28 Days Diversion

So, the room is coming around nicely.   I’ve purged a big box and a bag full of recyclables from my space, filled a grocery sack with items to donate to Goodwill, brainstormed some storage ideas with a friend and contemplated several different furniture arrangements. Furniture. It’s just one of those things that you can’t be sure of until you’ve drug all the pieces around and around the room to see how they look. In my head they look one way, but with such a small space, I have to be sure they work before committing to anything.  I’ll have to come back to the furniture.

I’ve also washed and dusted both windows and all the surfaces I’ve uncovered to this point, removed a dead television (that I’m taking to Best Buy to be E-cycled) and vacuumed the exposed carpet.  Despite the progress I’ve made, I still have a long way to go.  The old ‘wooden’ desk has to be removed still and there are many things in and on it that need to find new homes. 

I was feeling pretty good about the room when I got to this point:

The top of the desk; exposed for the first time in I don't know how long.

The desk was clear and clean.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw the top of the desk.  It was inspiring.  Not only because it made me feel like there might actually be hope for the room, but because I suddenly had space to work!  This brings me to the diversion part of the story.  You see, my laptop case  is soo heavy that I can’t stand to carry it around.  Plus, when I bike across town to meetings, I always wish that my laptop was in a backpack.   I’ve been storing fabric swatches for weeks intending to turn them into a backpack for my computer, but haven’t had the space to actually start a project of that size.  Until now.

Here is the finished pack as modelled by my son:

My new, custom-made laptop backpack.

I scoured the internet for a pattern, but couldn’t find what I was looking for.  I found laptop sleeve patterns, and laptop envelope patterns, but none of the patterns were for a backpack.   I wish I had a “laptop backpack”  pattern to share with you, but this is more of a protoype.  I had to rework a couple of parts because they didn’t work exactly like I’d planned the first time.  And, I’d put a loop on the back for hanging the pack if I were going to do it again.  Also, I’d figure out a different closure system for the left pocket.  But, the pack does what I need it to do and my son has already put in an order for his pack for camping. 

The pack is quilted and fully lined to protect the computer and to keep it from hurting my back.  The pockets on the back are made from old jeans pant-legs from when Gwen was three or four.  She wore the knees out of the jeans, but the applique was so cute that I couldn’t bear to throw them away.  Sometimes being a packrat pays off.  The water bottle fits snugly in the pocket without any closure, so the right pocket is simply hemmed.  The left pocket is for the computer charger and cords.  I didn’t want them jumping out so I sewed zipper from an old pair of my jeans into the top.  It’s a little awkward, but it works.   The straps came from the same pair of jeans the zipper came out of.  I cut strips out of the length of one of the legs and sewed them onto the pack.  Another of the changes I would make in the future is to sew the straps on before the top flap so that I don’t have to work so hard to hide the raw ends of the straps.  If you look closely at the bottom of the pack, you can see two metal eyelets.  For some reason I thought that would be a good feature.  Keys or something could hang from there.

This is the side of the pack that rests against your back.

For now, the pack will have to do.  Maybe someday, when I have more time, I’ll tear it apart and rework it.  If that happens, I’ll make a pattern and post it for you so that you don’t have to make it up as you go along like I did. 

My laptop in its new, lightweight, easy-to-carry backpack.

A Picture’s Worth 1000 Words

Poor, lonely hen all by herself now.

Greasy Bar Food (Dark Days in Disguise)

Lest you think sustainably-grown, organic, local food must be good for you, I have concocted some bad-for-you food out of my delicious, healthy ingredients.  I almost made a salad, but didn’t want to ruin the ‘greasy bar food’ vibe my dinner had goin’ on so I opted for dessert instead. 

I started with two dozen chicken wings from Olds Farm.  I threw them in a saucepan and added half a jar of home-canned tomato sauce, a big ‘glug’ of molasses, a dried chili from my CSA and a little too much Michigan beet sugar for my taste.  That all simmered away while I julienned a pile of russet potatoes from the 50 lb. bag in my super fancy root cellar. 

Homemade pie from locally-grown apples that I canned myself.

I had a ball of  spelt-flour pie crust dough in the freezer so I pulled it out and let it thaw while the chicken cooked.  When the crust had thawed I rolled it out, threw it in a pie pan and dumped two quarts of home-canned apple pie filling in it.  Can anyone say, “Five minute pie”?

When the wings were fully cooked, I dumped them out onto a sheet pan and baked them at 400 until they were a little crisp.  While the chicken was crisping, I cooked batches of fries in hot oil (which was not local ).

The finished dinner, while not the healthiest meal on Earth, was yummy.  And, my greasy homemade chicken wings and fries were much better for me than restaurant wings from factory-farmed chickens, sauce made of who-knows-what, and pesticide and fungicide laden potatoes cooked in hydrogenated oil.  Plus, leftover pie is an excellent breakfast; fruit and whole grains are good for you!

Homemade bar food; what could be better?

5 Down, 23 to Go

As I look around my cluttered computer room, it appears that not much has been done.  I, however, know otherwise. 

• The Christmas ornaments have been returned to storage as have the rolls of gift wrap and the clear tape that never got returned to the wrap storage container. 
• The filing cabinent has been cleaned out and the files from the drawer of the old desk have been recycled or refiled into the main cabinent. 
• The main filing cabinent has been cleared off and wiped down.
• The window sill has been cleared and cleaned and the plants that “live” there have been trimmed and watered. 
• I started sifting through papers.  I emptied out a paper grocery sack that was filled mostly with papers I don’t need anymore, cleared out a stack of old magazines, and purged a bunch of old mail.

So, I’m well into the purging stage.  I’m not done, but check out this bag full of shredded papers that I’m going to feed to the worms.

50 pounds of paper?

This bag used to hold 50 lbs. of chicken feed.  Now it’s crammed full of shredded papers.  The worms will love all this fresh bedding.  In addition to this bag of “had to shreds”, I also ended up with a box full of paper to recycle.

Can I Jam Carrots?

In January I signed up for the Can Jam Challenge.  I canned two three different batches of marmalade as part of the citrus challenge last month.  You can read about my my marmalades here and here if you haven’t yet.  I was also lucky enough to be selected by Tigress as the random winner of beautiful labels for my next 6 Can Jam entries!  Don’t you just LOVE random!   The labels are made by Lelo in Nopo and you can see samples here.  My jars are going to be so beautiful with her custom labels on them!  So now, what do I make that’s deserving of her artwork??
This month’s featured ingredient is carrots.  I’m thinking some sort of pickled carrot, but I vaguely remember a carrot marmalade recipe from my exhaustive marmalade recipe search last month.  I’m rather fond of marmalade after our brief encounter in January.

I E-mailed Providence Farms, my CSA, to see if they had any carrots in storage that I could buy, but no luck.  Andrea said they could dig some, but that she thought they would be “soup-worthy.”  I’m sure they would be a delicious addition to soup or stews, but if I pickle carrots, I want them to be crisp and crispiness is questionable, so I broke down and bought non-local, organic carrots.  This challenge will be so much more fun when I can use local or homegrown ingredients!

I’ll be posting the finished carrot recipe the week after Valentine’s day, so check back to see what I come up with!

For now, here’s a (rerun) picture of some canned-up summer bounty!

See, I can jam, and pickle and sauce.

Dogku~ a Haiku

What's up with this dog?

What a crazy dog
You have a comfy cushion
Why sleep on the floor

Bittersweet Beginning

If you’ve been following my chicken saga, you are by now well aware that three-quarters of my flock turned out to be of the illegal crowing variety.   So, now what??  Well, the roos have to go.  There are, I suppose, several options.  I could try to sell them.  I could give them away on Craig’s List or Frecycle, or maybe even take them to the humane society.  Or, I could butcher them. 

Butchering was always our plan.  From the very beginning, the children were told that if any of the chicks were roosters, they would be dinner.  And, that when the hens stopped producing, they would have to go too.  Mr. Hippie was researching guillotines months ago when we first started thinking one or more of them might be roosters.  He never got as far as actually building a chicken guillotine, but he was pretty intent on building one for a while.  However, the city ordinance that allows four hens and bans roosters also prohibits the (outdoor) slaughter of chickens in town. 

So, I put in a call to Olds’ Farm.  I get a lot of poultry from them and have purchased everything from their maple syrup to their ground beef.  In addition to produce and ethically-raised meats, Olds Farm also offers poultry processing.  I’ve got a call in to them to have my roos butchered.  As soon as they get enough birds scheduled, they’ll call me back to let me know the drop-off date for my three.  It’s sad, but I’ve come to grips with the omnivore’s dilemma.  I’ve arrived at a place that every conscious omnivore must reach.  If I can’t raise and eat my own birds, why is it okay for me to march into the grocery store and buy an already slaughtered chicken?  If I can’t eat those three roosters, I don’t feel justified consuming meat.   Granted, there is still a separation between me and the actual slaughtering of the birds.  I’m not quite There yet, but I think I will be eventually.

With every yin there is a yang.  When one door closes, another opens.  Whichever idiom you choose, good and bad seem to go hand in hand.  This time is no different.  I may be losing three roosters, but now I have the opportunity to raise chicks.  Day.  Old.  Chicks.  Fellow blogger Tony of TC Bok Bok is ready to start his adventures in urban chicken farming and we’re ordering our chicks together.  This will mean safer, warmer transport for the young chicks, and shared shipping costs. 

I’m paying a little more for them than I did for the last “girls”, but the chicks from My Pet Chicken are guranteed to be girls so as Tony says, the extra cost is hen “insurance”.  Plus I got to pick the varieties of chicks that I wanted!  The order is in and I’m getting three chicks  the last week of March.  An Easter-Egger, a Dominique and a golden-laced Wyandotte are on their way to keep my soon-to-be lonely Rhode Island Red hen company.   I can’t wait to meet them!

28 Days Progress

I have a plan!! 

So, here it is:

1. What do I want the purpose of my room or area to be?
Multimedia/family room.~ Place for tv, video games, and a computer workstation.
2. What do I need in or near the room to serve that purpose?
Entertainment center, seating, proper places for all the junk that’s in the space now.
3. What can I remove from the room?
Christmas leftovers, dead tv taking up floor space, old papers (clean out files and consolidate filing cabinets), kids outgrown books
4. What problems do I see with the room?
Traffic flow is an issue, clutter, too much stuff in the small available space.
5. What organizational tools might solve those problems?
Baskets to organize the remaining items, ???? I’m sure there’s something else, but I haven’t thought of it yet.
6. What habits need to change to solve the organizational problems?
Stuff needs to find a home, things need to get put away, not put down, the kids need to be retrained to keep their stuff in their space, not public spaces.
7. What kind of a budget do I have to create the organized room of my dreams?
Not much, but I’ll spend $50-$100 on storage, etc., if I really need to.  Hopefully I can repurpose other unused/underused items from the house.
8. What kind of a timeline is necessary to organize the room? (28 days!)
9. What is my plan of action?
Box up all the “stuff” that is sitting on/in places it doesn’t belong
Clean out files/desks and recycle or refile everything to conserve space
Get rid of a desk
Eliminate one or more bookshelves

Now, following through on the plan will be an important component of the organizing if I am going to actually get the room cleaned up.  The Christmas tree has been gone since before the new year, but for some reason I hadn’t gotten around to putting the boxes of ornaments away.  (Nor had anyone else stepped up to the job.)  They are all organized now and ready to be removed from the room.  I know, it’s a baby step, but hey, it IS a step.

How to Make Your Own Soap (Concluded)

1. 
2. Upcycle an old soymilk carton into a soap mold for your homemade soap.

 

Okay, maybe this isn’t the conclusion to my soap story.  However, for now it is.  I cured my bacon grease soap in the upcycled Silk carton soap mold over night just like I was supposed to.  I peeled away the carton and started slicing the soap into bars to find my soap fragile.  Crumbly.  In fact, it looked much like blocks of feta cheese: smooth-ish on the top and crumbly-jagged on the sides where it split when I tried to cut it into bars. 

Crumbly batch of homemade soap.

I should have known to leave well enough alone.  I started troubleshooting soap flaws online.  I found that crumbly soap could be the result of a few things.  One could be too much lye.  Since I don’t have a very good scale, that was a possibility.  Or, crumbly soap could be caused by mixing the ingredients at the wrong temperatures, stirring too much, or not stirring enough.  I wasn’t sure which of these were the culprit, but from my research I determined that I could rebatch or remill my soap.  

So, I ground the soap up and threw it back in the pan.  I added a little more oil (olive, ‘cuz that’s what I had) and some hot water and stirred it.  The soap looked like it was coming back together, so I dumped it into a  large, glass loaf pan.  I’d have used a milk carton, but I’d already used the only one I had.  It was at this point I saw my soap separating.  It hardened up fine, but there are holes where the unincorporated oil drained out.  Maybe I didn’t need that olive oil after all, huh? 

1. 
2. I should have just left the crumbly bars alone; they looked way nicer like this than they did after I remilled them.

 

So, what have I learned from this experiment?  

1. Don’t bother putting dried lavender blossoms in your soap; the color all cooks out and they just look like brown flecks.
2. I need a good kitchen scale.  Accuracy is important in soap making.  I might’ve been able to avoid my remilling fiasco if I had measured more accurately the first time.
3. Remilling is not for me.  The remilled soap is so ugly that I won’t even take a picture (and I’ve posted some ugly pics in the past.)  Once the ugly soap has cured and I’m sure it’s not too alkaline, I plan to grind it up into my laundry soap.  If I get a crumbly batch in the future, I’ll just grind it up from the start instead of wasting six hours trying to remill a lost cause.

This is not the true conclusion of my soap making, because I’ll definitely try again.  Now that I have all the kinks worked out, it should be much easier next time.  I will only use a quart of bacon grease at a time.  “Washing” the bacon fat takes WAY too long if you have to wait for it to cool between heatings.  I’ll probably also use a blend of oils to end up with a soap that is more balanced and better for my skin. 

Check back soon.  I bet I’ll have enough fat in a few weeks; my bacon jar already has at least a half a cup of grease in it!

28 Day Challenge

If you’ve ever been to my house, you know houskeeping is not my strong point.   If you haven’t been to my house, it’s probably because I am too embarrased to let you in!  My house is small and has very little storage.  The clutter factor is a big problem and makes cleaning difficult.  That old saying, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”  doesn’t work when you don’t have enough places for all your stuff.  I have been purging things to try and make space and get more organized, (and I have the Goodwill receipts to prove it) but I just can’t seem to get the clutter under control.  So, when I found the 28 Day Challenge I decided to sign on. 

The dumping grounds for everyone's junk.

Most of the house could use a decluttering, but I decided the front room which has turned into a dumping ground for everyone’s homeless belongings was the place to start.  It is a good-sized room, but it doesn’t have a real purpose.  It houses a computer desk, a dog kennel, a treadmill and hubby’s work clothes when they’re drying between shifts.  Because it isn’t really used for anything, it’s easy to ignore the clutter that builds there.  I’m tired of the clutter that has collected, but there are two real reasons I chose the “computer room”  for the challenge.  One, because it has actually been remodelled and decorated unlike most of the house, and because since Christmastime we have been discussing the idea of a family room.  I’d like to give the room some purpose and make it a place where the kids (and the rest of us) could hang out and enjoy ourselves.  I’m tired of avoiding my own house! 

Check back soon to see my progress.