Seeds!!!

Yay! My seeds came in! I am so excited. Of course now I have to figure out how to start them indoors. Hmmm...maybe I should have thought of that a little bit more before I ordered said seed :-) I think a trip to the greenhouse will be in order for this weekend. Also a trip down to my mom's to steal what I can from her garden supplies. I mean, she isn't starting seeds this year... ;-)

stuff

We have too much STUFF! It is driving me batty! I mean, Matt and I had a lot of stuff before Emma came along, and now to add Emma's stuff in with ours...it is absolutely insane. Then you add Christmas into the mix...I have been reading a lot about de-cluttering as of late, and I would REALLY like to do that. It just never seems to work out. And I hate to say it, but I am one of those people that thinks "well, I might need that for something at some point." Mainly because I will get rid of stuff only to realize a week later that I now need that very thing. How realistic is that though? Am I just making myself need things that I have gotten rid of? I have no idea.

I think that I would really like to go through some of the "stuff" we have though and get rid of most of it. Just Emma really need 100 stuffed animals? Probably not. Does Matt need clothes that he has had since high school? Again, probably not. Although as far as the clothes go, it would be nice to have some grubby clothes for him for when we actually work on the house. Do I really need all the wine glasses that I have? I'd like to say I will have this really elegant dinner party and use all this beautiful stemware, but that is never going to happen.

I would love to have a yard sale. I don't think I am motivated enough to try and price things though. So I will probably just make some trips to Goodwill. Will I ever find the time to actually go through all the rooms in this house? That is the question. Maybe this weekend we will work on it...or maybe we will just sit around and watch movies and eat food :-) The latter sounds more likely.

What are you doing to de-clutter? Or am I completely crazy? Does anyone else feel like they accumulate a bunch of crap around the holidays from well meaning family members? And is there a way to refuse said "stuff" before it invades your life?

so cute :-)

Emma (20 months) and I built a block tower with some nesting blocks. I left the room to check my e-mail, and I hear the blocks come tumbling down. At that point Emma ran out to me and was really upset. I said "oh, the block tower fell over." Emma "yeah." me "did you knock the block tower over." emma "no, pooh." Then she proceeded to whine about pooh knocking the blocks down :-) I walk into the other room and lo and behold...there is pooh in the middle of the block tower. I tried to explain to her that telling on Pooh for knocking over the tower isn't really good, especially when the force behind Pooh was her :-) Very cute though for a Friday afternoon!

Snow!

It snowed for three days straight here. We went from having just about no snow to this:

This is outside my kitchen window. I expect a certain amount of snow because I live in Maine, but I think this winter is hard because we didn't have much of a summer! Our summer consisted of rain in June and July, mild temps in august, with one week of hot weather. If we hadn't gone to Florida in May, I would have seriously felt cheated :-)

All that to say that we have been house bound for too long! I think a trip to the library is in order today. I have requests in for many books, and one is in, the omnivore's dilemma, which I actually am getting on CD, so that I can hopefully listen while still entertaining my little rambunctious 20 month old! I had checked out this book a while ago, but was unable to get to reading it due to said 20 month old :-)

I have seen a lot of people making lists of books that they have read/want to read this year. I think I am going to try and do that. I read random books, but it would be nice at the end of 2010 to see all that I have read!

First Aid Kits

What makes up a good first aid kit? I have been looking online a bit for a guideline of what one should have in a first aid kit. The Red Cross has this for a first aid kit guideline:

• 2 absorbent compress dressings (5 x 9 inches)
• 25 adhesive bandages (assorted sizes)
• 1 adhesive cloth tape (10 yards x 1 inch)
• 5 antibiotic ointment packets (approximately 1 gram)
• 5 antiseptic wipe packets
• 2 packets of aspirin (81 mg each)
• 1 blanket (space blanket)
• 1 breathing barrier (with one-way valve)
• 1 instant cold compress
• 2 pair of non-latex gloves (size: large)
• 2 hydrocortisone ointment packets (approximately 1 gram each)
• Scissors
• 1 roller bandage (3 inches wide)
• 1 roller bandage (4 inches wide)
• 5 sterile gauze pads (3 x 3 inches)
• 5 sterile gauze pads (4 x 4 inches)
• Oral thermometer (non-mercury/nonglass)
• 2 triangular bandages
• Tweezers
• First aid instruction booklet

I’m not going to lie, when I saw this I was a little surprised. I feel like this is probably only adequate if you have a minor issue and will have immediate access to a hospital. I might do something along these lines, but I would want to have way more stock piled. Like instead of 2 pairs of gloves, maybe you have a box or two? Maybe I am being silly. I guess most people would not think about needing more than this, but especially after what has happened in Haiti, I would think the Red Cross would need to re-evaluate their recommendations.

I also feel like there are a bunch of things missing. I found a couple other lists that seem to be a little more complete:

First Aid Kit

First Aid

Granted these don’t have actual amounts of each thing, but I feel like that can be figured out on one’s own. I am trying to get together a first aid kit for our home, but am finding I am looking more for a “survival” kit. Any suggestions on something I might be missing…besides potassium iodide tablets for that nuclear blast…

Food Inc.

I recently watched Food, Inc. again. I think the movie presented a lot of great facts regarding our current food system. It definitely made me consider not eating meat after seeing all those factory farming operations. I don’t actually buy non-organic meat, and really try to buy local organic meat, if at all, from a nice farmer about 15 miles from my house. It is amazing to see how much agriculture has changed since WWII.

Part of me thinks it is great that we can produce so much food at such a cheap monetary cost, but what about the other costs involved with growing this cheap food? A few years ago I really started getting involved in the local food movement. The reason? All the recalls on things like spinach for E. coli, and peanut butter for salmonella poisoning. At that point I knew something was seriously wrong. I had never really thought about food before, not because I didn’t like high quality, but because I just assumed it would be safe like when my mom grew her garden. How wrong I was.

Now I feel almost obsessed about local and organic food. I use the term organic loosely here though. It seems to me that there have been so many changes to what the USDA thinks “organic” means. So now I am more likely to ask a local farmer what he does, whether he is certified organic is less important to me than what he says he does to his crops, his animals etc.

One of the interesting points from the movie was from the CEO of Stonyfield saying it would be impossible for everyone to eat within 100 miles of their house. I wonder how accurate that is. I know that there are definitely places where it is more difficult to find quality food, but I do wonder if it is possible. I guess I am just lucky to live in the area that I do, which I never expected I would say :-) Even though we have a short growing season, it seems to work out.

I am anxious to have a lot of storage crops this year. This will be the year of preservation for me…well that is the plan. Can I do it? I sure hope so. It would be really wonderful to be one of the blogs that commits to eating only from their food stores through the winter. How exciting would that be? Not to have to rely on a grocery store for anything. We’ll see how plausible that is. Although I have to say, we have been eating mainly rice and beans for the past few weeks in an effort to save money at the grocery store, and it is all stuff I already have on hand, not bad :-)

Has anyone else seen this movie? What did you think about it? I’ve heard some people say there weren’t enough facts involved, but I disagree. I think there were just enough facts to make you want to do more personal research and prepare in your own personal way. Overall, excellent movie!

Emergency Plan

One thing that I have been considering this year that I haven’t in years past, is an emergency plan. I don’t really know why we haven’t already done one. You would think with the addition of Emma in 2008 that would have pushed us into that direction, but if you thought that you would be wrong. We really don't even have a decent first aid kit!

I read a lot of blogs that talk about TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it), and they seem relatively prepared. When I read their posts about bug out bags, or food storage, or anything to actually prepare for an emergency I think, “wow, that’s really great, we should do something like that.” It seems to be a lot of thinking for me though, and not so much in the way of doing.

Over the past 3 years I have become a lot more comfortable with our food supply. We belong to a CSA. I am learning to garden and preserve as much as I can. We have a year round Farmers’ Market in my town now, and I have local sources for pretty much all I could ever think of to use, milk, butter, flour, salt, vegetables and fruit. I feel pretty happy about that. I’m cooking mostly from scratch – including baking my own bread yummy! I feel good about food, well I will next year when I actually have the food in my freezer and cupboards...

The emergency plan, yeah, no clue about that one. I don’t have a strong desire to leave my town. Like I said, I know where I can find just about anything food related organically and local. Also, my mom lives just a couple houses down from me, and obviously I couldn’t leave her. My big issues I guess are heat (still haven’t built a new chimney for that woodstove), and the fact that we only have .2 acres of land. Not a huge piece of property if TSHTF.

We don’t have a danger of flooding at my house, because we are way up on a hill (although flooding does occur every spring downtown). We do tend to lose power a lot in the winter because of heavy snow, ice, and wind. So until we have the woodstove hooked up, we are kind of up the creek as far as losing power for long stretches of time. That’s really the only big concern that I have, losing power. I guess we do have earthquakes pretty frequently, albeit tiny little itty bitty ones, and there is always the chance that we could have a very large earthquake.

So after writing all that, I still have no idea what our “emergency plan” would be. I think it more likely that we would be a place for our family to come to if needed. Our house is big enough to fit quite a few people I think, although it wouldn’t necessarily be the most fun and would take a lot of getting used to, I think it would be doable. In fact, I almost think that this is the way of the future. I think more families are going to start living together, multiple generations under the same roof just like it used to be. Maybe I am crazy, and maybe I won’t see it in my lifetime, but I think it is the direction we are headed. Especially with the amount of debt this country is in right now…and not just the collective country, but all the individuals as well. I guess I have a lot more thinking to do on this subject!

wow!

It has been an extremely long time since I posted! What a surprise! In the spirit of the new year I have revamped my website a little...not much. I was looking for a nice winter picture to put up, but decided that I am waiting for summer and gardening too much to put up a snow picture. Granted...it is the middle of January, but I just placed my first seed order, and that makes me think spring and summer :-) What better way to stay motivated through these frigid days than to think of being outside in the warm sun!

I would like to be more consistent with writing this year, but since I have been saying that for the past 2 years without much success, I am just hoping I can update once a month! I have a ton of stuff to say, but not so much time to get it down on paper, or on the computer as the case may be.

This year will be the second year I do some gardening from seed. Last year I planted green beans and spaghetti squash, as well as flour corn and watermelon. I had mixed results because of all the rain...and the number of crows that like to descend on my yard. This year I am going to try and start seeds inside. My mom used to do that, so I have a bit of a headstart as to what I need - the lights. I ordered a bunch of seeds though, not sure if I have enough yard to plant all of these or not, but we are going to give it our best. And since seeds are so inexpensive, if I fail miserably, well I know I can always go to the greenhouse and buy my seedlings :-)

Without further ado:

Seeds I bought for this year:
Provider Bush Green Beans
Indy Gold Wax Beans
Cannellini Dry Beans
Black Coco Dry Beans
Jacob's Cattle Dry Beans - we eat a lot of beans in my family!
Coral Shell Peas
Organic Sugar Baby Watermelon
Calypso Pickling Cucumbers
Organic Boothby's Blonde Slicing Cucumber
Carnival Acorn Squash
Blue Hubbard Squash - my absolute favorite unfortunately on backorder
Copra Onions
Bordeaux Spinach

Seeds I already have:
Sugar Pie Pumpkins - from Heather's Homemaking Thanks!
Omny Hybrid Radish
Top Bunch Collard
Lettuce
Incline Cauliflower
Heirloom Red Beard Scallions
Zeus Carrots
Golden Globe Heirloom Turnips - all from Dinner Garden
Heirloom Brandywine Tomato
Heirloom Hale's Best Melon
Scarlet Emperor Runner Bean
Heirloom Yellow Crookneck Squash
Organic Roma Tomato
Cilantro
Italian Large Leaf Basil
Spaghetti Squash
Flour Corn
China Choy Chinese Cabbage
Organic Beefsteak Tomato - all of these came from random places, seeds of change, common ground fair, greenhouse

Wow, now that I listed those out, I should be able to feed an army if I actualy plant all this! My one real goal is to get enough tomatoes so that I can get all of our tomato needs for the year canned - now that we all know BPA lined cans have to be used for canning tomatoes, and I can't seem to find any glass jars of whole, crushed or diced tomatoes.

I guess that is about all from me today. Hope to see you before February!