"Green" Beer Drinking

One of the coolest things about the area we live in is the availability of local wine and brews.  It took us awhile to discover this Firestone-Walker Brewery 805 Blonde Ale, But now that we have, we really enjoy it as an alternative to wine.  Wine is king in these parts, but this beer definitely gives the grapes a run for their money.

"805" is our area code, hence the name...how cool is that?

Another thing we like about this brew is that the brewery is right in town, which means the beer has not traveled far before it hits the grocery store shelves.  Less food miles = less pollution, for anything you consume.  Sure, you could drink imported beer that may have come from another country, or maybe just another state, but why pay for goods trucked hundreds or thousands of miles when you can find something good that's made right in your backyard?

Oh, I should also mention they make at least one excellent dark ale I've tried, called Parabola, but I haven't seen it in the stores, just the taproom.  But if I get a yen for dark beer, I will definitely head over there and buy a bottle or two to bring home.

Who knew beer-drinking could be such a green activity?

Tsunami seed

Our local coastline is currently being littered with debris which was carried across the Pacific ocean from the 2011 tsunami that devastated parts of Japan's coast.  The other day I was walking along the beach and, in an area where debris has been washing up, found a piece of fruit that looked like nothing I'd ever seen.

Loquat pit/seed

Always the adventurer, I put my tongue to it in order to help identify it by its taste, but at that point it had been in the water too long and it was too salty to tell.  But I did make a mental note of what the fruit looked like (it was in fairly good shape) and removed the pit and brought it home.  Later that evening I went on the internet, searching for exotic fruits, and found out what it was:  A Japanese Loquat.

Since it was found in the area of tsunami debris, I'm wondering if this Japanese Loquat actually made it all the way from Japan to the California coastline.  If it was packaged until recently, or was just lucky enough to hitch a ride in something which kept it shielded from the elements, I suppose it's certainly possible.  

So today I planted it in a pot with some good soil and we'll see what, if anything, comes up.  The salt water may have damaged the pit, but I figure it's worth a try.  After all, fruit trees have spread throughout many tropical island chains by fruit and seeds being carried via the ocean and washing up elsewhere.  

So in a few weeks, perhaps I'll have a living souvenir of an earth-changing event.  It won't make up in any way for the awful things that happened that day and the subsequent environmental disaster which followed, but it might be nice to think that new life follows death; that renewal comes from the rubble and debris of disaster.  Maybe a little Japanese Loquat seedling will be one way that new start can be observed, and appreciated.

Unplugged....could YOU do it?

I read an article in the most recent edition of Sunset Magazine while profiled a low-tech household.  As I looked through the pages and read about all the modern technology which was banished from their home, a couple of thoughts came to my head:

1.  I'll bet they have plenty of unused outlet space, unlike at our house, where outlets are fought over like pirate plunder.

2.  I'd love to see their electricity bill, because this may be a family that actually uses the "baseline" amount of electricity listed on all our bills, and no more.

I will admit, there are times I fantasize about what life in our house would be like without all the high-tech gadgets, LED displays, and electric cords of all shapes and sizes running everywhere.  But it's a fantasy, not something I'd actually really want to do in reality.  I love the vintage clock-radio in the pictorial, that is something I'd definitely buy, but choosing a dishwasher with no electric panel seems to be a bit over the top.   I love the old-fashioned rotary phone,  but would hate the lack of a microwave oven.  To each his own I guess.  But it does seem wise to take a page from this family's playbook, and own/use the modern conveniences we like best, while still considering whether low-tech, or even hand-crank alternatives would be feasible, and maybe even more enjoyable than their high-tech cousins.  

The article is and photo tour is here, if you'd like to see it for yourself:

http://www.sunset.com/home/natural-home/unplugged-home-tour-00418000080498/page25.html

Planting an orchard

Today we are planting our orchard on the south side of our property.  We have a variety of fruit trees suitable to this climate, and are hoping everything takes off this spring.  Whatever does not will be replaced, until we have a full complement of trees in that area. There is something immensely satisfying about beginning to put this land of ours to good use. I was totally intimidated by it when we moved in here this summer.  I would go outside and look down at it all, then quickly avert my eyes towards something that seemed more....workable.  Like a small bed for my irises, perhaps. But in the last seven months or so, this land and I have gotten acquainted, and it's finally no longer scary to plan out what we want to use it for. I like permanent crops because they require no tillage and few soil amendments, so they allow the majority of our topsoil to remain in place, but of course there are lots of other uses for it as well, since we have almost two acres.  

We've pretty much decided that half what we've allotted for growing space will house fruit trees and the other half will house vines and berries (yum!).  The rest of the acreage will be split into thirds and we will graze goats, sheep and possibly even beef on it.  We'll seed it so we have healthy grasses to crowd out the weeds, and use fencing and rotational grazing to make sure our animals don't overgraze the whole thing, as has happened with so many of our neighbors around here (especially those who keep horses.  I've learned nothing is as tough on native grasses as free-grazing equines).  And as we're on a hill, we need to stay mindful of erosion and the possibility of mudslides.

It feels so rewarding to finally be putting this land to what I really feel God called us to do with it.  We're responsibly stewarding it.  As Deuteronomy 8: 7-9 says, "For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of ...vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey."

All those apple pies, peach cobblers, blackberry pies and homemade wine definitely make this a good land, to be sure.

She's a beaut!

My new Ball Canner arrived today, which means I can begin canning in earnest next week.  I already have my large Graniteware canner, but it has a wavy bottom that the makers of my new electric stove say will not safely work on the glass-top burners.  So off to Amazon I went to purchase one with a flat bottom, and this is it!  Pretty, isn't it? I even have a side burner on our propane stove outside, which means I can do my canning outdoors in summer using either the new or old canner, something I'm very excited about.

As I sift through what homesteading activities mean the most to me, I can definitely state that the canning part of it is here to stay.  I love the preserves, tomatoes, and pie fillings I'm able to put up, in season.  Anything that comes out of my canner tastes about 100 times better than the replacement item I'd buy in the store.  I can be picky about the fruit and vegetables I choose to throw into whatever I'm making, which I can't do if I buy a canned or bottled product that someone has already made.

I occasionally read a blog written by a woman who lives alone and lives the homesteading lifestyle, and she was saying this morning that she stayed up all night keeping the fires in her wood stoves stoked so the temperature inside the farmhouse wouldn't drop below the 40's or 50's.  She talked about how thankful she was to not have central heating, because she felt the way she was living was more authentic.  

It gave me pause, because I do not agree about this sort of  extreme, Colonial Williamsburg kind of "authenticity," and I depart from many hard-line homesteaders on this.  If I have central heat, I may not use it as often as my Modern Living neighbors, but I do use it.  It's on right now. I will heat my house up to about 70 degrees this morning and then shut it off, crank up our pellet stove and let it keep us warm until this time tomorrow morning, when I will crank up the central heating once again for an hour or so.  It's a system that works, it's inexpensive, and it keeps us comfortable.

A lot of people who heat with wood have not even thought of the fact that, if everyone heated with wood alone, there would be no more wood for their woodstoves because the forests would all be cut down by their neighbors, in order to quell their own appetite for heat.  Then they'd be reeeeeally cold. So the practicality of practicing an "authentic" lifestyle en masse is even more questionable than the practice of it as an army of one family, here and there.

But I like to can, I like to grow food, and I like to limit my gasoline and electricity consumption, because those are things I find valuable.  So I do those things, and I no longer feel guilty about the things I don't do.  

Everyone should know what to do to survive in primitive conditions; I certainly believe that.  But that doesn't have to mean you live in them now.  Maybe it has something to do with being 50, but I have little tolerance for suffering for the sake of suffering or to prove to yourself or a public that you can.  And if you're trying to sleep in a freezing house, you're suffering, whether you care to admit it or not.  

Perhaps the greatest thing about getting old is knowing you have the right to not participate in something, and feeling perfectly comfortable in not doing whatever it is.  Because it's not only in the doing, but also in the not-doing, that contentment and happiness (not to mention comfort) are found.

Ah, routine

Today I have about five loads of wash to do. (Some of which I will, once again, attempt to dry on the clothesline, even though clothes out there have not really gotten dry recently. Hope springs eternal.) I'm also planning on catching up on some basic housecleaning -- sweeping, dusting and the like.  The holidays are finally over and this will be the first routine day I've had in several weeks.

Funny things, routines.  Do them too many times in a row and they get tedious and boring -- even depressing, if you do them long enough without taking a break.  But take a long enough break and, IF your day-to-day life is in the right place (a big if), you will find yourself quite happy to get back your the usual routine, once all the hustle-and-bustle passes.  

A lot of routine

And a little chaos, thrown in for fun

Routines are not only important to our mental health, they're also crucial to our physical health and well-being.  People who do shift-work, where it's day-shift this month and graveyard next month, have demonstratively greater health problems than those who go to bed and get up at the same time every day.  Even the human body craves routine, but without at least a little challenge, it too will fall into an entropy that's almost as bad as a constantly-changing schedule.  No, the trick is balance.  A lot of regularity, with a little chaos and challenge thrown in to mix up the scenery once in awhile and keep our blood pumping and our eyes open.  

Yesterday morning, I jumped into a cold Pacific ocean in my pajamas, and later drank wine and ate chili with my husband and some new friends at the winery.  Today I will be washing, cleaning, and cooking dinner for the family (something I expect to do a lot of for the next several days).

It takes wisdom and self-care to know when it's time to resume our routines and when it's time to break free from them and change things up a little.  But if you know how to create normalcy within crisis times and, conversely, create fun and diversion during times when nothing much is going on, you've gone a long way towards doing what it takes to stay sane.

Too bad it takes most of us 40 or 50 years to figure this all out, but better late than never.

Polar Bears

Today was New Year's Day, kind of a blah holiday in many ways.  After all, there are no really traditional things you do on New Year's Day.  New Year's Eve?  Certainly.  But not the day after.  

So I was sitting around the house with Big Ag this morning, reading the morning paper and watching what seemed to be the most boring Rose Parade in history, when I spied the little calendar on Page Two of the paper, which lists all the events for the week.  First up was the annual Polar Bear Plunge, held in Cayucos, later that morning.  At which point, I looked up at my husband and said, "let's be polar bears today."  Actually the conversation went something like this:

Me:  Let's go to Cayucos today and do the Polar Bear Plunge.

Him:  Are you nuts?

I am thankful that he is a good enough sport that I was able to convince him to take the plunge with me.  Which we did. And it was delightful....cool but not cold, refreshing, exhilarating....and just plain fun.  The crowd counted down to one, and when we were done we all ran headlong, like a pack of oddly dressed lemmings, into the surf.   We wore silly clothes (Big Ag put on full Giants regalia, I donned some cute pajamas, an evening hat and a scarf) and met the first day of the year in the surf and sand, in probably the oddest way possible.

No better method, in my opinion, of welcoming in 2013.

Into the surf, pajamas and all