…Like Dad’s blueberry pancakes.

“Made with extra love”

Back in January when we started this whole making changes thing I thought it was going to be an epic fail, but so far each of the things that we’ve decided to change have turned into great habits!  In keeping with our January challenge we’re still trying hard not to buy new.  February was a house cleaning extravaganza during which I made my own soft scrub, toilet bowl cleaner, general purpose spray cleaner, floor cleaner, dish soap, and glass cleaner.  (and by “made my own” I mean that I now keep a large bottle of vinegar and a slightly smaller bottle of baking soda in the cabinet)  I like them all so much that I’m in the process of getting rid of all my old chemicals — Anyone need an economy sized bottle of Windex? — I’m looking into what to do about the laundry and dishwasher detergents, they’re a little more complicated.

When we lived in Arizona we had a clothesline on the back patio that I loved.  The morning sun worked it’s bleaching magic on our whites, we didn’t have to run the dryer, everything smelled nice and fresh, and it was fantastic.  Since we moved into this new house it’s been cold and snowing so my wish for a clothesline has been put off, but then I got to thinking…”what if we hung a line inside?”  So, this weekend Cody went down into the basement and after much cussing I have a short line in the laundry room on which to hang clothes.

The basement is hideous.  It’s a disaster of torn up sheetrock, broken tile, old moldy carpet, cobwebs, paneling, dust, and decay.  It’s dark and cold, and everything you’d expect out of basement construction zone, and there hangs my clothesline looking utterly depressing.  In light of my new tool I’ve decided that March is going to be the month that I start hanging my clothes to dry.  I’ll start with putting up what I can fit on my little line in the basement, and when the work down there is finished we’ll put up a larger line.  Then, when the weather warms up, we’ll put a line outside so that Cheeks and I can get chores done and enjoy the weather.  I’d like to eventually be able to get rid of that stupid dryer, or at the very least unplug it.  It only works half the time, sucks energy, and leaves me feeling like I will always hate laundry day.  In the mean time I’m going to do my best to use it as little as possible.

Here’s to hang drying!

“Snow!”

“Yeah, snow.”

“Snooooowwww!”

“Wow.  I thought you didn’t like snow?  You’re sure excited about it, have you changed your mind?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.  Alright.”

So, we’ve put together this short list of books that we keep around.  It isn’t a complete list, just the favorites of our collection.  I thought about breaking it up into reference and non-reference or something like that, but then we’d just have two lists that we don’t know what to do with and that doesn’t really solve any problems.  Instead we’ve got one list made into two, my favorites and Cody’s favorites.  We’ve both included regular old good reads and some reference books that have been important to us.

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Eve’s List of Favorites:

1.  A Countrywoman’s Year by Rosemary Verey

2. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

3. Make Your Place by Raleigh Briggs

4. Chicks With Sticks Guide to Knitting by Nancy Queen and Mary Ellen O’Connell

5. The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II

6. Handmade Home by Amanda Soule

7. Secrets of The Baby Whisperer for Toddlers by Tracy Hogg with Melinda Blau

What I didn’t include:  Jane Austin.  Her stuff is so warmly domestic and fantastically subversive at the same time…But I have trouble reading it before bed, since I tend to put off the whole sleeping part of going to bed until I have completely exhausted my eyes and brain.  So, I don’t often read Austin and didn’t think I should include anything of hers…Although, I kinda just did.

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Cody’s List of Favorites:

1. Gardening When It Counts by Steve Solomon

2. The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse by Fernando Aguirre

3. 1984 by George Orwell

4. The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey

5. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

6. The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton

7. The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening by people who do things like write encyclopedias.  How’s that for citation?

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While you might not return to this list again, there is a chance that we’ll add to it.  We are, after-all, in the midst of a shake-up around these parts and anyone who knows us knows that any shake-up in our lives will require A LOT of reading.

Here’s the idea, tell me if you think it’s nuts:

1. Cody and I grow a small patch of grain (barley? wheat?) and 1 or 2 vines of hops somewhere in our yard.

2. I do a heck of a lot of reading on the art of brewing beer from my own harvest.

3. We beg, borrow, and steal our way into beer brewing equipment.  Equipment that we then set up in our guest room.

4. Let the brewing commence (this is the part where Tom winces).

Me Eve.  Me make beer.  *grunt*

There’s an alternate plan brewing in my head (pardon my pun), that doesn’t involve the growing of a beer patch in the backyard, the sizable equipment investment, or the help of Tom.

Country wine.

Yes, fermented fruit.  You can find it in Kentucky.  The best part?  We can still make it in the guest room.

Tom is totally not disappointed right now.

[I]f you want to avoid encounters with police, a gray Honda carrying two passengers dressed preppy and listening to National Public Radio is the way to go.

The most unfortunate thing about this statement is that I drive alone in a beige Honda, in business attire and I’m a self proclaimed NPR addict.  This would most likely explain why I’ve driven for four months with expired tags without event.

I mean, HELLO AGING HIPSTERVILLE!  Do you see that cover??  The only thing missing is the ironic slogan t-shirt.  Which is why when I saw it at the library I thought that I could return it without ever having opened it.

But today I opened it.  Then I read it…almost completely through.  (O.K. I skimmed some pages and completely skipped the livestock section, but I think that’s fair given that we have no use for animals or their eggs)  This book is phenomenally vague and still awesome.  It’s full of cool ideas, things that we could actually do, things that are questionably legal in our big-government-masquerading-as-small-government county.  Yet there are almost no instructions for doing these things, instead there are copious recommendations on where to find the actual information.  Which really just means I get to check out more books from the library.

Their most important gardening rule is to not water anything that you can’t eat.  Cool.  They suggest rigging solar heaters and running them through south facing windows to heat your rooms.  Cool.  They are guerrilla greywater fanatics.  Cool?  (I don’t know yet, that one is most certainly illegal.  Then again, we aren’t even allowed to collect rainwater, so I’m considering it just to stick it to The Man.)  There are ideas on different and sometimes creative ways to preserve all the food that you can grown, find, steal, beg, etc.  Cool.  There’s an entire section on dumpster diving.  Which, if it weren’t so hipster I’d say is cool.

So, basically, I’ve been ignoring this wonderful book full of the sort of thing that might make normal neighbors hate us (our neighbors are illegal-livestock enthusiasts so that’s not much of a problem for us) when I could have been using it to make plans for this year’s garden.  Now I’ve got a lot of garden rethinking to do and it’s getting late in the season for that sort of thing.  Maybe we’ll stick with something close to our original plan for this year and use the time not spent re-thinking to install those solar heaters.

A few other interesting looking books I’ve stumbled upon on the Internet but haven’t been able to find at the library yet:

A Weaver’s Garden

Homegrown Whole Grains

Small Scale Grain Raising

A couple of years ago (2008) I kept a list of all the books that I read from January through December and I loved it.  I loved it because I could look back at that list and remember all those books and the things that happened in my life while I was reading them.  I read The Bell Jar while I was in labor, for example.  Plus, it was fun to watch my list develop.  I read a lot that year, you might recall my three months of forced bed-rest made bearable almost entirely by the happenings of Sherlock Holmes.  I’ve heard “it takes a lot of settin’ gettin’ chicks to hatch”, and what better way to pass sittin’ time than by reading?

This year Cody thought it might be fun to get in on the listing action.  He’s keeping track right along with me, and though his choices sometimes baffle me, I’m proud of him for the effort it has taken to become the reader he is and I’m glad to see his list growing.

Oh, man.  Gushy.

Without further ado…

Eve’s Books.  In some particular order:

In Progress:

The Country Woman’s Year by Rosemary Verey — Month by month, taking my time, just the way it should be.

Food Inc. edited by Karl Weber — I think I’ve pretty much given up on this one.  It’s next to impossible for me to make it through two pages without becoming irate with the author for being an idiot. (2/17)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

Completed:

1.   By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie

2.  Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

note: I love Agatha Christie novels.  They’re quick, cheap, and fun.  When I grow up I want to be Tuppence Beresford.

3.  The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

4.  Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou

5. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

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Cody’s Books.  In order of completion:

1. Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse by James Wesley, Rawles

2. The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse by Fernando Aguirre

3. The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D and Thomas M. Campbell II

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The page for the 2010 Reading List is in progress.  We’ll keep you posted.