Z's Organic Everything

New Cold Frames

2010-03-07T10:52:00.003-05:00

I never got around to blogging about it, but last fall I built a cute little cold frame. My intention was to try and have spinach growing and harvestable during the winter/early spring. I bought wood for 2 frames, made one (2.5'x2'), and put it into operation. I got the glass from old windows that I asked for on freecycle. (They turned out to be windows that were removed after the 2001 tornado damaged this person's house; they wanted all the windows in the house to match.) I bought the last spinach plants at my local nursery and what I thought was kale. It turned out to be broccoli :-) I stuck them in my cold frame which sat on top of my sheet mulched bed around the young blueberry bushes. They loved it. The broccoli pushed against the glass top until I encouraged it to do something else. The spinach (just 3 plants) was so small until a few weeks ago that I did not want to harvest it for fear of killing it.

But I did finally get brave and harvest some spinach for salads a week or two ago. I was then further inspired. I ordered spring seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. This weekend I built and installed another larger (2'x5') cold frame. I plan on doing a second large one today. Yesterday I planted kale, spinach, swiss chard, and lettuce mix. I am trying to figure out how to track my efforts in the gardening arena so I can figure out what works and what needs tweaked. I'll let you know when I decide!

Vernal Equinox Potluck Party

2010-03-03T11:21:00.003-05:00

Join us as we welcome Spring on Saturday March 20, 2010 from 3-7+ pm at our house. It is a potluck, which means we all get to sample lots of yummy (homemade! local food!) dishes that everybody brings. We will provide dishes which show off the delicious pork sausage and salad greens from our local farmer friends. I am sure there will be fresh bread made with our home-ground whole grain flour too.

If you have a favorite or unique game/activity that you'd like to share with us, please do so. We are always looking to experience new things. Who knows, you might spark a new passion for someone at the party!

Many years ago, I understand it was commonplace to bring your own basket with dishes, cups, and cutlery when you went places. I believe they are called picnic baskets ;-) We want to revive this tradition, so please pack up a basket with dishes your family loves to eat off and join us for the feast!

Whether you are a homeschooler, yoga lover, locavore, cyclist, life learner, or none of these - we look forward to celebrating the coming of Spring with you. Do RSVP please so we know to expect you!

MUGS

2010-03-03T11:15:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we enjoyed a fun day with our unschooling friends. We played lasertag and went to the Air and Space Museum Annex by Dulles Airport. We decided to have a monthly get together and rotate where we go and what we do. Want more info? Head over the the MidAtlantic Unschooler GatheringS page.

A Way Cool Article About Energy Usage

2010-01-13T15:29:00.001-05:00

Ok, you have to go read this RIGHT NOW!

How many cyclists does it take to power a hairdryer? The answer's 18, as one family discovered in a unique TV experiment

Ok, now go turn off some energy sucking appliances and lights!

My Newest Green Project - Cloth TP

2010-01-13T15:05:00.004-05:00

Ok, so I have been thinking what new things I can do to reduce my impact on the Earth. I was casually reading over at The Organic Sister and came across the idea of cloth bathroom wipes. Of course! When I had babies, they wore cloth diapers and I washed them. No problem and no trash. I use a Keeper instead of disposable feminine products. No trash created there. So why do I use toilet paper which get flushed, sits in the septic tank, and then goes to the landfill? Because I never thought about it. Now that I have, I am using cloth there too!

Step 1: I got a kick in the rear to begin this new project when someone offered a cloth diaper pail on freecycle. Having given my pail away a while ago, I thought I needed it for my bathroom again. So even though it had been days since the offer was posted, I emailed and got it. Score!

Step 2: I have stacks of old clothing waiting for a new purpose. I had always assumed I would make cleaning rags, but my rag bin is pretty full right now. However, the specific item of unwanted clothing I had sitting around is kids underwear from Hanna Andersson. They were so well worn that I can't pass them on to another user but they cut up into cloth wipes just fine!

Step 3: I cut the fabric into the wipes the size of my hand. They are double or triple layered and serged on the edges (in red for identification). A pretty basket holds them on the vanity right beside the toilet.

I did the sewing and set everything up yesterday. I was so excited to try the cloth wipes out. The next time I had to use the toilet, I forgot! I was so sad. Dear Daughter helped me remember next time by hiding the toilet paper and giving me no choice. By that time rolled around though, she had already pronounced the new goods a success. Yea for us and the Earth!

A Cool New Magazine

2009-12-29T13:47:00.003-05:00

I love reading what Tara over at The Organic Sister writes. When I visited there today, she was telling us about a cool new online magazine called Rethinking Everything. They are even giving away the first issue to some folks so I wanted to tell you about it too.

Parent Job Description

2009-12-13T21:11:00.000-05:00

Your Job as a Parent of an Unschooled Child
The article below was written by Anne Ohman of the Shine With Unschooling group.

We have always unschooled. Unschooling came easily to me and my family, because I learned early on to trust my heart and my children. But for those for whom unschooling does not come easily, I try to give them the guidelines you may be asking for here. If your question is “Please define my role as an unschooling parent,” here’s what I’ve come up with this morning:

I believe that your role as an unschooling parent is to show your children as much of the world as you can, and let them choose from it what they love and want to further explore. You accomplish this by expanding their worlds with interesting objects and places and people and events and tools and books and magazines and television shows and…(this list could go on for quite awhile).

It is your job to answer their questions, without shame or sarcasm, because all questions are valuable. If you don’t know an answer, it is your job to say, “I don’t know,” and offer to look it up with your child (I tend to say, “Hmmm…I *think* it’s this…but I’ll check to make sure…).

It is your job to be interested in the world. It is your job to ask your own questions about the world. I believe it’s an unschooling parent’s job to be excited themselves about learning the incredibly cool stuff there is to learn about the world. Learn from your own children how to be curious, aware and interested.

It is your job to pursue your own passions in life. This has numerous benefits, not only to yourSelf and your Spirit, but to your child as well.

It is your job to know your children and get to know them again and again as they grow and change. Get to know what it is they love, what it is that interests them. A big part of my job involves spending time looking for various resources in the area of my children’s passions – books, tools, people, events, classes, gatherings, websites, lists – and offer them up to my children. This is how I encourage my children to pursue what they love in life, by feeding them things that they may be interested in until they’re not interested in it anymore. (They are also quite capable of *feeding* themselves in the areas of their passions, or anything else that may be new and interesting to them…but right now we re just talking about the unschooling parent’s job…).

It is your job to learn about how children learn, by reading about unschooling, by un-learning everything you once believed to be true about forced learning.

It’s your job to sometimes think out loud, to initiate interesting conversations, and to be open for discussion where you may have just shut the door before. It’s your job to realize that your child will have different opinions and thoughts than you do, and to respect that and perhaps even broaden your own world from it.

It is your job to Trust the Children. Trust that they Love to Learn, and when they have a need and or desire for information, they will get it. Trust that learning isn’t separated into subjects as school would have us believe.

It’s your job to see the world through your child’s eyes. Understand where they’re coming from, and when conflict arises, it’s your job to stop and really think about if the resolve lies within the child, or within yourself. It’s usually within ourselves.

It’s your job to see Learning in places that you’re not used to seeing learning. I was even able to find it in Ed, Edd & Eddy cartoons…it’s there if you look. It’s everywhere if you look. And once you start seeing it, the world will open up to you and your child.

It’s your job to Love your child, and to Learn from your child. It’s your job to go into each day with an open mind and heart, trusting in the fact that you may not know where the day will end up, but that you began it from that magnificent place that is a child’s curiosity.

Unschooling Passions Article

2009-12-13T21:04:00.003-05:00

Pam Laricchia does a fantastic job of sharing the learning and connections made by her children(s) passions. This article is a great read.

What's Better Than Public School? The Library...

2009-12-09T15:47:00.005-05:00

I adore this commentary about public schools and public libraries. So true.

Free-Range Kids

2009-12-06T08:37:00.004-05:00

One of my favorite people right now (that I'm not married to) is Lenore Skenazy. You might know her "America's Worst Mom" because last year, after her 9 year old begged her to, she let him take the NYC subway home by himself. It took some time for her and her husband to both agree with their son that he was ready, but they did. Mom and son went to Bloomingdale's together. She gave him $20, the subway map, and quarters for phone calls then said "see ya at home"!. She did not follow him. She did not ask a friend to go with him. She trusted him to use his brain to get home safely. She also trusted that the world is primarily a good, safe place. It took him one hour to get home with the hugest grin on his face and quite a sense of accomplishment. Yeah for both of them!

But, people around the world world went crazy. They accused her of all sorts of mean things - putting her child in mortal danger, not caring what happened to her child, etc. All a bunch of hogwash. She knew her child so well, trusted in the good in the world, and knew accurate violent crime statistics that she did the right thing by facilitating her son's independence and confidence in himself. To bring a reality check to parents, she started Free-Range Kids. I love it. I also am reading the book right now. Its hilariously fabulous.

The only thing missing from the web site (but on its way I understand) is a way to connect with other free-ranging parents. Care to join me in Southern Maryland Free-Range Kids group?

Dangerous Things

2009-11-25T15:51:00.002-05:00

My daughter loves to do Dangerous Things. She is referring of course to things that in HER mind are dangerous and crazy. So I loved this TED talk by Gever Tulley about 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do.

So how am I doing? Let's see.

1. Play with fire: Son (11) is normally our fire tender. I recently dug a fire pit in our backyard so we could play with fire more often.

2. Own a pocketknife: Son (11) has several and has had one since the age of 6 or 7. Daughter (6) owns and regularly uses two pocketknives and an all-in-one tool.

3. Throw a spear: I am afraid I am deficient in this. I don't own a spear either. So I am going to have to substitute a stick. Oh woe is me.

4. Deconstruct appliances: We can do this more often than once a year ... Kids do a lot of fixing of things but not so much in the taking apart realm. I think the last thing we took apart was a printer. Luckily, I have a CD player and various other electronics waiting patiently in the basement.

5a. Break the Digital Media Copyright Agreement: We've certainly done this but haven't talked about it in terms of breaking laws. That could be fun!

5b. Drive a car: Ok, Son backed our car out of the garage and through the baby trees into the neighbors yard when he was younger. He also loves to drive go karts and other vehicles. But Daughter has never expressed an interest. Hmm. The wheels are turning ...

Ok, I have my homework now!

Places That Fit Me

2009-11-24T07:33:00.006-05:00

I am in search of a place that fits me and my current needs. They are not well defined, but I think I'll know it when I see it. So far, I know I am in search of a large-ish town or a small-ish city where there are: a university, a green community, a variety of cultural activities, sustainable farms, a favorable homeschooling culture, and people who strive for friends and community. So far on the list is:

Ithaca, NY
Santa Fe, NM
Asheville, NC
Charlottesville, VA
Serenbe, GA
Brunswick, Portland, and Belfast, ME
Portland, OR
Burlington, VT
Corvallis, OR
Boulder, CO
Tri-Cities area, TN

Durham, NC ?
Morgantown, WV ?
Kingston, RI ?
New Brunswick, NJ ?
Plymouth, NH ?
Princeton, NJ ?
Radford, VA ?
Storrs, CT ?
Fort Collins, CO ?
Logan, UT ?
Boone, NC ?
Chapel Hill, NC ?
Moscow, Idaho ?

Ecovillages

New Slow Parenting Group

2009-11-21T07:13:00.002-05:00

One of my friends posted this link to facebook and I wanted to share it with you. The article is entitled: The Backlash Against Overparenting from Time magazine. I love this article. Especially the last quote about leaving the kids alone.

If you like this article and agree with pretty much everything it says, please join me in a new Slow Parenting group. We can decide the specifics of our group gatherings, but I expect them to involve lots of time for kids to play what they choose together, homemade food, and pleasurable adult conversation time.

Gratitude List #4

2009-11-21T07:11:00.002-05:00

This week's gratitude list (late as always):
1. I am grateful for the stars which light the night and show us the way home.
2. I am grateful for other people who choose to stay with us and become new friends.
3. I am grateful to my local family farmers for providing my family with the yummiest sustenance there is.
4. I appreciate the love of my cat.
5. I appreciate the colorful tree leaves I can see outside my window.

Gratitude List #3

2009-11-06T08:48:00.002-05:00

1. I am grateful for my father's strong push ever forward when I was growing up.
2. I am grateful that I am the only one pushing me forward now.
3. I am grateful for the internet which brings me closer to those far away.
4. I am grateful for this peaceful morning.
5. I am grateful for the cozy sweater that kept me warm most of yesterday.

Gratitude List #2

2009-11-06T08:44:00.002-05:00

Ok, So I forgot about my gratitude list until I was too busy getting ready for ARGH to sit at the computer - and then I was gone for this wednesday. So I have two lists I want to do right now before the kids wake up.

1. I am thankful for the always present love from my dear husband.
2. I am thankful for warm sunshine in the morning.
3. I am thankful for fun people to be around - even if I have to drive many hours to get there!
4. I am thankful for the way the dew looks like glittering diamonds when the sun first hits it.
5. I am thankful that my yoga class has started up again.

Gratitude List #1

2009-10-22T09:06:00.002-04:00

Another unschooler, Clint, has started posting five thing to be grateful for every wednesday from now until Thanksgiving. I thought I would join him this year.

I am grateful for:
1) the freedom to determine my own path in life
2) my life partner, Walter
3) the infinite love from my children
4) the chance to remake myself as often as I wish
5) my dazzlingly creative mother

Why don't you try now?

Unschooling newspaper article

2009-10-17T15:46:00.004-04:00

Yesterday's local newspaper has a very positive article about our unschooling family. A few parts of it are pretty funny but it overall made me smile. Enjoy!

Reusable Straws

2009-10-15T21:03:00.002-04:00

I am always on the hunt for reusable items in order to reduce the trash my family creates. I saw these cool glass straws at another unschooler's blog. At the DC Green Festival last weekend I also saw nifty bamboo straws. I am still not sure that we would use these enough to justify the expense but I sure do like them! Just thought I would share.

Apple Trees

2009-10-15T08:13:00.002-04:00

I am researching apple trees since I want a few at my house. I am keeping with heirloom varieties. I start my quest at Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA.

Liberty - resistant to mildew, cedar apple rust and fire blight and immune to scab, zones 4-7, self-fertile, crisp apple kind of like a McIntosh

Enterprise -

Honey Crisp - (had these at Westmoreland Berry Farm and my kids thought nothing was better than these apples)

Oh but I want kiwis, persimmons, berries, grapes, blackberries, jujubas, shitake log, and much more!

Vote for your Favorite Green Business!

2009-10-08T13:25:00.004-04:00

Support businesses that are doing eco-friendly things by voting for the best Green Business today! My personal favorites are Reusablebags.com, To-Go Ware, and UsedCardboardBoxes.com.

Sheet Mulching

2009-10-03T22:18:00.003-04:00

This past May, I posted about our guest and her kick in the pants to start gardening. This weekend, I am preparing more garden area for next spring. I am sheet mulching! Here's how I'm, doing it.

Today I used my flat spade to dig an edge to the garden bed. I used straight lines so it would be easy to use our riding lawn mower to follow. I removed 1/2 spade's worth of grass at the edge and put aside for later. In the morning, I will deepen this trench to about 5 inches using a small shovel and pick axe if needed. Then I will install the 5 inch plastic garden barrier edging that I purchased and use the spikes to pin it down. This point of this barrier is to help keep the grass roots from invading my garden bed. We have some nasty spreading grass and I really don't want to be pulling it out of my food plants all the time. Hopefully this will work! Now I can fill the inside.

First, a sprinkling of powdered lime to offset the acidic clay soil (although the acidity is hearsay as far as I am concerned - I have never done a soil test). The cardboard and thick newspapers get put down into a solid layer. The overlaps have to let no light in and no weeds through. This layer has to be good and soggy so liberal spraying with a hose will be needed.

Next goes fresh horse manure - just out of the stable this morning. Ideally the manure layer is a few inches thick; I'll just spread out what I have. Then a few inch thick layer of leaves. I grabbed these from a friend's house today. Her land is nothing but trees and a house. Great leaf production ;-) Then some compost, dried grass, anything else I can find which is organic. Oh I have some bone meal to sprinkle in there too. On top goes a thick layer of straw. Not hay which has seeds. This top layer has to have no seeds so you get no weeds. I might get some wood chips as well, but I'm curious how the straw does too.

That's it. Instead of composting kitchen scraps, I can just tuck the plant waste underneath the top layer and feed the worms and other organisms in my garden.

Than I'm going to go over to a friend's house and do it to her garden beds too!

For more info, here a couple sheet mulching links:
http://www.agroforestry.net/pubs/Sheet_Mulching.html
http://www.permaculture-exchange.org/sheet.html

Eco-Complacency

2009-09-29T22:25:00.005-04:00

Now that I am done organizing the Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference, I have a lot more time on my hands. Or rather, I have my time back to do other things with. Which is why I am here. I need to admit out loud that I have been complacent about one of my most important principles. I have not had time to think about Being Good to the Earth.

How did I come to realize this? I was preparing for my most recent SSoMMd program: Big Numbers, Big World. I was looking up how examples of big numbers. In particular, I wanted the amount of trash Americans created last year. As I searched for this number, I ended up reading about trash reduction. In particular, I found the Green Garbage Project; a Portland, OR couple who are trying to make their total trash produced in a year fit into one plastic grocery bag. Now a few years ago, the Roots and Shoots group which I lead did a trash reduction challenge. We challenged folks to reduce their trash production by a factor of two. We found that our family of 4 makes so much less trash than most Americans that we had a hard time reducing further. But these folks at the Green Garbage Project are headed for a lot less trash than we make. Of course they don't have children and they are both taking on the challenge together. Can you hear the rationalizations in my head? I can.

So I started browsing their site. They send produce stickers to a Fruit Sticker Artist to be made into art. Cool. They send zipper plastic bags to Lou's Upcycles to be made into bags and other wares. I learned about Kraft paper tape for boxes instead of plastic. Its supposed to be recyclable, but I can't confirm that. The coolest thing I learned about was Portland's Master Recycler Program and classes. Wow, I want to be a Master Recycler! I'll bet I could co-lead such an endeavor though...

All this trash reading got me thinking. I have been assuming that since I am so ______ (full in the blank with any eco-friendly word), that there's little more I can do in that area. I have been looking to expand into new areas (making my own soda, chickens, gardening, etc.) But now, I realize that I have been laxidasical about my eco-work. I can improve in areas I already concentrate as well as expand. And I need to get to it!

So, what shall I change, improve, or adjust in my life to be more Good to the Earth? What an excellent question. Maybe as I relieve my house of the things we no longer wish to have, my thinking will clear as well. Tomorrow's task! For now, check out these two neat videos about worm composting and fast food trash.

Learning Bucaneers

2009-09-17T07:15:00.002-04:00

I just read this book review about James Marcus Bach, a self educated guy who used to excel while working for Apple. He describes himself an a great unschooler: one who is concerned about learning, succeeding on ones own merits, working his butt off for something he is passionate about and actually caring about his work. Can't wait to read the whole book!

A Great List of Unschooling Blogs

2009-09-04T08:05:00.004-04:00

Need some new pleasure reading from some way cool folks? Check out the bloggers on the 50 Eye-Opening Unschooling Blogs List. Many are friends or acquaintances of mine and I love to read their stuff. The category assignments are a bit on the creative side, but no matter.

Unschooling Article in Baltimore Sun

2009-09-03T16:43:00.003-04:00

I was interviewed and contributed some quotes to today's article about unschooling in the Baltimore Sun. I thought the article was balanced and pretty good. Thanks Joe! But go further than the article. Read the comments. Wow, the comments are amusing, scary, and just encourage me gather like-minded folks around me a bit closer for protection.

Teens and How We Treat Them

2009-08-25T22:06:00.002-04:00

I love, love, love this article about teens and society. Read it! Think about what life was like when you grew up and what life is like for today's teens. I hope you will agree that life for 21st century teens is not great.

Pickles

2009-07-25T12:10:00.004-04:00

So this past wednesday I immersed myself in pickles. I prepared and canned 32 pints of pickles. That is way more than I have ever done before. I never even liked pickles until I made them myself last year. That's what happens when your friend offers you cucumber seconds and says make pickles!

Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference!

2009-07-25T12:09:00.001-04:00

Have you heard of the Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference yet? This September for a cool 2 days, come and Enjoy Life with unschoolers of all ages in the mountains near Frederick, Maryland. We will have fabulous speakers, chat sessions, and funshops to fill your days. In the evening, there will be a campfire with music, s'mores, and storytelling while inside our coffeehouse will feature an open mic, a service project to help animals enjoy their lives, henna to decorate your body, crafts, and games. Registration is quite inexpensive for a conference, so come on and join us!

My Problem

2009-07-16T08:28:00.004-04:00

So I had my homeschool review a while back. I was told I had a problem. Wanna guess what it is? Go ahead, I'll give you a minute ....

Nope, that's not it. Not that either! My problem is that I am learning centered in my approach to homeschooling. Yes, you read that right. Being learning centered is a problem.

My reviewer said he was teaching centered. He had to be because of his job. I was learning centered and that was very different. We agree on that. He did suggest we meet in the middle so he could do his job easier. Could be worse!

Ok, so I didn't bring the samples of my kid's work. Bad me. They will get over it though. I brought two of those calendars which look like books - one for each kid. They have at least 5 different things on each DAY (and way more than 180 of them) which the kids did for learning purposes. I was told "Anyone can bring this in, we need to see what your kids actually did". Hmmm. This was the proof of my instruction. It seems a little silly that they truely want to see 5 pieces of paper from my kid. That is how we got into discussion about My Problem.

You are wondering what I have to do now, aren't you. I have to bring in samples of my kids' work to my next review - next year. That sure showed me, huh?! Yes, I might remember to bring the samples next time. Or I might join an umbrella group and not have to see them again. There are probable a whole host of fun ways to handle this situation, but a 12 step program for My Problem is not one of them :-) I like my problem.

Oh, my kids did start blogs however. We'll see how that goes...

Bye Bye Trampoline - Hello Chickens?

2009-07-05T15:15:00.003-04:00

Last week we took down our trampoline. It was used when we got it from our neighbor oh so many years ago. We have enjoyed it a lot. But ... the stitching started disintegrating, a few springs fell off, and then the fabric started ripping. It no longer was safe to jump on it and be sure that it would hold you when you landed. So down it came.

We had been thinking about ways to recycle or reuse the materials from the trampoline instead of adding to the landfill. The best by far was to turn the frame upside-down and attach chicken wire to make ... you guessed it ... a chicken enclosure! So what do you think? Should we start having chickens next year?

Holiday Light Recycling

2009-06-07T08:01:00.000-04:00

I love it when a company acts as responsibly as they can. I just found this company, Holiday LEDS that sells energy efficient holiday lights (yeah!) but ALSO accepts your non-working holiday lights of any sort for recycling. Can't wait till the Season of Lights!

A step up in recycling

2009-06-06T23:09:00.001-04:00

I found a really cool web site just now and waned to share it. This fabulous web site entitled How Can I Recycle This? shares info on re-purposing all sorts of things. I just read about ways to reuse lanyards, conference badges, bicycle tires, and sandpaper. Wow.

Strawberry Jam

2009-05-22T08:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning I worked for about 4 hours on making strawberry jam. I was about up to the canning part when both kids woke up! We had already gone to a new farm (Homestead Farm in Faulkner, MD) to load up on berries for jam so I could start as soon as my eyes were open enough.

Hulling and chopping the berries comes first (along with washing if necessary). Then cooking the berries until soft. I decided I wanted a smooth consistency this time (instead of fruit chunks) so I used my blender on the whole batch. I sweetened with local honey, thickened with agar agar flakes, and popped it all in the canning jars. My recipe is not for a super sweet jam, I like the berry flavor to dominate over the sweetness. However my sweets-loving son said it was good. Here's the big-ass pot I used (thanks mom!) and the finished jars.

Here's the recipe:

Strawberry Jam
Ingredients:
8 quarts of fresh strawberries (which weighed a total of 10 lb 7 oz and measured out to be about 16 c)
1.5-2 c honey
8 T agar agar flakes (a seaweed)

Directions:
Cook strawberries until soft on medium heat (do not boil). Add honey to taste* (must cool berry mixture down for proper taste test) and stir well. Add 1/2 the agar flakes, stir, and continue on med heat for a few minutes. Do a consistency test**. Add 1 T flakes at a time until berry mixture is not quite solid enough for you. Stop there before you end up with a brick. Now get it in the jars and hide it until harvest season has passed!

Yield: about 2 cups

* The taste of hot things differs from cold things. The berries need to be cool for proper taste test. Here's how: use a small plate or bowl, chill it in the freezer for a few minutes, put a small dollop of mixture on plate, return to freezer until cool, then taste and adjust honey amount.

** Consistency Test: The agar flakes gel when they get cool/cold. Use the plate in the freezer trick again, but this time make sure the strawberry mixture really and truly gets cold. Always err on the side of not enough and too runny jam. Otherwise, you could add too much agar and end up with jam the consistency of a hockey puck.

How Green Are You?

2009-05-21T19:21:00.000-04:00

I get The Green Guide To Go in my email inbox. This week's mentioned the recent Greendex rating so I went to check it out. Of course, I had to take the survey to see what my personal Greendex number comes out to be. I guess my friends are right, I am the greenest person they know. My Greendex is 59 out of a possible 60. I am pretty green by their standards. What are you?

A New Garden Bed

2009-05-19T13:50:00.000-04:00

You saw the cool new trellis we made to shade our AC fans in the last post? Now there is a sheet mulched area all around it to make a new garden bed!

I thought about this new garden bed. I was worried about the soil washing right down onto the walkway. I thought about water retention in this bed. Since the best place to store water or plants is in the soil, I decided to build a short retaining wall. I used the leftover blocks from the walkway to make this short wall. Now it holds both soil and water in the garden bed instead of dumping where we walk.

Under the bricks for the wall, I laid that good ole newspaper to smother the weeds and stuck it under the blocks to anchor the paper. On top of the newspaper (in overlapping sections about 10-20 sheets thick), I put an entire truckload of manure from the farm where our neighbor's horse resides. On top of that, I put triple ground mulch (no more free from County!). Look how tall it is now!

Gazebo Turned Trellis

2009-05-12T22:41:00.000-04:00

As part of my new gardening plan, we transformed a patch of grass with the AC fan units against the house into a food garden spot. First thing was to start sheet mulching to convert the hard red clay dirt and weedy grass into loamy garden soil. This was a half-way step since I did not have sufficient materials to really sheet mulch well. Right now it is just newspaper and the free mulch that my county gives away from residents' yard waste.

Then we took the upright posts from a damaged gazebo and turned them into a trellis system. The gazebo used to provide shade to our west facing deck but hurricane related rain and a tarp which was too impervious to water caused the gazebo roof to collapse be unusable. We kept the sides knowing that they could be reused somehow. We found the perfect project! When there is something growing on these trellises, the fan units for the air conditioning system will be shaded. Now, we only turn on our AC for about 6 weeks during our toasty Maryland summers, but we know the AC will operate more efficiently if the fans are shaded. The fans face west with southern exposure as well.

Now, to find a plant guild (language from permaculture - check out Gaia's Garden for an intro to home-scale permaculture) that will thrive in this spot. Climbing vines with a lot of leaf cover and fast growing are what I need right now!

What's the next step? To sheet mulch properly. I borrowed my friend's truck again and am going to get more horse manure and mulch tomorrow. Then plant!

My Newest Adventure

2009-05-04T06:06:00.000-04:00

Over the last month, I have started something new to me. What is it you ask? Here's the uphill climb...

Last fall, a friend asked me why, as a local food advocate, I did not have a garden to grow my own food. I didn't even have to think about it before answering. In the past, I have not had a great rapport with living things. I mean I can keep most house plants alive, but lush they are not. I have carefully avoided the common problem of overwatering by ignoring them until they droop or leaves start to turn brown. They would gladly go to another house if they had a chance. So the idea of growing my own food seemed almost comical.

The funny thing is that I make my own yogurt, bread, mozzarella cheese, and almost other kind of food we enjoy. I can sew (thanks Mom!), knit, crochet, sing, and do all sorts of other things. Why not grow some food? I talked with a farming friend; she said I could certainly grow a cherry tomato plant or two. She even volunteered to give me the plants, compost, and advice. That offer helped a lot. So I thought about the cost of various locally grown foods and decided to try the most expensive ones that were also easy to grow. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes here we go!

The more I thought about it, the more I read. The more I read, the more I realized I know a lot of gardening info already. I have a great resource book that I bought when we moved into this house in 2000. I am a Mother Earth News subscriber. I have several friends who farm for a living and several more friends who have home gardens. I am home a lot and have two sometimes willing helpers. So I thought I could handle more than 4 plants.

When it seemed like spring had sprung, I went and bought 5 everbearing strawberry plants from a local nursery (Heaven's Garden). I posted to freecycle for empty plastic cat litter buckets to serve as plant containers. I heard from a friend who offered me all her strawberry plants from last year. Alright!

Then I thought of how fabulous blueberries would be to have at home. I went and bought 4 blueberry plants (2 varieties for cross fertilization) and the leaf compost to help turn our dirt into soil. I got them into the ground and knew I needed to get them mulched soon. I was avoiding purchasing bagged mulch because of the waste of the plastic bags.

Then the Universe Provided for me.

I called my organic farming friend and shared my progress so far. That same day she sent over seedlings ready for transplant. She gave me the following seedlings: 2 cherry tomatoes, 2 heirloom tomatoes, 2 hybrid tomatoes, 2 parsley, 4 lacinato kale, and 15 lettuces. What a sweet friend! I had thought I would go with containers for all the plants because I did not want to fight the deer and rabbits for the food.

The same day a wonderful woman from Australia came to couchsurf with us. Sally is really into permaculture. She stayed with us for nearly a week and really held my hand (and trowel!) while these new transplants began their life at my house. She helped me plant, planted for me, and willingly shared lots of advice and information. Next thing I know, we are talking about the best places for more garden, borrowing a friend's pickup truck, and bringing home 1 bed full of horse manure from the farm my neighbor's kids go to ride and 3 beds full of free mulch from the county for our trees and flower beds. Now I have a whole bed around the blueberry bushes which is busy making great soil and a whole head full of ideas to keep me going! Wow Sally, Thanks so much for your physical and mental support for this new adventure!

Earth Day 2009

2009-04-20T10:48:00.000-04:00

Earth Day is this Wednesday. This is an excellent time to show
our children how their actions affect the Earth, our lifestyles,
and our future. Some Earth Day events and activities were this
past weekend. Some are still to come.

Please share what events or activities your family will be doing
to honor the Earth this week/month.

Also, I enjoy starting new "green" projects or activities which
usually develop into family habits. This year we are beginning vermicomposting and a few other fun things to help us reduce our
impact on the earth.

Please share what new green ideas your family will be
incorporating this Earth Day.

Idea of Compacting

2009-04-11T19:13:00.001-04:00

I just read about a cool thing that a group of San Franciscans did a few years back. The initiated a Compact with each other. The agreed to basically not buy anything new (with exceptions of course) for 12 months. Check out the guidelines. Care to try it with me? I am really liking the idea. Of course, I do have a list of things I am searching for used already and it really frustrated my dear son. Not sure what to do about that ...

The Better World Handbook

2009-01-05T12:56:00.000-05:00

Another one my new reads from the Green Festival in DC in November is The Better World Handbook. My favorite paragraph is all about how the world is and how we mistakenly think it is. It really resonated with me so I wanted to share it with you ...

Our culture teaches us that we are each autonomous individuals who are only responsible for our own well-being. We end up believing that we are independent creatures who should make our own way in life without depending on others. In reality, we all rely on each other for our daily existence. We eat food that grows in soil nurtured by microscopic organisms. We drink water that has vaporized from the oceans. we breathe oxygen respired by the trees and wear clothing made by people across the planet whom we will never meet. We rely on our friends and family for support and create a sense of belonging and meaning within our communities. Our personal well-being is inextricably linked to the well-being of our families, our friends, our communities, and our planet. And the well-being of others, in turn, is shaped by our own well-being.

That's all I wanted to share with you now. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Local Food For New Friends

2009-01-04T21:29:00.000-05:00

Last night we acted as couchsurfing hosts for the first time. It was really fun. We hosted a family of four traveling from Florida to their home in Ottawa, Canada. They stayed just one night, but we all enjoyed each others' company - adults and kids alike. They were due to arrive after dinner, but we wanted to have a nice local dish for them to enjoy when they arrived. So we made our local dinner for us and then made dessert to share with our guests.

Dinner was pasta (not local), homemade tomato sauce which I canned from our 15 mile tomatoes and herbs, and separate local (10 mile) pork sausage. Simple but yummy. Dessert was homemade pies. The crust was made from butter (25 mile), home ground wheat, and salt. The pie filling was butternut squash (15 mile), local milk (15 mile), local eggs (5 mile), and spices from lots of places.

Being away for the holidays was really difficult on the local food front. We were guests in my mother-in-law's home and she really enjoys entertaining. That includes cooking for us - in her own style. So I had nothing to really post for my Dark Days Challenge ...

New Wheels

2008-12-14T18:32:00.000-05:00

Wow, is it hard to choose a vehicle to drive these days. First there's safety to consider. If you have an accident like we just had (rolled, spun, and skidded the car), safety is a main priority. I felt like I wanted the exact same car (in my case - a VW Jetta wagon) because it kept me and my kids so safe.

Then there's gas mileage. The higher the better for this environmentalist.

I wanted to purchase a used car because when well cared for and well built, cars have a much longer life span than many people take advantage of. It is also much greener to reuse something and extend its usable lifetime.

There is cost to consider as well. Sometimes life would be so much easier without money!

And then the kicker for me -- availability. You see I want to still drive a stick shift (manual transmission) car. There just aren't a lot of them around. And I want a station wagon for carrying bikes, bins, and other stuff.

So a used station wagon with a stick shift, the highest safety ratings, and the highest gas mileage. There are not a lot of choices.

Have I mentioned that I also do not want black interior (living in Maryland black interiors are rather like ovens in the summer) or silver/grey/white exterior?

Yes, that leaves me with precisely zero choices. Not even worrying about the price yet ... So I have to give something up. Stick shift? Hell no. If I have to drive around, I might as well enjoy it and not fall asleep :-) Wagon? nope. I gave up on color. After all, just last week I had a blue car -- and I distinctly remember not wanting blue. I wanted green. But in 2002 when we went to the dealership the green one sold while we were driving there. So blue we got.

Just yesterday I drove home my new car. It is silver. But, it is a 2002 VW Passat station wagon with a stick shift, grey leather interior, great safety ratings, and with the lowest power engine has the best gas mileage I could find in this type of car. She is happy in our garage. I even baked a birthday cake for her yesterday. After all, she was build in Dec 2001 in Germany. It is really her birth month!

Dark Days Challenge Meal #3 or 4

2008-12-14T18:20:00.000-05:00

I missed a week of blogging for the Dark Days Challenge. I was so obsessed with the whole car accident finding the ideal replacement car, that while we did eat locally the whole week, I did not even think of blogging about it.

But this week I am back! We enjoyed sausage from a local farmer (10 miles), roasted potatoes (15 miles) tossed with olive oil and salt, and a mix of (15 miles) veges including leeks, carrots, napa cabbage, vitamin green, and chickpeas (not local but delivered with my other natural coop food from Phili. We seasoned the veges with homemade gomasio (sesame seeds and salt) and a bit of dulse.

Persimmon cake was our dessert. I made it yesterday as a birthday cake for my new (actually used) replacement car. The persimmons were deliciously sweet and from my favorite farm 15 miles away. I ground the wheat and spelt which came from Pittsburgh, PA (well beyond my 25 miles goal). Local honey sweetened the cake. Do those pesky baking ingredients count? You know - the baking powder and baking soda? Anyway, it was yummy...

Here's the persimmon cake recipe although as usual I modified it ...

A Day of Firsts and Lasts

2008-12-04T10:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was an exciting and eventful day. A day of firsts and lasts.

Son got his first pair of shoes repaired. He now knows how easy it can be to fix something you love.

Son used his debit card from Young Americans Bank for the first time. He paid to have his hiking boots repaired so he can have them for his next boy scout excursion.

Daughter did a forward roll on the balance beam in gymnastics class and did not fall off.

Both Son and Daughter were in their first car crash. I totaled my car. First time. Hopefully last as well. Here's my wonderful car:

You can see that we were hit by a car coming perpendicular to us - right in the driver side. We rolled over 3/4 of the way (yes we were upside down and on the roof for a short time) and spun around. We landed facing the wrong direction, up against a curb, and sideways on the driver's side of the car. Some nice gentlemen stopped and yanked open the car doors and helped Son and Daughter out. They had already unbuckled and were trying to get out. Daughter was on the passenger side in the back and was completely unharmed. Son was on the drivers side in the back and banged the corner of his eye on something. He has a small cut and a black eye. I have a few cuts on my hands but nothing that a standard size band-aid won't cover. The young woman that hit us and her toddler daughter were fine as well.

I love my VW Jetta. It kept us safe. I am sorry to see her go. She was fun to drive (I still drive a stick shift). But I have driven her for the last time.

What to do now? Hmm... We'll have to see how living within my green values plays out for figuring out future transportation. Until then, we are happy to be so lucky. Our time here on Earth was clearly not finished. I can't wait to see what the future holds for me!

Want more pictures? Check out the annotated crash pictures - done by my loving physicist husband. Get out your little matchbox cars for some physics/mechanics modeling...

Big Green Purse - Chapter 6 (food) and Chapter 7 (cleaning)

2008-11-26T19:38:00.000-05:00

Well, if you have read any of my blog, you will know that I am a big local, organic food person. I already eat way less meat than I used to and I am working on finding local, humanely farmed meat for my heavy meat eaters. We eat only sustainable seafood even when we are at a restaurant. Chapter 6 did not really have anything new to me. I did like the "organic purchase priorities" on page 168. I use my own cloth bags for shopping (all shopping) and I even have mesh produce bags for those strange occasional when I purchase produce at a grocery store. If I forget my cloth bags, I just carry whatever I bought (I usually have Son and Daughter with me - that makes 6 armloads!).

Chapter 7 is about cleaning stuff. I adore the book Clean and Green by Annie Bond. I refer to it regularly when we have something out of the ordinary to clean up. I keep the following cleansers in the house: vinegar, baking soda, borax, washing soda, lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil. I do use some commercial cleansers too. The company Ecover provides my concentrated laundry liquid, detergent for the automatic dishwasher, dishwashing soap, toilet bowl cleaner, and a soft scrub cleanser. I have a carpet cleaner, but use it pretty much all the time with plain warm water. Occasionally we have cat urine to clean up and I do use an enzyme to deal with that.

What about cleaning tools? We have a squeegee for cleaning mirrors, windows, and the shower walls. We have a large array of cloths for cleaning including those designated for greasy or otherwise dirty jobs. We have a dust mop for the wood and cork floors which has a removable and washable head. Our string mop head can be thrown in the washing machine as well.

We have a sepetic system and don't put anything down the toilet but the usual and small amounts of TP (recycled of course - Seventh Generation). When it needs help though, we have an array of plungers, plumbers snakes, and baking soda, vinegar, and boiling water to help keep it clean.

The only thing I can think of do to improve my green cleaning is to get a smaller house (more on that later)!

Big Green Purse - Chapter 5

2008-11-26T18:59:00.000-05:00

Chapter 5 of the Big Green Purse is all about coffee, tea, cocoa, and chocolate. I did not find much I could improve on here. We don't drink coffee, but I already purchase fair trade, shade grown, organic coffee (Cafe Altura) to offer guests. When we make coffee, we use unbleached coffee filters with our little 4 cup coffee pot and have a large french press pot. All our tea is currently from Celestial Seasonings. I purchase fair trade hot cocoa mix from Equal Exchange. As for chocolate, we love Endangered Species bars (ethically traded, shade grown, and sometimes organic) and the organic Earth Balls put out by Sunspire.

So what can I do better?

I use a fair amount of green decaf tea to make kombucha and herbal teas. I can make sure to purchase fair trade tea as loose tea leaves. Also, on Page 138, the author mentions that you easily decaffeinate your own loose tea leaves - so I will try that (pour boiling water over loose leaves, let steep for 30 sec, pour water off, pour more boiling water on leaves and brew). I think that I will also experiment more with growing herbs that can be made into tea (like peppermint).

Today I got a container of Dagoba cocoa to try (fair trade, shade grown, organic). I'd love to have more local stores which sell fair trade, shade grown, organic chocolate yummies for the kids to enjoy. Which companies should I start writing to... :)

The Universe Has Provided

2008-11-26T07:13:00.000-05:00

Anne over at Shine With Unschooling always talks about how everything is As It Should Be and how the Universe Provides for us all. I often wonder what takes the darned Universe so long sometimes. But this week, All Is Well. Our biggest issue by far is friends. We are a smidge more liberal and free with our thoughts and kids than many other homeschoolers who are geographically close to us. Ok, more than a smidge. Maybe a Grand Canyon separates us sometimes. So this causes problems making and keeping friends. I can go online and have many of my needs met. My couple of In Real Life friends are so busy and sometimes I can't just wait for them to have time for me. But Son - wow now that is another story completely. He craves social company. He needs it. And right now, he really wants similar age guys to hang with. He is 10. Its only going to become a more important issue is what I figure. And very soon it will involve the opposite sex as well.

How did the Universe provide, you ask? We have known this one family since Son was 1.5 years old. There is a same age boy as Son, a fabulous Friend Mom and interesting Dad, a fun daughter who passes down many clothes to my Daughter, and a younger person as well. Friend Mom and I have maintained our friendship through the Pink Shirt incident (teasing about boys wearing pink), kids avoiding each other, disinterest, and many years. Friend Mom came over to our house monday to hang out with Son and Daughter while I went on a date with my husband. First one without kids since we had kids! Wouldn't you know it but Friend Mom's son (M) and daughter (A) came with her to play. All kids and adults had a fabulous time that night. M asked when he could come back. Tuesday of course! M came over yesterday for about 3.5 hrs and again Son and M had a great time. Today Son gets to see his cool friend C which is super cool because we had to go more than a week without seeing C and his family due to illness.

Happy Thanksgiving! We have a lot to be Thankful for!

Dark Days Challenge Meal #2

2008-11-26T07:04:00.000-05:00

I was going to blog about our sunday meal as my 90% local meal but then I realized it was not very different from last week's meal. How yummy but boring! So instead, two days ago we had a simple chicken salad, homemade pita bread, and a salad. The chicken salad contained: leftover roasted chicken (5 miles), apples (about 8 miles, lacinato kale (15 miles), carrots (8 miles), and raisins (California) with a dressing of mayo (Hain brand but from far away) and mustard (Annie's brand but from far away). The homemade pita bread used wheat from Pittsburgh that I ground myself, salt, honey (25 miles), yeast (in a jar but from where?). If I had made this with the whey leftover from cheesemaking, it would have been even yummier! The salad had a mesclun mix base (15 miles), homemade mozzarella cheese (using 25 mile milk), oil and ume plum vinegar dressing, and more of those far away raisins. Sorry no picture today!

Evolution of Today's Learning

2008-11-22T22:45:00.000-05:00

Daughter asked to learn about China today. We got out a book about China and started reading. It is one of those that goes through the alphabet and talks about something related to China for every letter. Page one of the book took us to the globe to see China's location. Talk changed to Daughter saying " It must be summer in China because it is winter here". To the globe we go with a laser pointer. She sees the different spot sizes depending on where the laser pointer shines - northern hemisphere, equatorial region, or southern hemisphere. She decides that winter in Maryland happens at the same time as summer in Chile, but China has the same season as we do.

But what about Antarctica? Ever since Live Earth, we have had a fascination with Antarctica (did you see the super cool video of the band playing on the 7th continent - the research scientists that were wintering over made really cool music for Live Earth!). So what is winter like in Antarctica? And how do you get there? Luckily I know folks that have done the many leg trip to Antarctica so I can share that info! We talk about most folks going during the summer and how unique it is to winter over at the research stations there. Daughter says "What do you mean you can't leave during the winter?" Oh, well there was the Dr who needed her chemotherapy medicine air dropped to her so she could treat herself. Unfortunately the movie Ice Storm is not available at our library. And just last year there was someone who had to be flown out during winter because of a broken jaw (from a Christmas brawl?!). Wow, that medical evacuation cost over $200,000 Australian dollars!

Then we researched the airplane that did the evacuation using an ice strip - an Air Force C-130 Hercules. Tomorrow we are supposed to build a LEGO helicopter and see if we can get it into the playmobil cargo plane's aft hatch -- just like a C-130.

We went back to the China book and read A through M without stopping and then took a break to make a stir fry for dinner. In a wok not walk. She thought it was hilarious that those two words sounded the same and yet looked so different.

Pretty cool learning for a five year old on a saturday , eh?

Who am I? A Mazda RX-8

2008-11-22T22:12:00.000-05:00

My friend Ren is a Chevy. She took the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz. I was curious, so I did it too.

I'm a Mazda RX-8!

You're sporty, yet practical, and you have a style of your own. You like to have fun, and you like to bring friends along for the ride, but when it comes time for everyday chores, you're willing to do your part.

Big Green Purse - Chapter 4 (Cars)

2008-11-21T22:32:00.000-05:00

Chapter 4 of Big Green Purse is about vehicles. Cars more specifically since we live in the US. So in April we bought a Toyota Prius. We replaced a 1995 Nissan Maxima which we purchased used from friends when we returned to the DC area in 1999. We also have our 2002 Volkswagon Jetta wagon. We would actually like to have 1.5 cars but there is no Zipcar service here in Southern Maryland. Whoever is expecting to drive farther on a given day takes the Prius. Usually I drive the Jetta which works out because the mess kids make is less of a worry and the Jetta is a manual transmission. I enjoy driving my stick shift cars. The Prius makes me feel like I am ll.iving my principles but it's automatic transmission makes it less fun for me to drive. We have these cars but choose to drive them as little as possible. There are lots of reasons why, but I'd rather describe how.

During late spring, summer, and early fall, we spend a lot of time riding our bikes places. We live about 5 miles from town with services. For us, that means post office, library, thrift store, park, bakery, and occasional forays to Target and Safeway (for bananas and avocados). We have a trailer bike so our 5 year old can pedal and be attached to an adult's bike for safety. Our 10 year old has been riding (guided) on the road on his own bike for 2 years. We started out slow and easy with sunday morning road rides with long time cyclist Dad and worked up to daytime ride with less experienced Mom.
Right now, we are pretty dependent on our car to get us places because of the cold weather. We are just not equipped to bundle everyone up for a bike ride in 30 degree F weather.

In every season, we combine errands so that we really don't go out for less than 2 things in a given direction. We go to Waldorf once a week and LaPlata several times. When it stays light out late enough, we can ride to & from scout meetings even! We make lists so we don't forget something that can not wait another week if we forget about it. We determine a path for the errands to minimize backtracking and total driving distance. We are very conscious to minimize our car use.

We also have car-free days every week. These lovely days have no big interruptions so we can in principle get things done that require more time. The day just flows along without external pressure. I like them. Those are my baking days usually. I can bake bread, cookies, soups, and other yummies because I have more time at home.

I picked up a cute little book at the DC Green Festival entitled Cutting Your Car Use. I am searching for ways to do just that. We have already done so much that we are down to carpooling for hubby (he's been trying to arrange that) and moving. Both are appealing right now, but I don't have much control over either option. I am still working on the whole less car driving thing. Maybe I'll have inspiration in my dreams tonight. Good night!

Personal Care Products

2008-11-20T12:14:00.000-05:00

So I am reading The Big Green Purse by Diane MacEachern and decided to blog about each chapter and share my local, good to the earth resources with you. Chapter 3 is about beauty and personal care products. So what do I use you ask? Here's my list:

hair -- I mostly wash with water and occasional baking soda (instead of shampoo) and organic apple cider vinegar (as scalp conditioner).

face -- I mostly wash with water, weekly gently scrub with my bath scrubbie, daily use of moisturizer. Currently my moisturizer is Avalon Organics Vitamin C Oil-free Moisturizer. When I run out, I will be replacing with a facial moisturizer from Terressentials - a great little local company located in Frederick, MD.

lips -- I apply Burt's Bees lip balm several times a day. I have a Terressentials lip balm to try when I run out so I can support a local small business while caring for my dry winter lips.

hands -- At the DC Green Festival I bought the Terressentials fragrance free moisturizer cream for daily use after dish washing. It is yummy. Our bathrooms and kitchen are stocked with Dr. Bronner's liquid soap.

body -- Over the last year, I stopped using soap or other harsh chemicals on my skin and it is much healthier than it was during the rest of my years. I exfoliate with my bath scrubbie and that is all. The human body naturally cleans itself. Of course, dirt and other things that did not start on my skin are washed off with Dr. Bronner's liquid soap.

feet -- My feet get really dry. Son and Daughter tell me to take better care of them. I am now reminded to encourage the dry skin off using a foot care emery board and to moisturize after showers with Burt's Bees coconut foot cream.

makeup -- I don't use much. I have some Burt's Bees tinted beeswax lip balm that I use as lipstick maybe once or twice a month. I use Ecco Bella's mascara (I wear contacts) every day basically. That's it. Beauty is on the inside and in the eye of the beholder. My dear Son tells me every day that I am beautiful while he hugs me. What more could I need?

nail polish -- Occasionally, I just want to be more colorful. My nails get a dash of color (peel off or water-based polish) from Honeybee Gardens in the fantastic color of Shiny Penny. Oh, and it is a Pennsylvania company so it is pretty local too. I should try their mascara next time too.

teeth - I normally go with Preserve toothbrushes because they are made from recycled Stonyfield Farm yogurt containers and the toothbrushes are fully recyclable as well. Toothpaste I use a Tom's of Maine variety but am trying other brands as well when I have access to purchase them.

sunscreen -- We use our roof as sunscreen during the hours of strongest sun (i.e. we stay indoors). During morning and later afternoon/evening hours we go without sunscreen typically because we are busy making vitamin D with the sun on our skin. When we cannot avoid the strong sun or will be out for an extended time period, we have a supply of Nature's Gate sunscreen. Maybe by next summer, I will have come up with even better, local options for this too. Got an idea? Tell me!

menstrual products -- I almost forgot this one! I use The Keeper. I create no trash which is a good thing. At the end of my cycle, I sometimes use a panty liner made by Natracare.

Ok, that is it. If I didn't list it - I don't use it. What do you use?

Public Libraries and Childrens' Books about Gay Families

2008-11-18T21:38:00.000-05:00

Ok, so my local homeschool yahoo group supplied me with food for thought today. Someone posted about a meeting at the public library one county over. The topic was a childrens' picture book about a gay family (And Tango Makes Three) which was shelved in the children's section. Apparently, some citizens wanted the book moved to where children could not happen across it on their own and inadvertently be exposed to pro-homosexual content. The library Director decided to keep the book where it was. The decision was appealed and the Board of Trustees stood firm that the book was properly cataloged as a children's book and would not move it to the adult section. The citizens were now petitioning the County Commissioners to have the book moved to - get this - an "alternative family" or "non-traditional family" section of the library. Wow. What the hell?

Ok, so I posted this reply which I thought was pretty sweet:
Thank you so much for sharing this opportunity to encourage others to open their minds and accept people for who they are. The world will be a much better place when people focus on enjoying each other's differences and similarities than on getting people to change who they are. Unfortunately, I don't live in Calvert County and can't make the drive today. Hope you all go and speak your open minds to support the Library Director.

Wow, the letters that came after that were amazing to me. Talking about how they did not want to teach this kind of alternative lifestyle (being homosexual) to their children. Talking about how the content of the public library should reflect the community's opinion as to the proper shelving of a book. And then the one discussing how it is the parent's who get to make the choice about what the child is exposed to.

Ok, so will you all just watch this video please? Right now! (Ren - thanks for sharing this on your blog!)

Meat and Politics

2008-11-17T12:00:00.001-05:00

Over the weekend, Son and I watched Fast Food Nation. I have already read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Today, I read this article. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif about fast food joint burgers and chicken being primarily made of corn (from a chemical analysis). It is all scary and are the exact reasons that I don't choose to eat at fast food places or eat meat from the grocery store. My dilemma is that Husband, Son, and sometimes Daughter like to eat meat. So what to do? Buy local, pastured meat from farmers that I know and trust.

Are you wondering why we watched Fast Food Nation to begin with? Son went into the library to get some movies for the predicted rainy cold days we had a few days ago. He came out with Fahrenheit 9/11, Fast Food Nation, and the Hoax. He is 10 and curious about all sorts of things. So we watched all the movies. Watching Fahrenheit 9/11 a week after Obama was just elected was a bit strange. He just kept asking "did that really happen?" and "why?".

He is obviously still processing both movies. Occasional questions come up. It will be interesting to watch how and if he changes after seeing these movies. If you haven't watched them yet - go ahead and do that on the next rainy cold day at your house :-)

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge

2008-11-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

This year I am participating in the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge put on by (not so) Urban Hennery. I really enjoyed reading about everyone's food last year and wanted to play this year. Plus I get a lot more of my food locally now, so this should be doable for me. It runs from Nov 15 through March 15 and I am to blog every week, so there will be lots of food related posts coming up.

The Dark Days Challenge is to create, eat, and blog about one meal a week which is made from 90% local ingredients. What is local? We define it for ourselves. My local food is grown within 25 miles of my house.

Today's meal(s) looks like this...

Lunch is butternut and leek soup, homemade mozzarella cheese, mesclun mix salad,
apple (10 miles), and roasted potatoes (15 miles). The soup is made with homemade chicken broth (chicken came from 5 miles away) and local butter (25 miles) along with leeks and butternut squash (15 miles). I made the mozzarella using milk from about 25 miles away. The salad greens (15 miles) and apple (10 miles) What was not local? I used salt, cumin, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, a bit of olive oil for the potatoes, and salad dressing that were not local. There is a piece of homemade bread on my plate described in the dinner picture, but I didn't actually eat it at lunchtime.

Dinner is roasted chicken (5 miles), baked sweet potato (15 miles) with local butter (25 miles), swiss chard (15 miles), persimmon (15 miles), and homemade honey (25 miles) bread with local butter (25 miles). The wheat for the bread was grown in Pittsburgh, so that was not local and neither was the yeast :-) The chard had our magic sauce which is not local (ume plum vinegar, olive oil, agave nectar, and soy sauce).

Ok, so I am learning and will be using even less non-local ingredients in my next Dark Days Challenge Meal.

Bye Bye Go Kart

2008-10-27T06:15:00.000-04:00

Remember when I posted about purchasing a go kart for Son? He has enjoyed his go kart very much. He figured out how to prevent the go kart from stalling by finessing the gas and brake. He learned about loans, compounding interest, and choosing to purchase one object over another. He experimented with turning radius, acceleration up a hill, and stopping distance. He experienced its not so great handling, the bumpiness of the ride, and the smell of the exhaust. We paid for and did the work to replace the bearings and the clutch. He got grassy from driving right after mowing. He paid for gas and filled up the tank for his joy ride. He loved his go kart.

Yesterday it left our house. We sold it. Son had driven it long enough to satisfy his need. He had not driven it in weeks. It was his idea to sell the go kart. He sucked the life out of the go kart and then passed it on for another boy and his cousins to love. Enjoy the ride!

Doing Things Myself

2008-10-24T06:45:00.000-04:00

Another unschooler and overall great lady, Robin, is prompting us to blog about things we do ourselves inthe name of sustainability and having fun:

I would like to see if I could get a small blog carnival going on the subject of "Do It Yourself". So if you have some skill that you know how to do - making jam, growing potatoes, baking bread, making yogurt, knitting a scarf, building a shed, or whatever you can think of, please share it on your blog and send me an email letting me know what post it is. I'll try to round up a good carnival on the topic of "DIY" on my urban farm blog. Deadline is November 15.

So what do I know how to do?
1) Make jam using seaweed thickener (agar flakes) - last year I made tons of blackberry jam and gave it out at Christmastime. This year I didn't actually make any. I'm not sure why.

2) Make mozzarella cheese using Ricki Carroll's fabulous instructions and materials. It only takes about 1/2 unless you are interrupted or only have a very small glass bowl to heat the cheese in. We like it with basil mixed in and layered with tomatoes and some olive oil. Yum.

3) Bake bread using my home ground whole wheat flour and the whey left over from cheese making - fabulous once I stopped baking the loaves too long. I use my Whispermill to grind flours of all varieties and love it.

4) Knitting and crocheting although simple stuff. I love the feel of bamboo yarn so prefer that for scarves. I actually sell some stuff at my etsy shop. I am working up to knitting in the round with multiple needles and using patterns. Stitches that require a lot of counting or concentration are out ... my youngest is five and I still get easily distracted.

5) I make yogurt too, but don't have the patience or climate to do it without the use of a yogurt maker. I tried. It was ugly and took a long time. My mother-in-law witnessed that daya nd happily purchased me a yogurt maker last Christmas.

6) I sew for myself and occasionally for others. I think I might make a long cozy skirt out of some organic sherpa this weekend. I need find a better place for my sewing machine though. Right now it is trapped.

7) I make my own tomato/pasta sauce. I made enough for the entire year (I think) this summer using seconds tomatoes from my good friend's farm. I canned it and everything. The quart jars are all lined up inside my new pantry cabinet that I blogged about earlier this year. I used the recipe from the book Animal,Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (which I loved). I used the squisher/strainer thing that my mother gave me from when she was my age and trying to live the same sustainable way albeit in Florida.

That's all I can think of right now. I do lots of things, but nothing that seems so out of the ordinary (to me - I know biased). I am now pondering what new skill I can add to my life ...

A New Farm

2008-10-20T09:52:00.000-04:00

Yeah, we discovered a new farm recently - Fresh Start Farm - in White Plains. It is only a few miles away and we can ride there on our bikes if we choose. We visited the farm and liked what we saw. They have organic fed, pastured egg laying hens of various breeds. They are growing meat chickens as well but we have not tried those yet. We love our eggs and other stuff from Good Fortune Farm. We love to support local farmers, especially those as local as we get. I am considering starting a CSA type of program to make it easier for families to get their food locally.

Happy Birthday!

2008-10-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

Today my big kid turns 10. Wow. Its been fabulous to watch him grow. He has made especially big changes this last year. Maybe not compared to infancy, and I understand development will soon be happening at warp speed (otherwise known as adolescence). When I look at him, I see a capable, intelligent being who has lived a completely different set of experiences than I did at the same age. He has matured a lot emotionally this year. Before, he would play with kids who were mean to him just because he so much wanted to play with someone he didn't care how they acted. Now, he tries to play and hangout with them, but can walk away when he doesn't like what they do. Yesterday he actually left the neighbors party where we all were because the kids were playing meanly with him and just him. He simply got his shoes and walked home. No blow up, no meanness back to the kids. He told them how he felt and gave them a chance to change and they didn't care to. It doesn't even matter so much if they were being mean on purpose or were simply unaware. We talked about socialization and how our social interactions might be different from theirs at school. He just came home and played with his xbox - happily. I was amazed.

So what did my wonderful Son want to do for his birthday? Open presents! Lots if possible :-) So I gave him lots of small things and wrapped up even the non object presents. Then he opened them throughout the day so he was able to open something every few hours on his special day. What did he get you ask?

Present 1) The one thing he asked for was to go to the movies to see the High School Musical 3. He's never seen a movie in the theater. Sitting for that long was difficult until recently. Since the movie hasn't opened yet, I just wrapped up a homemade coupon for a Movie Theater Experience.

Present 2) I also got a book for him titled Choosing Your First Power Boat. He has developed an interest in powerboats and going fast. I couldn't get him a boat for his birthday (or pay for the gas for said boat;-) but I did find a way to support his new passion. The Universe provided for me here because I got a book for Daughter from paperbackswap.com . As always, when I order a book, I check out the other books from the same seller since it saves on shipping costs. There the book was - waiting for me.

Present 3) In the spring, we opened a new bank account for him with an ATM card. He loves using it for depositing his savings and taking money out for his purchases. But he dislikes the fact that you can only take money out of the ATM machine in $20 increments. Not very friendly to those who want to just take out a little to spend. So one of his presents is a new bank account with a debit card from Young Americans Bank. They make checking accounts and credit cards available to young people. As a matter fact, there is an age cap to have an account there - 21!

Present 4) A cozy that I crocheted and then felted for his ipod. The earbuds fit in the case before I felted it but I didn't know how much it would shrink. Oops. I had attached a loop so that it would slide onto a belt and that part worked out fine. Maybe I'll make another one slightly bigger so those ear buds fit too...

Present 5) I reminded his teenaged cousins (actually second cousins) that is was his birthday and he would really like to have it acknowledged by them. Yeah, both of them emailed Son today with birthday greetings. He was happy.

Present 6) The way cool dude that Son met at the Live and Learn Conference, Pavi, called to wish my Dude a Happy Birthday. Ok, so I did call Pavi's mom this morning to tell her it was Son's birthday and I did put the phone call idea in her head, but I knew it would make Son feel really good to talk with his friend.

Present 7) The Dinner. Everything Son really likes. Juicy steak (organic). Birthday cake. Another dessert (apple pie). Homemade bread with oil and spices. A vegetable for the rest of the family. I had a big salad too. Crystal glasses for everyone. Yum!

What a fabulous day for my big guy.

Being Nice

2008-10-12T21:23:00.001-04:00

Why is it so hard for some people to be nice? I mean they look fine. They use the English language well enough. But something happens when my name is mentioned. It is like they are hypnotized or something. They start spouting the meanest things. I have not had so many people bad mouth me since I was in high school! Am I just surrounded by a bunch of people that never grew up? The funny thing is, I have heard these types of stories from several people in the last few weeks. One of my (oh so lucky) friends will be talking with someone they either just met or know casually. My name is mentioned in the context of "My friend ZZZ blah blah" and they ask my friend to repeat. As if they couldn't believe what they heard. A friend of ZZZ's? And then this person will start saying how I am a this and a that and do A and allow my kids to do B. If they are particularly polite they will mention something along the lines of saint-like qualities my friend must have for putting up with me. I mean whoa! Who asked you?! After thinking about it for a while, I came up with one characteristic to define these people - closed minded. They are simply not open to anyone or anything who does things differently from themselves. I feel sad for them - really. They are missing out on so many things and on the spice of life. Variety is where its at.

Yes, I know I am far from mainstream in so many ways. I like it that way. Yes, I know that I am "super smart" (the PhD in physics tells folks that I have an academic streak in me) and know a bit about lots of things. To many people I am simply scary. I speak my mind although I try to limit it to when asked. I got a lot better at that after becoming a LLL Leader. And thats one part that kills me. Even people whom I have helped breastfeed their babies think it is ok to speak impolitely about me to a stranger. I mean, do they really think I won't find out? How silly! I have lived in this area for oh my gosh 17 years (except for those 2 in Chicago). I know a lot of people and for good or bad, a lot of people know me. Or rather they know who I am but they don't know the real me. If they did, they would consider me a valuable friend. One who encourages them to stretch beyond their comfort zone in almost every way. Too bad for them though!

Picture of Unschooling

2008-10-10T10:43:00.001-04:00

This post is for my friend Christine. What do my kids do all day when we are unschoolers? Here's what we are doing:

7:20 am Daughter wakes up and eats breakfast
7:40 am Son wakes up
7:41 am Son and Daughter argue, have energizing time, then go get dressed
7:50 am Daughter plays little cars in her room
7:50 am Son reads one of the 5 Ripley's Believe it or Not books we got from the library yesterday
8:00 am Daughter and I play a backgammon game
8:20 am Daughter and I clean up her work table and assemble books and containers for her new project box on China
9:00 am Daughter takes out recycling with me
9:00 am Son asks me for help assembling this lego robot/transformer toy that a friend asked us to repair after her two year old whirlwind destructed it
9:30 am Son eats more breakfast
10:30 am Son watches Inside Edition on tv
10:30 am Daughter makes up math problems for me, 25+5+25+5=?, 100+36=?, 100-69=?, 6-10=?, 6-10=?, 11+80=?, for Son 51+22=?, 60+70=?. Daughter is making up the problems, using the hundred board to mark off the numbers in the problem, writing down the sign for the math function (+, -, etc), then writing the number which is the answer.
10:55 am Son and Daughter argue, screech, and move on
11:00 am S sets up the VCR and tapes the Price is Right
11:05 am S and D have snack, change clothes, and grab snacks/water to take with them
11:30 am sit in car while it takes S and D to Waldorf
12:00-1:33 pm Open Gym at Unique Sports Academy
1:30 pm sit in car and snack
2:00 pm watch the tapes Price is Right while waiting for LEGO Robotics team to appear
2:15 pm S and D have ice cream while I tell Son no one is coming for robotics today
2:25 pm S plays video games while I try and convince him to do robotics with his new teammate - me!
3:30 pm Son and I are trying to fix the laser aiming light on his nerf gun, Daughter is being alone
4:00 pm Son puts the gun back together
5:00 pm Daughter types names on the computer, augmenting with pictures from clipart
5:30 pm Daughter check outside weather and determines that it is very warm. She is thinking of something to do outside
5:40 pm Son is upstairs reading, Daughter is getting her nerf guns ready for going outside

Boats, Guns, and Secret Service

2008-09-29T14:45:00.000-04:00

Son has been interested in boats for a while now. He has gone on a row boat and paddle boats. He loved the idea of powerboating. He was browsing Craig's List one time and asked if we could buy a $15,000 boat. Umm, no.

After weeks (and more weeks) of putting him off about purchasing a power boat (we said no for gas, cost, and interest reasons), I was able to shift into trying to help him get what he wanted. I suggested we walk down the street to our powerboating neighbors and ask to go out when they are going anyway. They of course said sure but not today. They said they'd call. Waiting is so hard. Last weekend, they finally called and Son and Husband got to go out on the Potomac River in a power boat. At first, he didn't want to go. I shifted and reframed the opportunity with the excitement I knew he would have. He quickly packed his bag and headed off. First time out on a power boat for Son. He came home tired, a bit windblown, and joyous. He enjoyed the boating, he enjoyed the company (bit older girl to talk to), but boy was he hungry! Apparently going on top of the water at 70 mph was a bit more interesting than eating his sandwich :-) I was so happy to have helped him Shine on that day.

That was over a week ago. This past weekend, we watched the movie Sentinel. We enjoyed Michael Douglas as a Secret Service agent. Now my kids are Shining with their new nerf guns and cool sunglasses and doing lots of secret missions. Madame president frequently needs the house sweeped for bad guys. The First Man's arrival home from a busy day at the office is an anticipated and well planned out event now :-) I do sometimes wish we had guns that shoot love or peace instead of guns with toy bullets. But I suppose I need to work on my pretending a bit more too!

Bellydancing - my new passion!

2008-09-29T07:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had a great time going to my first bellydancing workshop. I went to the House of Dance for a Choreography Workshop with Amy Koskey. We moved, we shaked, and had a grand old time. Amy dances a tribal fusions tyle which was so much fun. I learned that someone I have known for over 6 years teaches bellydance in the next county over and dances with the area bellydance troupe. Wow that was a surprise. I checked out her photos on the web and no wonder I never knew. She looks so different decked out in bellydancing attire than when I see her at the nature center where she works:-)

I know what you are thinking. Why bellydance? Why now? Well, at Live and Learn, Mindy and her son Max did this fusion bellydance/hip hop act which made me want to be on stage dancing with them. Since I came home from L&L thinking that the things I spend my days doing were kind of boring - I was feeling open to new passions. I got advice to just try a bunch of new things and see what I liked. I tried bellydance. I like!

On the way to the workshop, I stopped to pick up some wood burning tools that I got through freecycle. My Roots and Shoots group is going to make some trail signs for a local state park. The funny thing was that the place I picked up these tools was the same neighborhood as my friend Ronda used to live in. The same Ronda that started the Roots and Shoots group and then handed it over to me several months later! We sure miss you dear:-)

I am checking out an actual bellydance class this weekend. I hope that is as fun as the workshop I did yeaterday.

Where oh where is my Tribe?

2008-09-28T09:49:00.000-04:00

This month's blog carnival is about unschooling tribes. I am not sure how many people count as a tribe. I have tribe components. People that my family and I love to be with, enjoy doing things with, and don't think we are totally wacko. People that see us Shine. Unfortunately, these wonderful people are spread out (from 10 minutes away to North Carolina - soon to be Washington State) so http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifI have not seen more than one family at a time. Also, many of my tribe components are too busy to see us more than every few weeks which feels very untribe-like. I crave more. More people. More getting together. More fun. More tribe.

So what am I doing about that? Well, surrounding ourselves with mainstream people or mainstream homeschoolers is not an option. They really think we are off the deep end. I have actually been told from some of these people that they do not want their kids around mine. Reason being seems to be totally their problem: my kids are allowed to do things their kids are not and they don't want to explain the whys of that to their kids. Just wait till their kids are teenagers!

So connecting with unschoolers is my goal then. Here's my plan:

(1) I took my family to the Live and Learn Conference. Now I have a tribe member in my own home - Dear Husband :-) And we met tons of cool people from all over the country. I really hope to be ablet o visit some of these folks or host them at our place in the future.

(2) I organize Unschooler Hangouts in the DC/Baltimore metro area. I tell people on SMHN, marylandorganiclearning, and MidAtlanticRadicalUnschoolers email lists about the Hangouts. We have met several new families this way. Getting together the second time seems to be harder...

(3) I am trying to cultivate the relationships I already have. Daughter has one friend who attends school and I am working hard to maintain this relationship for her. I am trying to stay connected with my friends even when our kids do not enjoy each others company. Son is the hardest one since not many local people can see what a fabulous, shiny, person he is.

(4) I have a large virtual tribe at the Radical Unschoolers Network which is really cool and really makes me feel good.

I have tons of ideas of cool things to do with a tribe, but I still need that physical, local tribe in order to take my ideas and make them flourish.

Buy My Stuff

2008-09-26T22:51:00.000-04:00

I have an online store now. How strange is that? The recycled floppy disk things my kids and I made for a Roots and Shoots project finally might be leaving my house! I might be knitting some stuff too. And expanding my creativity even further...

Check it out:
earthyzee.etsy.com

Let me know how you like it!

Welcome Back Creativity!

2008-09-26T16:43:00.001-04:00

So I started knitting a few weeks ago - after returning from the Live and Learn Conference. I had some thick, rich, purple yarn that I had been given at a Christmas past. I knitted myself a small purse - just large enough for my wallet, phone, and keys. Then I braved joining a group of oh so creative folks - the Imagination Tribe. Then I decided to try out a Trade. This is where you make whatever the Trade topic is (a small bag in this case), send it off to the host of the Trade, and they send you back a bag that someone else made. How cool is that?! So here are the two bags I made and am sending:

I'll let you know what I get back from the Trade!

Hanging out with Unschoolers

2008-09-20T18:59:00.000-04:00

A few days ago we went and hung out at the National Colonial Farm with some other unschoolers (Jane and Bethani). It was a fabulous time - just like last time we were with Jane at Fort Washington. Every other week or so we get together someplace with lots of space and interesting things to do, play, wander around the place, talk, and just be. We call these days Unschooler Hangouts.

This time, my friend Jane tells me "Around other unschoolers, I'm radical. I had no idea I was so left!". I have only known her since January, but she always seemed pretty radical to me. That is one reason why we connected so well. She sees the beauty and shine in my children that few others seem to see. Jane is A OK in my book to be as left as she wants!

The girls had a great time together - even after there was chasing, tripping, both girls falling to the dusty road, and making up. Here they are just after saying goodbye to the pig.

We were in awe of each other at the end of the day. I was totally impressed with her calm state and way of handling when her son Nik was just not there when she turned around. He had gone to see the pigs, had not heard that we were changing plans to see the horses, and so we proceeded unknowingly without him. She did not worry about his location, only how she would reconnect with him. When they did find each other, he was sad to have realized he was alone. She did not berate him, or chide him for being in a different place from everyone else. Later she told me story of how she came to know when Nik just needed his own space. Fantastic!

She was impressed with my ability to help Son work through his hunger, need for a snack, desire to go home before his sister was ready. I tend to do better in front of an audience :-) Jane's son Christopher helped Son as well. For him it was as easy as walking up to him and walking away talking with him.

All in all, we decided it was way more fun to hang out with other radical unschoolers that others. We don't feel judged, or like some parent is waiting for us to reign in our kids when they are just doing what makes them happy. Did we stop the kids from throwing stuff at the turkeys? You bet. Did we let the kids throw rocks into the river from the shore? You bet. Did we all have a fabulous time? You bet. Even though it was her first time with us ever - Bethani agrees!

Live and Learn - Wow!

2008-09-12T22:24:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I haven't managed to write every day or even every other. But that's ok. I am relieving myself of that duty.

So we got back a few days ago from the Live and Learn Conference near Asheville, NC. It was fantastic for so many reasons. First of all, Son connected with a friend on the first day and we rarely saw him for the rest of the conference. He played, partied, and had a great time. He sometimes had a hard time getting food he wanted at the cafeteria, but he neglected to mention that until the last day. He also stayed in said friend's room one night. That was his first night away from us - a milestone. His new friend Pavi thought Son was great as did Pavi's parents (I had never met a stay at home unschooling dad before - how cool!).

Second of all, Husband attended talks and watched the people around him and has come home Changed (in my observation). He is much more committed to unschooling. Maybe it was seeing how happy and terrific Son can be when he truly getting his needs AND wants met. Maybe it was Beth's sparkly talk on Peaceful Partnerships. Maybe it was seeing all those grown and almost grown unschoolers in real life and seeing how confident, well-spoken, and darned interesting they are. Whatever it was about the conference, I am thankful:-)

Daughter, Son, and Husband challenged themselves with the climbing tower and the giant swing. Wow, they were impressive - especially Daughter since she is only 5. The swing was so high!

We stayed with 2 families on our way to the conference - found via couchsurfing.com - my new favorite way to stay. You get to meet cool people, hang out with them in their home environment, stay overnight, then return the favor by hosting someone in your home at another time.

On our trip to NC, we rented a small sailboat and the kids sailed for the first time. That was pretty cool. We hiked around in Stone Mountain park (the most memorable - I mean infamous - vacation destination from my youth). Oh, we had a great time. I instilled a desire to travel more. We are planning already!

Shopping with Mother In Law

2008-08-09T22:13:00.000-04:00

My basement pantry is finished! I'll try and get a picture up tomorrow. I cut and added the last shelf today and am very happy with it. The top shelf is all for empty canning jars. Right now, the second shelf has last years applesauce and the 8 jars of tomato sauce I have so far. I will be making pickles tuesday or wednesday and will add them to the shelf as well. I am trying to figure out what else I can make that we will appreciate and that can be canned using a water canner. I was reading Danielle's blog a few days ago and was inspired by her usage of her new pressure canner.

The guys came back from cub scout camp and things turned out pretty well. Son had a lot of fun and so it was worth the trouble and The Calls from Last Sunday. Oh, and my mother-in-law is visiting us now. Daughter and I picked her up yesterday from the airport. We had a nice field trip to the airport (lots of process questions were answered). I made a big mistake already. I agreed to go shopping for Daughter's birthday present with her. I hate to shop. She loves it. She bought way more for Daughter than I would have preferred. At one point she asked me what Daughter would like from the toy section. I said not much. Daughter had not expressed nterest in anything from Target's toy section but she had said she needed some new toys. I let the two of them browse together and now Daughter will be getting toy horses and accompanying stuff and a croquet set. I hope she uses them and enjoys them after she gets them of course! I am getting better at releasing control over my kids. I can see that when I watch my MIL interact with them. She is very authoritarian. We shall see what she thinks of our unschooling life! Did I mention she works for the NY State Department of Education?

My First Sleepover

2008-08-07T10:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I pulled out my circular saw to make shelves for a pantry cabinet in the basement (need somewhere to store all those canning jars full of yummy local food that I make!). Daughter and I went to Lowe's and get wood - but it was FSC certified hardwood plywood. We cut it to size with just one cut each piece. We soaped up the pegs to hold up the shelves and voila there we go. A pantry. Now I just need to go back and get more of the peg things now that I know they are the right size. I only have one shelf in my 3 shelf cabinet.

After that, I dropped Daughter off at her friend L's house (for the first time without me there) and headed off to my beloved yoga class. It was so nice to be there and it turned out to be a fabulous private class. Yeah for me! When I picked up Daughter, L came with us for our first sleepover. I don't remember sleeping over at a friend's house except maybe once when I was growing up so it all felt new to me. Since they had already had a few hours to play together, Daughter and L were getting along great when we got home. But they were getting tired already. We played restaurant (so they could have a snack), set up our city rugs and little cars to play, and got out some books for when we got tired. They were both so tired but unwilling to go to sleep early. I finally put on my nightgown, announced I was reading 2 books aloud and turning off the lights of my room. They each had a room they could go play in if they wanted. They opted to stay with me and lights out. I didn't take long for them to fall asleep. L had a bit of a hard time because Zelda the Cat was purring loudly. I got up at my normal time and hopped with into the shower. I was surprised to come out of the shower to Daughter dressed and ready to play with the sleeping L. Waiting is so hard sometimes. Zelda the Cat woke L up with her meowing for brushing to the wait wasn't too long. Getting started in the morning was a challenge with the two girls. I called L's mom and asked her to stop by and see if L was ready to go home. Once I got enough fuel into them, things were much better. L was not ready to go, so now they are in the basement being noisy and active and having a grand old time. I think it was a success!

Painting and Concrete

2008-08-05T21:42:00.001-04:00

Wow, today I started and completed my own project and helped someone else with theirs! After a quiet, doing little tasks kind of morning, Daughter and I started prepping the kids bathroom to be painted. That went so quickly that we got out the paint which has been patiently waiting since winter. We got the entire bathroom prepared and painted in less than 4 hours. Daughter helped the entire time. What a champ. Of course, she did get to use a screwdriver, a cleaning bucket, a paint brush, masking tape, and a paint roller. What is not to love?

After we got our tools and ourselves cleaned up (tools better than us), I looked out the window and saw a concrete truck at our neighbors house. We put on our shoes and headed over there so check out the fun. They were putting in a sidewalk to their new side door and sort of new gazebo. The forms were already up and level (hence the concrete truck's arrival), but there was still plenty to watch. I got to help screed the concrete (make the surface level with the forms), use a sledgehammer to pound the stakes for the forms in further, and hang out with the guys. Hardly any woman comments except that "there aren't many women who do what you do". I took that as a compliment. I wouldn't have 10 years ago. I have grown and matured imagine that!

After a shower that felt wonderful, we had a yummy dinner, and settled down to watch The Rescuers. It is one movie that I remember enjoying as a child, so I thought I would share it with Daughter. We watched a bit of it before she was too sleepy. Maybe more tomorrow.

Too Many Errands

2008-08-05T08:22:00.001-04:00

Well, right now it seems that morning is when I have calm and quiet to think and blog. Yesterday Daughter and I did errands for entirely too long. We filled up on gas for our jetta wagon (a mere $52), dropped books at the library, tried to go observe a swim lesson but there was no one in the pool, took our trash to the landfill (yup - no trash pickup service for us - our choice), left an envelope at a friend's house, went to get milk and butter, stopped at the health food store, browsed at our local bike shop (its birthday month for half of our family), grabbed a dozen bagels, and purchased new homeschool journals for Son and Daughter's first one.

At the health food store (Country Nutrition) we were looking for natural versions of things we have recently started using. Son is working more on keeping his mouth clean and loving his teeth. He wants to use fluoride rinse (too many cavities) and I would like one without too many strange ingredients. I found several to choose from, but all were mint flavor which does not fly for him. Elaine is searching for more choices for us. Daughter loves to chew peelu gum (and it helps with oral care too) but doesn't care for the cinnamon flavor which Son likes. Daughter is very into self first aid for her own ouches. We are trying some arnica cream for bruises and a calendula ointment for cuts/scrapes (instead of neosporin).

Once at home, we worked on planning a pantry type of cabinet to hold canning jars and other food in the basement. Since we order from a natural food coop, we often have 1-2 months supply of some foods which live in the basement. We have these 2 large cabinets with doors which served as clothing wardrobes for our 100 year old victorian house in Chicago (which had no closets). They have poles to hand hangers from and holes in side to put in adjustable shelves - if we only had more shelves. That way, we have safe storage for the canning jars (applesauce, tomato sauce, etc) I work hard to produce. Once we obtain some shelves, we will have a pantry cabinet and a dress up cabinet. We measured and made out shopping list.

Camp, The Calls, and Peaceful Rooms

2008-08-04T07:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I forgot about posting until it was way to late for Daughter and I to get started. She and I are without men/boys for the entire week! Husband and Son left yesterday morning for cub scout camp in VA. We helped them get packed up and head off into the sunshine for a mere 4-5 hours driving. After the should have gotten there I got The Call. Camp was closed. Yes, closed. There was an e. coli problem (7 people I think) last week. Even though the camp called everyone to assure no problems on saturday, sunday they were closed. Yuck! The Leader called around and found them another camp with space about 20 miles away. The Call from from Son who does not handle transitions well. He wanted to come home. Luckily, I was removed from the situation enough to Be The Mountain. I helped him calm down, realize he would still get to shoot bb guns, and that it would be ok. Then another Call. They were at a Italian restaurant and Son wasn't hungry and didn't want to eat there anyway. The Mountain that I am, I helped him think of just getting a glass of milk (wow it seemed he needed protein to accompany the sugar snacks he had on the drive) and asking waiter for plain chicken. Thank goodness, when he called to tell me what he ordered, he had discovered chocolate milk and chicken strips. No more calls.

Daughter and I had no trouble jumping right into projects together. Even at the tender age of five, when I told her Brother said I could clean out the unused things from his closet, said to me "I could use some of those toys since I am bigger now." Indeed, she now has many of the little cars and the homemade driving rugs. They will still play together, but Son won't have to deal with cleaning them up and keeping them in his closet. Works for them! We installed the display shelves which have been sitting on the floor, vacuumed, put away his clean laundry, and generally made his room look orderly and neat. I know it will bring him peace when he comes home. It is so hard for him to handle his room by himself all the time.

We had to work on Daughter's closet as well since she had lots of stuff she wanted access to in the house but did not want to take care of in her room. Most of the building stuff (k'nex, lincoln logs, etc.) are now downstairs where they are played with anyway! So both kids rooms now bring calm peaceful feelings. Yeah for us!

Daughter was introduced to the idea of swim lessons at dinner, so today we are going to watch a lesson like the one she would take. She will have to wait till the fall sessions start to sign up, but I think it will work. Watching first is always a good plan with my kids.

Beach and Bike

2008-08-02T21:17:00.000-04:00

Well, remember that go-kart part replacement from last time? The part worked just fine. After another spin in the go-kart, DS decided that it was really not what he wanted. It jiggled his body around too much, he couldn't start it himself (pull start from the back with driver pushing gas pedal down), and who knows what other reasons. So now, he wants to sell it. Hmm.

Yesterday we went to pick blackberries at a new farm with friends that we see rarely (but the Dads are officemates). Monsieur Louis' farm to be exact - in VA. Blackberries for $1/lb that are fabulous. Monsieur Louis apparently came to the US from France to be the Queen's master gardener somewhere and then never left. He has all sorts of yummies and beautiful flowers. We then went to Colonial Beach to play in the water. It was so nice to sit with a friend, have good conversation, and have all 5 kids be happily playing with each other. We decided that we really did not live too far to see each other more often. We made a pledge to see each other every other week or more. We can't wait. Our ice cream on the way home was yummy and refreshing.

Today, we got everyone up, left the house at 8, and went on a 15 mile bike ride with our bike club (Oxon Hill Bike Club). It was at a member's horse farm with a family picnic afterwards. We exercised, saw the countryside, ate with friends, petted horses, jump started my car (boy did that take a long time - it was totally out of juice from leaving my XM radio plugged intot he power outlet and the headlights on!), and headed home in the middle of the afternoon.

The rest of the day was spent resting, eating, and packing so that DH and DS can leave in the am for cub scout camp. They will be gone Sun-Sat. Yeah for them and yeah for DD and I :-)

New Goal and Go-Kart

2008-08-01T06:59:00.000-04:00

I start to feel guilty if I don't post for a while and then I don't want to do it at all. Also, I was never someone who kept a journal, so blogging is not a natural, easy thing for me. My friend Ronda has inspired me to try blogging more. So I set myself a goal to blog daily for 2 weeks and see if that improves my attitude. Here goes ...

This blog is named Organic Everything because I put a priority on local, organic food and on organic learning. I have yet to post at all about the learning portion. Within the last year or so, I have jumped into the river of what is commonly called unschooling. Its even more strange than that - we are trying our best at radical unschooling. I love to control things and so this is hard for me. It means letting go of bedtimes, arbitrary parental rules, food limitations, expectations of learning particular things at particular times, and parents taking priority over their kids. Radical unschooling also means giving freedom to everyone in my home no matter what age, learning about anything and everything - by choice - in a variety of ways, helping my kids and husband with what is important to them (not me!), trusting that my kids are doing the best they can right now, and living with the today at the forefront of my mind. Radical unschooling means that I do things for my kids that I would not want for myself. I do them because they want them and I am in a position to help them.

Need an example? I recently helped my son purchase a used go-kart. My personal opinion is that these types of vehicles eat gasoline, create dirty air, tear up the yard, and shouldn't be driven on neighborhood roads. Son (who is 9 almost 10) really wanted to drive something that goes faster than him on his road bike (and he races his road bike). He explored dirt bikes, electric bikes, go-karts, and at one point asked my to get him a $15,000 boat off Craig's List. He spent a lot of time watching youtube videos, checking out company web sites, and otherwise learning about non-automobile moving vehicles. After the wonderful folks at UnschoolingBasics helped me view this situation differently, I offered in a different way to walk down to our neighbor and see if we can check out their go-kart or to the other neighbor to ask to ride along on his power boat. Wouldn't you know it, but the neighbor with the go-kart was interested in selling his 10 year old go-kart for $250. Much different than the $1500 he spent on it 10 years ago and much more doable for our family finances. You guessed it! As of 7/23 we now own the go-kart.

The go-kart was used and well loved by the 3 boys who drove it (they drive cars now). So of course, after the first day of driving it almost all day. the chain started to come off. Well, Son wanted to shorted the chain (he does his own bicycle maintenance). We asked another neighbor who works on engines if that was the right way to fix the problem. Nope - just loosen the bolts and slide the engine up till the chain isn't loose anymore. Oh, but you might want to fix this wheel. What wheel? So now the poor go-kart needs new bearings for its drive wheel. So we take off the wheel, hub, and bearings and ride our bikes up to a lawn repair shop (its 7/25 now). They measure, check catalog, measure more, check catalog again, and finally pick the part to try. When we get back from our trip to PA, we get the bearings and joyfully come home to put everything back together. Alas, the bearings are not the right size. The inner hole is too small and they do not fit on the axle. But it is now after close of business on 7/29 so we have to wait more. I get out dh's calipers, take the measurements myself (well actually ds - we do unschool afterall), and call the shop next morning. It takes all day to find the right part. Turns out that parts aren't always the same as the measurements they are sold as. We are hoping that today the part will come in and it will be the right one. I could either have a very happy boy or a boy who doesn't know what to do with himself for the weekend. I'll let you know!

New Energy

2008-02-28T21:53:00.000-05:00

I have been a few times to the farmer's market at Dupont Circle in NW Washington DC. It is fabulous. I wish it was more convenient, but alas. I went just this past weekend with Daughter and had a great time. We took Metro up there. We ate freshly baked gingersnap cookies and apples purchased from market. We came home with ground beef, sausage, and thinly sliced ham - all from local, antibiotic free, humanely raised farms. The grass-fed beef is from Eco-Friendly Foods. We got yummy goat cheese from Firefly Farm and raw cow's milk cheese from Keswick Creamery. Apples from Toigo Orchards and Black Rock Orchard. The cookies and 3 loaves of fresh bread came from Atwater's Bakery. Yes, we had to cart it all back on the Metro, but it was well worth it for the environment and our collective tummies.

Now that we have all this fabulous food, I want to cook a lot more. I am enjoying cooking and eating yummy foods. I guess you could say I have found new energy for cooking. I think being away from home for a week while visiting relatives helped a bit too. You know, absence (of cooking) makes the heart grow fonder...

Yeah a Local Meal again

2007-12-06T22:47:00.000-05:00

I have not been able to make a mostly local meal for a while. Not sure why. Tonight we had an oven-roasted local chicken (a heafty 8.6 pounder), roasted local organic potatoes, a salad made from local organic kale. The salad included a homemade dressing (olive oil and umeboshi plum vinegar with some dill), my very last fresh local organic red pepper, organic pumpkin seeds (maybe I'll try and save a bunch of seeds next year), and organic dried cranberries. Yummy and lots of left overs. Tonight the large crockpot is brewing some chicken stock which I store in my freezer for future uses.

I am finding a lot of inspiration from my newest read: Omnivore's Dilemma. I made it through the corn/conventional agribusiness section and am into the second section. Now I really have to think about anything purchased from the Safeway. I mean I really don't buy all that much, but I still have to think about better options. For example today I went to the store and purchased bread (yes I make tons of bread but my spouse wants soft bread for sandwiches at work), hot dog buns, multigrain organic cereal, organic avacado (request from daughter), organic bananas (I know they come from Costa Rica, but we really love them), lunchmeat for those sandwiches, and organic cheese for the same. I am ok with the avacados and bananas right now because we are not able to get much in the way of local fruit being winter and all and the limits placed by the Feingold diet. The sandwich stuff - well dear spouse really wants meat in his lunch and this satisfies him., Its not about me. But the hot dog buns bug me. There must be a yummy alternative out there somewhere.

Thanksgiving Recovery

2007-12-01T21:24:00.000-05:00

It has been surprisingly hard to get back into focussing on local food after travelling for the Thanksgiving holiday. Our holiday host did have a local Thanksgiving turkey, but might have been all. When we returned home, we ordered our staple foods from Neshaminy Valley Natural Food Distributer. We also went again to Good Fortune Farm to get our local, free range turkey - all 39 pounds of him! Thank goodness it is cut up into small pieces and frozen; it is our meat supply for many months. Today I made pizzettes using some of the last sprig of fresh basil. I ordered organic citrus already from Hickory Tree Grove. No organic grapefruits for us this year though (sold out already). I know, the citrus is not local, but I am supporting a small family-owned farm and it is way better than buying from the grocery store.

Local Food Research

2007-11-15T22:38:00.000-05:00

I spent time today researching local farms - getting names and a list of places to visit or call. I used
(a) the Southern Maryland Harvest Farm Directory put out by the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission - a 2002/3 copy though
(b) Southern Maryland, So Good Farm Guide 2007/8
and I made a list of places on this blog. Check it out! I only got through Charles County today.

Regular Wednesday Dinner

2007-11-14T22:40:00.001-05:00

Our wednesday dinner for a while has been Bionature pasta with tomato sauce (organic ground beef added) and a salad (carrots for kids). The salad normally is made from organic mesclun mix from our friends at Next Step Produce, pumpkin seeds, and raisins or dried cranberries. To make it more local, we are now using our homemade tomato sauce (made from a mix of heirloom, roma, and regular tomaotes - all organic). Sometimes we will also have homemade bread with some olive oil and spices for dipping. Simple but yummy!

Local Poultry and Dairy

2007-11-13T21:57:00.000-05:00

Today Son and I visited our old friend - Good Fortune Farm. We went intending to pick up 4 frozen local, pasture-fed, chemical-free chickens. We came home with a bounty! Besides those 4 chickens, we got 3 dozen organic, free-range, chemical-free eggs, fresh homemade butter and buttermilk. The butter on warm homemade sourdough bread was just fabulous with our dinner.