Tapped

   The documentary Tapped is available for streaming on Netflix and on Hulu.

   If you believe bottled water is not a major problem or that you can trust the FDA, you should check out the information in this short film. 

Resolutions and Condiments

   The winter solstice has passed and it is time to take stock and look at where we are, where we've been, and where we're going. This time of year about a decade and a half ago I recall telling a co-worker who seemed to mourn the passing of another year, "I just think, 'am I happier now than I was last year?' and, I am." There have been a few times since when I did not feel that way, but in the past 15 years or so I have found it true this time of year more often than not. As long as I have a purpose and a goal, I find that I am usually moving in a positive direction. This has resulted in my using resolutions to set goals for myself and, in an effort to be as unoriginal as possible, I tend to do this near the beginning of the year.

   So, how did I do this year? Let's start by looking at what the resolutions were...

1) this blog.
2) finish the AFI's top ten and start in on some of the top twenty-five.
3) eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
4) learn to reload.
5.0) add another raised bed for the garden.
5.5) pay closer attention to planting-harvesting-replanting.
5.6) do more canning and freezing.
6.0) do some hike-in camping.
6.5) do at least one big hiking trip like last fall’s Mt. Ellinor hike.
7) actually fill a deer or elk tag.
8) get more exercise.
9) make it to the wedding in NC in October.
10) try cheese making and homemade pectin.
11) harvest some of my own firewood this year.
12) do more with my son.

   As I covered in Resolutions Revisited back in July, numbers 1, 3, 4, 5.0, 6.0, 6.5 8, 9, and 11 were either done or on track. Most of the rest has been covered in this blog, but here it is in a nut:

   I did finish watching the American Film Institute's top ten films, but did not actually delve into the others in the top 25.

   The garden was a challenge this year as the weather was poor. As a result we only froze some pumpkin, but we did do a good bit of canning using what we could from the garden and quite a bit from the local produce stand.



   Hiking, camping, and backpacking across the Olympic National Forest all happened and were wonderful. I expect there will be much more backpacking to report next year!

   I did not fill a deer or elk tag. I did talk about it some here in Elk, Mayo, and Potato Salad and November Bane. I feel like I'm making progress and better understanding the area, but I have yet to put wild harvested meat in the freezer.

   I did get more exercise (though that's been less true the past month or so), we made it to the wedding in North Carolina and spent ten days visiting good friends, made and canned pectin, and harvested some of my own firewood. I now have two chainsaws that need repair, though, and ended up buying as much wood as I harvested. I'll need to work harder on that next year.

   I always need to do more with my son and while I have a difficult time sitting with him to play Legos, we have found some old TV shows and movies we enjoy watching together. Currently we are watching the first season of Airwolf and I have to say while it's not a great show, it held up better than I expected.

   Besides the deer and elk tags, the biggest failure on the list is cheese making. I knew when I set the goal that it was a longshot and, all in all, I actually achieved more than I expected. As I talked about in Elk, Mayo, and Potato Salad, though, I did start getting into making condiments. Being challenged by some friends in Alabama who are now making just about everything from scratch, I began to look closer at what is on our shopping lists and wonder if we could make it ourselves.

   We had already made relish from green tomatoes and red cabbage which came out great. It's purple and has a tangy flavor. The dilled green tomatoes turned out tasty, but because of the texture I anticipate using them primarily for relish as well. (We won't be buying relish anytime soon!) I have made a couple batches of mayonnaise now. The recipes I've referred to all say to use lemon juice or vinegar and we have found we much prefer vinegar. I made a couple half-pints of prepared horseradish when we ran out which turned out pretty mild, but wholly wonderful.

   Two weeks ago I bought out the produce stand's supply of California tomatoes and spent a full day making and canning tomato ketchup. If I can learn how to make steak sauce, mustard, and cayenne pepper sauce I'll be set!

Chuck Palazzo

   I dig this cat.

   From Veterans Today:

   Chuck Palazzo: "Marine Combat Veteran, served with 1st and 3rd FORCERECON. RVN 1970-1971. Currently living, writing and working in Da Nang, Vietnam. Agent Orange and Unexploded Ordinance activist and researcher."

   Chuck is paying attention to the chemical industries and is trying to get the word out.

New Year's Resolutions Revisited

   I recently reviewed my New Year's Resolutions for this year and was pleased to discover that I'm sticking to it better than I had expected.

   First was this blog, which, admittedly, I haven't kept up with lately as I should. I've been busy with other things, but I need to get better at posting even something short from time to time.

   On The Waterfront and second half of Lawrence of Arabia are the movies I need to watch to complete the AFI's top ten. I thought I still needed to see Vertigo, but it turns out I did watch that one last year. I haven't done anything about this one other than putting On The Waterfront in our Netfilx queue. I'll have to check Lawrence of Arabia out from the library. Those will be good ones for later in the year when the weather is yucky.

   The goal of “eating food, not too much, mostly plants” has been going better lately than it was at the beginning of the year. It's always easier when fresh produce abounds and, despite the weather being cool-ish for the season, the garden is doing very well! We added a second raised bed (another resolution) and have been doing better than last year with our planting-harvesting-replanting schedules, though I have not been as diligent with this as I wish I were. Still, progress is being made.

   I have reloading completely under control. There are a couple items I would like to get to make the job easier, less messy, etc., but right now I have everything I need to reload the two calibers I shoot with any regularity and have reloaded several hundred rounds.

   I have done three hike-in camping trips this year -- Olympic Hot Springs, Geyser Valley Complex, and Hoh Rain Forest. I have gotten a handle on the gear, what I do and don't need to pack, AND have made plans for a big trip. In a week I will venture out for a six-day excursion from the north end of the Olympic National Park to the south end. About 45 miles from Lake Mills to Lake Quinault (technically, from the Whisky Bend Trailhead to the North Fork Trailhead). I am excited!

   Airline tickets have been purchased for the wedding in October and money is being saved for the trip and to cover time off work.

   I found someone local who had two acres cleared in January and is letting people come harvest firewood pretty cheap. I have about two thirds of the wood we will need for this winter already.

   Between the hiking and woodcutting, I have definitely been getting more exercise this year. I have also been exercising more just to get in shape for the big walk next week.

   Cheese making and homemade pectin are two things I just have not gotten to yet. Filling a deer or elk tag is going to have to wait until the season starts this fall, but I have begun making plans.

   I'm still looking for ways to do more with my son. He and I did do the Geyser Valley Complex hike just the two of us, and the other two hikes were my wife, son and me. He is very much into Legos and what I really need to do is make time to actually build Lego stuff with him. That should be a goal.

   All in all, I have to say I'm pretty pleased with how this year has been going!

Where Have I Been?

I doubt if I’ll ever get a regular posting schedule going because my life just isn’t set-up that way. I started working at age fourteen, put myself through two years of college, and then worked in various jobs for over a decade before being able to support myself and my family through music and entertainment. I found the times I was happiest with my job was when my schedule was less structured. When I did break off from the day job routine I was working Monday through Friday for a corporation. It was a less-than-ideal environment for me. I was fortunate to work for a manager who understood me enough to work with my schedule as long as I put in a full eight hours and got the job done, but it was still soul-draining.

So now I am very happy to be able to make a living working only a few nights a week. We have had to make some concessions and live a simpler life, but that’s what this blog is about. One of the consequences, however, is that any kind of regular schedule tends to be short-lived.

That said, I haven’t been a complete slacker. I’ve been studying and practicing reloading. The weather cleared up and the sun actually came out last Saturday so my son and I spent the afternoon hiking around Banner Forest. A few days ago I took my son to the range to let him do some shooting and to try out my own hand-loaded rounds. It went very well and my son had a great time despite the cold weather. I cooked a roast and sliced it up and the wife and I have been having French dip sandwiches the past couple days. When it’s been rainy we’ve been occupying some downtime with Wii Fit Plus and the BBC series Planet Earth – an excellent series in case you have not seen it. I’ve also been online reading some forums and food safety websites, signing petitions and sending emails. As I type this I am brewing up a batch of beer and doing a bit of laundry.

One project around the house has been to try and get a handle on our humidity issues. Living in NW Washington State, across the sound from Seattle, we virtually live in a rainforest and everything seems to get damp this time of year (“this time of year”, meaning September through May). My wife and I both have allergies, though she has it much worse than I. I can usually get by with the woodstove and a fan to circulate the heat to the back rooms, but the humidity still stays relatively high inside the house and that creates an environment where allergens to which my wife is sensitive thrive. Basically, my wife is allergic to the Pacific Northwest. It doesn’t help matters that we hang dry almost all of our laundry and when it's wet outside, it has to be hung inside.

During our last visit to Portland my wife scored a really nice 75-pint-per-day dehumidifier that her cousin is not currently using. I was naïve to think we could run it for a day or so in each room and have our problem under control. We have been running it almost nonstop for two and a half weeks and emptying five to nine gallons from it daily. I was hoping that between that and our UV air cleaner the allergens could be kept at bay. My son and I are both fine, but my wife is still miserable. Fortunately there are over-the-counter meds she can take that relieve her symptoms, but neither that nor running a big dehumidifier twenty-four/seven is sustainable or cost effective. I am still weighing the clothes dryer against the dehumidifier and the dehumidifier is winning me over. Obviously I'm going to have to keep working on this one.

It’s almost mid-February, which means it’s time to get started on building the second raised garden bed and getting the gardens ready for spring. It will have to wait until after Valentine’s Day, but then I have no excuses for putting it off any longer. It won’t be long now before seeds go in the ground…

Backstory Part III

The third and final installment of the "how I got here" story...

---
Before moving to the east coast I had taken an interest in archery and this lead me to bow hunting. While hunting I came face-to-face with the reality of meat and exactly how an animal becomes food. It was also around the time of this move that we started taking a look at the anti-Wal-Mart hype. While we had shopped at Wal-Mart from time to time, I frequently found myself aggravated with the experience. I decided to try and find out why.

While I found books on Wal-Mart and organic foods, my wife was looking into childbirth and the medical industry. When our son started having unexplained seizures at age six, the doctors at the hospital had absolutely no explanation and our motivation for answers grew. It turns out that the over-the-counter allergy medicine we were giving our son each spring causes seizures in a small percent of people; mostly children. None of the doctors to whom we are still paying bills had ever heard of such a thing. Money well spent.

Around this time I had made a complaint among my college friends about how difficult it is to reduce one's carbon footprint even when trying to do so. I was admonished by a vegan friend who suggested that I could do a lot more by simply not eating meat. I decided to really examine this perspective which lead me to more information about Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations, food transportation, and why eating locally is important. Now I was torn between local and organic and found it seemingly impossible to reconcile the two.

We never did find a local brew shop in Wilmington that could get us anything we couldn't find online from the same origin or closer. We never found a local butcher. Seriously. The local supermarkets would reluctantly hand-cut shipped-in raw meat but did not want to have to clean the slicer for a private order. I ended up buying a meat slicer online because no one in Wilmington that I could find sold such an item (I did not check Wal-Mart).

On top of all of this, we were appalled by both the school food and the local school system. One day we picked our son up from school when he was on the verge of tears. We had to pull from him that the school was having a "McDonald's Day" that Friday and that, while he didn't want to let his class down, he didn't want to eat McDonald's food. Now the school has made me a bad parent for teaching my kid to eat better. When I emailed the principal, I was informed it was not a school program, but a PTA fundraiser, never mind the giant banner in the school entryway and the competition between classrooms for participation. The PTA cashed my enclosed check for the "recommended contribution" plus what an average family might generously spend at McDonald's, but never responded to my letter. Still, that wasn’t the last straw.

My wife was reading articles by John Taylor Gatto and decided it would be a good idea to volunteer at the school library to help out. One afternoon the school went on “lock-down”, which means the lights went off, the shades were pulled, and the kids all got on the floor while police searched the school. Once the police cleared the building, the shades remained closed and no children were allowed outside without an adult escort for the rest of the day. It turns out someone down the street had been shot and the police were looking for the shooter. Now I don’t have a problem with the lock-down procedure, what I have a problem with is that the school did not tell any parents about it. The only reason we knew about it was because my wife happened to be there that day. How do you put kids through something like that and not mention it to the parents? After one year in the local, public school and three and a half months in the local magnet school, we removed our child from compulsory education and started a homeschool, but not without threat of litigation. Schools get money based on attendance now, so every child counts at least as far as the budget is concerned.

We were reading books like Crunchy Cons (Dreher), When Corporations Rule the World (Korten), Deep Economy (McKibben), The Ecology of Commerce (Hawken), The Great Turning (Korten), Choice (Bender & de Gramont), Conscious Conception (Baker & Baker), The Empty Cradle (Longman) (a disturbing book on several levels), and The Wal-Mart Effect (Fishman). We saw documentaries such as Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Why We Fight, The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, The Corporation, and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. We began to really reconsider how we live and how to live better.

By the time I was able to secure work and move our family back to the northwest, we had become staunch anti-Wal-Mart, anti-industrial, organic-foods, homeschooling, label-reading shoppers. Once again, change seems to be easier when habits change. We now found ourselves closer to home, but in no context with which we were familiar as our habits and priorities had so dramatically shifted. We found that the neighborhood Fred Meyer's (now owned by Kroger) "natural" section closely resembled the co-op we belonged to on the east coast. We were relieved to find a supply of natural and organic products, but we soon discovered a local butcher and several local markets sprinkled about the area. It was as if we had stumbled into the perfect storm of local access and organic options. We were also able to gain access to a much more user-friendly library than we had been to in years. Instead of buying a few books a year I was now able to borrow a few books a week and learn much more about local and sustainable. The book Plan B 3.0 by Lester Brown shook my world all over again. We planted a vegetable garden, started raising chickens, learned canning, freezing, pickling and jam making. I continued homebrewing and making sausage and jerky.

Which brings the whole story up to speed. We are now several years into this journey and we are making progress, but we can always do better. Our worldview has changed some, but what has really changed is how we interact with the world and our environment. We are learning to consume less, produce more, and be more involved with our own lives.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

New Year's Resolutions

I should preface by saying that I'm not really big on New Year's resolutions, per se. I am a fan of self-examination, striving to do better, and having goals of some kind. The new year is as good a time as any to re-evaluate and set some goals and, since the tradition is already there, why not? I’ve also found that writing it down and revisiting it throughout the year helps. I am often amazed at how the act of writing something down can seem to affect it’s outcome. Something about putting things out into the quantum universe I suppose. Last year’s list included a few things I thought were highly unlikely that actually did come to pass, so this year I’m going to just put it all down and see how it goes.

The first resolution I’ll list is this blog. I pretty much covered that in the intro, so we’ll just have to stay tuned to see how I do there.

There are a couple carry-overs from last year. I wanted to see all of the AFI’s top ten films, which are actually twelve films because they did the original list in 1997 and then changed it in 2007. I missed On The Waterfront, Vertigo, and I only made it through half of Lawrence of Arabia, but I watched (or had already seen) the rest. This year I want to finish the top ten and start in on some of the seven that I haven’t already seen in the top twenty-five.

Another carry-over is to continue eating food, not too much, mostly plants. A resolution straight out of Pollan’s, In Defense of Food, I did a pretty good job eating better last year and I want to continue to get better. The gardening, canning, and freezing all help us do a better job of eating seasonally and locally and it is my intent to look for ways to improve there as well.

I had a resolution last year to be able to reload by the end of the year. I did acquire some of the tools, but not all and I still have yet to learn the actual process. However, my wife’s uncle has offered to teach me and we have made plans to do it while we are in Portland during the next few days. In an added bit of serendipity, my wife’s grandmother just told us she has a couple boxes of her late husband’s reloading gear and that I am welcome to it. So this one is just a little behind schedule, but should right on track this time next week. It’s kind of crazy how just putting it out there colluded and the pieces came together.

Not really a carry-over so much as an expansion of last year’s resolutions, we are planning to add another raised bed for the garden this year. I hope to pay closer attention to the planting-harvesting-replanting schedules to get a little more out of this year’s garden. I hope to have more canning and freezing to do next fall. We are still eating peas, green beans, pickles, and tomatoes from last summer’s garden and corn, jam, and jelly from other local sources, but I would like to be able to buy even less from the store next winter.

I’m going to put camping and hiking together here since our goal this year is to do some hike-in camping. Back when I was single my transportation was a motorcycle and I could strap everything I needed for a camping trip to the seat and handlebars. Now, with the wife and child and the VW bus, our camping gear has expanded quite a bit. During the last year we began picking up things like hiking packs, a small tent, lightweight sleeping bags, etc. By summer we hope to have everything we need to do at least two or three family hike-in camping trips. It would also be nice to do at least one big hiking trip like last fall’s Mt. Ellinor hike.

I made good on last year's goal to get out deer hunting. Since I am relatively new to the area my goal here was primarily to learn the state regulations and where the deer are. I did that and also found a really good elk spot. This year’s goal is to actually fill a deer or elk tag. Now that I better understand the seasons and where to go, I think this can be do-able.

I need to get more exercise this year. The first year we were here we did a pretty good job of getting out on the bikes or going for walks but this year we’ve been busy and regular physical activity has fallen by the wayside. I need to figure out a way to remedy that.

I have a good friend in North Carolina who is getting married in October. I resolve to make it to that wedding. Since our family lives on a pretty moderate budget, cross-country trips require planning and saving. We have already started, but we will need to keep everything on track to make it happen.

A couple things I would like to try this year are cheese making and homemade pectin. I’m not sure when we’ll find the time, but I’m going to put it out there anyway.

This past year I acquired a pick up truck and a chainsaw (thank you to my uncle who upgraded both!) and I would very much like to harvest some of my own firewood this year. There is no reason for me to pay to have some else cut and split it – I need the exercise!

Finally, I always need to do more with my son. Between our family’s schedules and homeschooling, we actually do spend quite a bit of time together as a family. Still, I feel that we always need to be striving to do more together. This is a constant goal.

…So, that’s it. I did actually leave a couple things off, but I think this is enough to keep me busy this year. Besides, I need to save something for next year, right?