything is a gamble, but I feel better with metal than with plastic.

I do still use plastic bags for storing some dry foods and for things like veggies in the fridge. My major complaint about plastic bags is that people often throw them away after one use, forgetting that things like bread bags are recyclable, and that sandwich bags are reusable. I wash and re-use all plastic bags, unless they are hopelessly destroyed (i.e. something rotted in it) in which case I do throw them away, or unless they get torn, in which case they get recycled. I rarely get plastic grocery bags at the store- that only happens if I forget my canvas totes and have too much to carry without a bag. I’m usually on my bike and put all my groceries in my pack. I always try to take my own produce bags from home, so I’m not creating extra waste by taking new ones from the store. Each time I wash bags at home, I put a bunch of the clean produce bags in my pack or totes so I don’t have to think about it when I go to the store.

In some cases it’s hard to know what to believe. I feel like I run on instinct mostly, feeling better about using more stable substances like glass and cast iron for cooking purposes. The only thing research is saying for sure is that plastic wrapping can leach into food at harmful if heated or cooled, while also acknowledging that harder plastics can leach into food, but at such small amounts that a “harmful” accumulation is almost impossible. Still, I choose to believe that any accumulation of a foreign substance in my food or drink is unacceptable, as is putting unnecessary plastic in the garbage, which will end up in a dump and never break down.

Links to research and news regarding plastics:

The FDA’s Statement on Bisphenols (BPAs), 2008: http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/technical/FDAstatement.html

2005 Research Suggesting Cancer Link to Plastic: http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/Research-suggests-cancer-link-to-plastic-packaging

Alzheimers Society article on aluminum as a contributing factor: http://alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?categoryID=200137&documentID=99&pageNumber=1