An Alternate Reality?

There's a bang at your door. You stumble there, peek out the peep hole and see uniformed men and women with stern faces carrying a great deal of equipment and clip boards....you open the door and hear "mam, we're the environmental police and we're here to rate your compliance with the new environmental laws. Please show us 6 months worth of energy bills or sign this form so that we can get them from your utility company." They enter the house uninvited and begin to look at the light bulbs in your ceiling fan and lamps and over head light fixtures all the while marking things down on their clipboards. One or two of them ask to see your attic and your utility closet while you see that outside, your heat pump and a/c are being looked at. Next, you're asked to escort one of them to your laundry room; they're opening and shutting your windows and use some kind of blower to measure the air that escapes under your front door. They're looking at your thermostat to see just what you've got your a/c or heat set at. Almost as suddenly as it began, its over. You're handed a paper while someone slaps a label on your front window visible from the outside.

Does that paper say you passed the inspection? Or is it a citation dictating what must be done to bring your home up to code and the fines you'll pay for everyday of 'unlawful occupancy" of your home until you bring it all up to code? Were you trying to sell your house? Well, if you were and you weren't up to the new codes, you'll have to pay to bring your home to code before they'll authorize the sale to take place.

Is this an alternate reality that exists only in conspiracy theorists minds or is this perhaps in the future for every American? If cap and trade passes, its our future....unless of course the individual states stop it....or the voters vote these people out of office and start completely over.

I can hear some of you saying, "but Cap and Trade is dead; the Party of No stopped it". I wish that that were the truth, but its not. Those in Washington are still talking about passing the house bill in the senate sometime this year and if you listen really carefully, you'll hear the Environmental Agency threatening that if it isn't passed, that agency will just regulate the things in the bill into being. The bill says that 90% of homes and buildings in this country will be brought to code in 5 years from the effective date of the law. What exactly are the new codes based upon? The California Codes of course....you know, that state that is bankrupt at the moment because of their building and energy codes and the one that is forcing the farmers of California out of business to save those wee little fish? Anyhoo, how will they accomplish this making 90% of homes and buildings meet the new codes in five years?

First, by establishing new building codes that will be 30% higher then the ones in affect now and forcing every seller of a home to bring the home up to code before they can sell it and incur a fine for every day the house is below code. Second, there will be mandatory inspections of every home and building in the country with fines for every day that the inspected house is under code. Third, if the states don't comply, the federal money will be cut off. One federal employee stated that we needed "a swat team to sweep a street in a neighborhood and replace every window of every building on that street" and then move on to the next street until every home in America had new windows.....can't pay for it? Out you go.

I once had a friend say that she was willing to pay more money for her energy usage if it saved the world.....but she refuses to take steps on her own to become pro-active in her own life to help save the world. She wants the government to force her to do it......plus said she "the government will give me a subsidy to help me out". I asked just where she thought that subsidy would come from....her answer wasn't "the taxpayers who don't qualify for that subsidy" and she certainly didn't comprehend that a whole lot of folks making only about $32,000 annually would be the ones paying for that subsidy in higher taxes. Not to mention Candidate Obama's own words that under his plan for the new energy reality in this country "electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket".

I urged her to read the bill herself; I gave her information on the true cost and affect on all Americans in job losses, in liberty losses, and she said "don't give me your statistics....change is coming...get used to it!".

While David and I voluntarily spend oodles of money retrofitting this old house to save not only it but save in what our own footprint does in impacting our world, this woman wants the government to mandate her compliance hoping that when it does, it'll also give her the money to be compliant. She doesn't count the cost in her liberty of when and how to buy and sell her property; she doesn't count the cost of forced retrofitting of her own home before the government gives her whatever subsidy they'll allot her when she files her 1040 in April.

And too many Americans share her mindset.....while the rest of us watch every facet of our lives becoming more and more under the control of a government that uses our money to jet to Copenhagen and stay in exclusive hotels that most of us could never even contemplate setting eyes on.......all the while pointing their fingers at the Corporations that employ us and shaming them for the same things they themselves are doing.

What's your mindset? Are you willing to live in a country where you're fined everyday for "unlawful occupancy" in your own home? Or are you of a mindset that says "hey, I need to make my home energy efficient because its not only good for the environment but good for my pocketbook" and then lay out a long term plan to get it done?

Don't believe that America will set up a system of Green Police? New York has already done it.....and it may be coming to your town. Don't believe that you just might be forced to retrofitt your window by a swat team? Read up on Cathy Zoi at Obama's Department of Energy......

An alternate reality or fundamental change? Read the bill while remembering that the EPA has said it will regulate these things if the bill isn't passed and then you decide. If you still need some help, it might serve the whole country if you took the time to read the constitution and remember what it was to protect us from.............the tyranny of an out of control government.....!

Living in the boonies

where you and your chickens, dogs and cats are the only livestock for acres and acres means that every time you step outside, hunting pests zero in on you for the attack.....mosquitoes and flys being the most vicious......

You have to get creative unless you want to carry a bottle of chemical pesticides around with you, or spray yourself and your fur and skin kids with Deet every time you walk out the door.....and since we're attempting to go Green around here, that's not something we're too keen on......

We've found a few ways to combat the pests as naturally as possible....the chickens are helping to control a lot of the insects in the gardens;



during certain seasons we tuck bounce sheets into our back pockets and the necks of our shirts to keep the gnats away from our eyes and noses, when outside, we burn citronella oil in torches tucked here and there to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and we hang these beauties all over the place.........

Something about the sun sparkling off the water and the gentle movement of the bags in the breezes that flow in from the fields bedazzle the flys and cause them to stay away......



the chicken coop, a natural place of attraction for the flys, benefits greatly from these sparkling, swaying bags. The back door requires almost as many bags as the coop does......and our veggie gardens are less fly invested as well after hanging the bags.....



the water evaporates rather quickly so about every four days I have to refill the bags but the effort is worth it.

And this is our experiment for this year....these are called mosquito plants.....or citronella plants...we purchased four of them to hang around the gazebo and hot tub.....the jury is still out on whether or not they'll help to repel mosquitoes.....I'll let you know.

How does your garden grow?

We've tried to grow organically this year; no pesticides, natural fertilizers, all that jazz. But Florida's weather isn't cooperating with us. Seven days of non stop rain (which caused the potato fields that surround us to make us think we had ocean front property) have done a number on the garden.

The tomato plants that were going gangbusters and bursting with little green promises suddenly are the feasting ground for all manner of creepy crawlies. Coffee grinds and egg shells didn't slow them down. Hand picking and treating the chickens didn't seem to make a dent. The fruit that was supposed to be ripe and ready for eating on the 27th of May now hangs perpetually green.....not enough Florida sun to finish the ripening process and too much outside interference with the creepy crawlies have ended the process. I guess there'll be lots of Green Tomato Chutney to give away and lots of Fried Green Tomatoes for dinner. Friends report the same trouble with their gardens, so we're not alone in this. One faces the same dilemma we do and another says her green ones all dropped to the ground a week ago.

I've got slugs and snails in the squash and sugar snaps - again the coffee grinds and egg shells and sweet water aren't able to keep up with the infestation that has resulted from too much rain. I finally broke down and bought some organic pesticide to help save what I can of my garden...and I'm giving it all one more week before it all comes out and I start over.

I've container gardened every year for the last 20 years - I've never dealt with the creepy crawlies that have invaded us this year....and I've only occasionally had to use pesticides before with my tomato plants - so this first attempt to go completely organic has been a bit frustrating....

As I type this, the second storm of the day has come through - and I think about the potato farmers that lost millions already this season in rotted fields - and I am thankful that I'm just dealing with a back yard garden. And I dream of a green house.......where I can control the water if not the humidity......

A Charging Life.....

No, I'm not talking about charge cards - you know those things we now call credit cards instead? Gee, I wonder why the name change...could it be that charges bring to mind something negative while credit does the opposite? Never mind. That's not what this post is about....I'm actually talking about those re-chargable batteries we've switched to over the past year or so....

Have you ever thought about just how many batteries we need in the modern life? A gazillion it sometimes seems...and when you are living a charging life.....you spend a whole lot of time first telling your family "hey....noooooo...those are rechargables" as they head to the bins.....and then a whole lot of time rotating those little energy providers through that charger that looks oh so good as part of your kitchen decor.....until.....that little charger decides it's done.....it gives up the ghost.

So you go to the store and you think that all chargers are the same as your recently departed one - only to find that some of those things take 12-15 hours to charge 4 tiny batteries. And, your kid then takes your batteries out of your camera so that he can play his Xbox 360.......

And then you say to your readers ...."well, this post was going to be about our chicks and their adventures in the big open world outside their penned in coop.....or maybe about the floods that came from 7 straight days of rain and ruined several million dollars worth of potato crops"..... and then proceed to gripe about a charging life....sometimes, every now and then, I just want to go buy some of those little energizer bunny ones....sometimes it seems life was a bit simpler when we were less green.....

Gripe Over.....you may now return to your regularly scheduled....whatever........ : )

Fencing, Chickens, Snakes, and Gardening, ~~~

Time for a project update~~

The fencing is almost completed ~ we took a day off from coops and fences and yard work on Saturday to do a bit of playing, but Sunday and Monday found us out there getting it done...the wire will go up this week in the evenings and hopefully the gates will be made and installed by Friday. The dogs see the fence going up and think they can already go out to play....we have to keep the screen door latched or out they go where before they didn't dare it.....I'm looking forward to lazing away on the porch swing without worry for the dogs~~and grass in the back yard again~

The chicken coop is almost 100% complete - its completely wired in for the safety of the chicks but the coop doors have not been fully installed - that will also be accomplished over the next few evenings; the rabbit spent the night out there last night-he let it be known he had no interest in coming in the house - unlike the chickens~~who it appears may be a bit spoiled. We've been leaving them out later each evening and as I go out to get them, I am greeted by five voices chirping at the top of their lungs. Last night, we left them until almost full dark - until the level of their chirping had reached the point that I could hear them from the kitchen. They were so anxious to come in that we didn't even make it into the pen to get them; we sat the crate just outside the door and they ran into it as fast as they could......I didn't tell them that they'll be banished out there in a day or two~~

A rat snake took up residence in the hutch/coop and had to be escorted out (hopefully) by firecrackers! While David and I began the initial installation of the hardware clothe, we noticed the new tenant and hoped that all the activity around him would cause him to leave. Over the next three days, he shared the pen and coop with the rabbit and the chicks~ it looked as though he'd decided to stay on despite the co-op living arrangement. This of course would never do.....he'd eat those future eggs quick as they were laid. So, David and Hunter spent a pleasant hour on Friday night setting off little firecrackers inside the pen....if he's not gone now, he's trapped inside the new ceiling of the coop.....we'll know soon.

Gardening.....our raised box gardens are doing well....the greens are harvest ready and have been feeding the chickens and the rabbits....the cilantro and spinach are almost ready and the tomatoes are growing rapidly.....! I am learning new things about growing these veggies as I go and learning about organic means of pest control as well. Its a bit daunting, but when we begin to eat the harvest it will be well worth it.

Since I know that a lot of house bloggers grow gardens or buy from the local farmers markets, I'd like to mention that I will be posting about a new piece of legislation that may require some letter writing and phone calling to make certain that home gardens and road side stands are not harmed by the bill. The blog post is not out yet, but will be in a day or so...please check the link at your left if you are interested in this.....in the meantime, if you'd like to research it on your own it is The Food Safety Modernization Act, HR 875

Have a great day!

Reflections Part II

Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op: On Self-Sufficiency and Small Steps
This morning, as I drank my coffee and read my daily blogs, Simple Green touched a chord with me and as I went about my daily chores, I started reflecting on our own path towards increased self-sufficiency. Looking back on our semi-drop out of the rat race; initially the most important reason we did it was a sense of suffocation after 22 years of living in subdivisions.

From Backstory Although David and I never really talked about old houses while we were dating, we realized it was a shared love shortly after we were married and had purchased our own first home, .....we just had never really realized it until we found ourselves living in a subdivision on a 90 X 120 lot with neighbors on all sides and found ourselves shutting the windows whenever we had an argument.........! Suddenly, an old house in the country was being discussed.....often.

But, it was more than just the issue of privacy during heated discussions...i.e. it was little neighbor boys who snuck into your backyard while you were at work and took your german shepherd off the run line to wander about the neighborhood where said german shepherd took to doing his "business" in other folks yards.....not a good thing. In fact, one of our neighbors thought it was so far from a "good thing" that she shoveled up the evidence, stomped her way across her yard, then the street, up across our front yard...knocked on the door, and when David opened it, she threw the evidence at his feet! (she was thereafter referred to in conversation as the "shit lady".....)

And then more recently, there was that meth house that was just across the cul-de-sac~~~and the increasing restrictions put in place by the homeowners association. Anyhoo~~we were also dropping out to get back to what he and I had both known as children; a quieter, slower paced life where one could see and hear and experience nature with every fibre of your being; we were going back to a place where if you wanted to let your grass grow and have goats to "mow" it for you, you could; we were going back to a place where if you forgot to bring in your trash cans you found your neighbor had done it for you instead of a nasty letter in your mail box; we were hoping to give our children a sense of a life where you communed with nature instead of your neighbors stereo, where you had a sense of freedom instead of one of restriction....before they moved out and onwards in their own lives....

From Backstory David grew up in what could loosely be termed "country" - his childhood home was inside the town limits, but it sat on two acres of river front land.....and it was 60 years old when his folks bought it (1966)....that house had quite a history as it had been built for the Mayor of the town at the turn of the century and had a spot being a Retired British Soldiers Home before his parents purchased it and made it a single family residence once again...I grew up an Air Force brat with a South Carolina Farmer Boy father and an English School Girl mother....we never spent very long in any one place, but whenever we could live off base, Dad made certain we had an acre or two (or three) and that those acres had hogs, chickens and horses. During my childhood we lived in two old farmhouses, one in South Bend Indiana and one in Canton Ohio.....!

When we first moved in, our efforts were mainly to make it "ours" adding our furniture and photos and books and "our" colors on the walls; planting our roses and sago's. But soon, as we watched the farmers around us work their fields and our special farmer across the street began to share the fruits of his labors with us - bringing us sweet corn, peas, beans, squash, tomatoes and other marvelous tastes -

From March 2004 Mr. S. has a personal garden and has brought us fresh vegetables almost every day; cabbage and beets and carrots and broccoli. He is now planting his spring garden and will soon be bringing over tomatoes and onion and peppers and squash...I think I have found a little heaven on earth.

From April 2004 The rose bushes that have followed David since he was a child are now safely in the ground alongside the sidewalk that I uncovered on what used to be the front of the house. And the rose bushes that have been separated out from a tiny little stem Dad gave me years ago are also in the ground, one on each side of a little bridge that covers the ditch separating the driveway from the front yard. All of these rose bushes carry sentimental value for us; David's roses because he had the chore of caring for them as a child; we had these bushes at our very first home in 1982, moved them to our second home in 1990 and here they are with us at our new old home in 2004. My little rose bushes carry historic value for me as well as the little stem they came from were a cutting from a rose bush planted by my great grandparents at Whites Mill in Sumter South Carolina.

-our thoughts began to move towards those things that would allow us to save money and eat healthier and waste less. We had our own lemon tree and kumquat trees and access to several different kinds of orange trees and each time we reached out and grabbed a fruit I would think "I need to learn how to use these more - its too much waste"....and the slow process towards a simpler more self sufficient life began - not just a love of living without the busy-ness and noise of too many neighbors, but a simpler way of living.

From April 2004 It was wonderful to have room for the children to run and play and be as loud as they wanted, with no fear of disturbing the neighbors. We all played croquet, flew kites and threw horseshoes and Darrin, Josh and the kids had a water gun fight (water guns and kites courtesy of Nana).

I think that living in an old farmhouse seeps into your being in some mysterious sense; one begins to reflect on the lives that have been lived within the walls and on the grounds that surround you - where at first I concentrated on the landscaping that I was uncovering layer by layer, eventually I found myself questioning how things used to be for the housewife that cooked in this kitchen and tended the vegetable and herb garden that would have existed for her personal use.

From March 2004 The best of it has been reclaiming the grounds. The trees and shrubs were allowed to become overgrown and I have been in my element trimming and pruning. I have found treasures in almost every overgrown garden, from old bottles and pieces of the old crawlspace coverings to the bricks from the original fireplace and the original pathway on what used to be the front of the home.

...The wind blowing the rocking chair on the front porch has seemed to me to be the old lady, whose parents built the home and who lived here all her life; I imagine her spending a pleasant evening rocking on the old front porch seeing us bring the landscaping back to life.

By the fall of 2004, we were entering the first stage of empty nesting, Dallas headed off to his first year of college in August and Nikki moved into her first house on her 21st birthday in November. Although Hunter was only 8, he has always been our "self-raising" child requiring little or no supervision to complete chores, keep a tidy room, or do his homework. I suddenly had a lot more free time on my hands and therefore a lot more time to think about gardening and canning and candle making....you know, those things that the first housewife who lived here would have done to make this house a home for her own family.

As we worked towards completing the modernizing of the house that had been partially done by the previous owners, I spent my free time looking through country living themed magazines and my new subscription of Grit (a Christmas gift from my dad). I gathered ideas for decorating and gradually transitioned from the knick knacks of modern homes to the candle sticks of old and more utilitarian things like baskets for storage. And as I read about candle making, I realized that already I was living a life where electricity cannot always be taken for granted and that those candles I was placing out as decor were more a necessary item in my home then ever before. And I watched as the economy threatened to collapse.

I read about portable chicken coops and began to realize that we could have chickens here on our little half acre and leave our dependence on store bought eggs behind. As we ate the home grown veggies from our farmer, we began to read more labels and understand the slow poisoning of our systems that we are subjecting our bodies to purchasing the items in our grocery stores. We realized that a single pepper cost almost as much as a pepper plant and much more then a packet of seeds. My garden grew from container tomatoes and peppers to one with much more variety. And I watched as food prices and energy costs soared.


Subdivision Gardening 2003

Farmhouse gardening (with Mr. S.) 2008

Over the last year, I've made my own candles, attempted some canning, and transitioned the family from store bought breads to home baked ones, from cakes in a box to cakes made from scratch, from container ice cream to home made. Not just because I can do it because of the increase in my free time due to the growing up of my children but because of what I saw in the world around me.

My thoughts now turn to a clothes line out back (and how to deal with the wind swept dust that is a constant out here), a back up system for our water pump should the power go out (or should we be unable to afford to pay for it due to the coming increased costs), a cistern to catch rain water, berry bushes........I have gone from a woman who didn't own a single mason jar to one who now owns dozens......and one who is slowly stocking those jars with the staples of a kitchen...just in case.

It's not just that need to get away from the rat race that has set us on a path to increased self sufficiency; it's not just the mysterious way that life in a 100 year old farmhouse can cause a desire to live more simply and efficiently....its about this world we live in.

Its about a government that seems more about controlling us and limiting our freedoms then about the prosperity of its citizenry as a whole. Its about a fear that in the rush to go "greener" our government will be more about limiting our usage of energy then about discovering new ways to provide it; its a fear that as our government grabs more land and implements more taxes on farmers for the flatulence of their livestock or the dust the winds cause from their croplands and regulates that more of our nations corn crops are used for energy production then for feeding the people, that food will become more expensive and less available.

Its about keeping my family safe in the coming days as much as it is anything else.

Insulating for the future~~

While David is up in the attic laying out the insulation, I can't help but hope that this results in a much lower energy bill. Our average bill runs around $194.00 each month but in December, January, and February, our bill ran an average of $400.00 each month. We had a much colder winter down here then I remember having in the past 15 years or so. These higher bills have put a real strain on our already strained budget.

This reflection on our energy bills prompted me to look at the Cap and Trade resolution that President Obama and Sen. John McCain have been putting forward for the last few years and which now has come before the Congress for passage into actual law. Now I know its all about global warming (despite the record cold temps we all experienced this year) but what does it actually mean for those of us already struggling in this economy to make ends meet? Here's a little bit of what I've found:

1.) The cap and trade will be used to limit carbon production on our energy producers..i.e. electric, oil, natural gas, and gasoline for our vehicles. The fees paid by the companies will be "recovered" from the customer; that means you and me.

2). This recovery (aka recapture) will translate into an average increase of the cost of purchasing energy/gasoline to about $800.00 annually per household in the United States (about $68.00 per month). If you drive further to work your costs will actually be much higher due to new taxes on each gallon of gas you purchase. There are also plans to put systems into new vehicles that map your miles - if you buy one of those new cars, you will be charged a tax per mile that you drive plus a tax on each gallon of gas you purchase.

3. This recovery of fees, costing the average household $800.00 annually will effectively eliminate the "making work pay" tax credit of $400.00 per individual and $800.00 per couple. The new budget which is being evaluated and revised by Congress will eliminate that "making work pay" tax credit for the tax year 2010 anyway, so this is really a tax increase by the President who promised a tax cut.....

4. It has been estimated that the Gross Domestic Product of the United States will diminish by 1% by the end of 2014 due to the loss of spending income to American households because of this cap and trade taxation (that estimate considers ONLY this cap and trade not the state of the rest of the economy and present unemployment rates).

5. It has been estimated that the decrease in Gross Domestic Product will result in 850,000 less jobs created by 2014 due to the fact that Americans will have less spending power so less production will be needed.

Unemployment is rising. The President states that his new budget will create new jobs.....but in that budget is a proposal that will in effect eliminate 850,000 jobs by 2010. We Americans are the victims of "bait and switch" perpetuated on us by the very people we elect to protect us from that tactic.

Last summer when our gasoline prices hit $4.00 a gallon (and that is when the economy really began its nose dive folks, not with the crash of the housing market), we rose up and cried "Drill Here, Drill Now". And the past administration listened; for a time it appeared that we would begin once again to explore our own natural resources to limit our dependence on foreign oil for our heating and gas bills; yet this new administration has shut down all avenues for our country to provide its own energy instead focusing on making Americans pay more for the status quo. (HR 146, OMNIBUS PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT ACT OF 2009 - Floor Speeches / Law (This bill also loses 80,000 jobs in California according to one Representative/Denies wheelchair access to some public lands AND makes 2 million acres Wilderness with no public access at all - this land grab adds to the 30% of American land that the government already owns (1.7 million acres)and infringes on the II Amendment again.

As David puts in insulation, I am already composing a letter to my representatives urging them to continue to fight this new administration's budget that will make it harder for me to feed and clothe my family. What about you?

Note: HR 146 is a compilation of approximately 177 bills all rolled together to force through passage - 100 of the bills have NOT BEEN READ OR DEBATED by the House of Representatives or the Senate. Here we go again.....

More about being greener~~

My ancestry is Scottish. My husband and my kids often make the sounds of bagpipes playing "Scotland the Brave" around me.....usually, when I'm saying no to something due to the cost of that something. I have no idea where they got the idea that my thriftiness comes from the Scottish part of me, but they have that idea. And they make a point to air pipe that song..........

I've always been thrifty; in high school, I worked and put half of each weeks paycheck into a savings account for college and I still had money left in my pocket every payday. Some of my friends couldn't believe it. That thriftiness followed me into the early days of marriage, through very very lean days of early marriage. I remember a grocery trip once where a friend and I decided to go together....I was shocked at the amount of cleaning supplies and pre-packaged foods she purchased - she was shocked at how much more I had in my cart and how much more she had spent on what was in her cart.

So what's my point? I'm getting there in my round about fashion and it has to do with an article in my Sunday Morning paper....about plastic of all things. This writer, because of health concerns and the environment, tried to go plastic free in one week (and found she couldn't do it) and in the process began to re-use things she never re-used before; skip things she never skipped before etc.

As I read about all the little steps she was taking to limit her use of plastic, I couldn't help but think that I was a bit green before green was in....I have always re-used zip lock baggies, foil, plastic grocery bags as garbage bags. I have always used vinegar and baking soda and a tiny bit of ammonia for my housecleaning chores. I have always bought "real" meat that required home cooking and not the pre-cooked, pre-packaged stuff; seldom put my veggies in those little plastic bags unless I couldn't avoid it and shopped the fresh veggie markets whenever possible.

Like the writer, I think it would be great to go plastic free, but in reality, in our world as it stands today, it's almost impossible unless we milk our own cows, make our own cheese, raise our own laying chickens, bake our own bread, butcher our own livestock and use the old fashioned butchers paper.

We can continue to take steps in that direction though....the butcher we now use instead of the grocery chains to buy our meat uses butcher paper but, even he wraps it in plastic first if you are going to freeze it! At least the meat is only in the plastic after we purchase it....

Just for kicks though, I'm going to do what the writer did and pay a little closer attention to how much plastic even I use in my daily life....and try to go a bit greener in the process!

A REVELATION~

A REVELATION~


Last night, for the second night in a row, after finally reaching the simmering stage of dinner, I went outside to sit on the freezing front porch to do some simmering of my own and cool off a bit….once again, I had become overheated while cooking a hearty winter meal due to a miss-placed floor vent that blows hot air straight up and into my face. I sat there in my rocking chair muttering under my breath about just why anyone would think it wise to put a floor vent right between the sink and the stove! I didn’t know the gender of that designer, but I did know that person was most likely not someone who spent any real time in a kitchen! I mean, not only does it blow dirt and pet hair up and onto the kitchen work counters making it necessary for me to pull out the dirt devil and sanitize the counters before I begin to cook, but it blows heat straight up into the face of the cook!

When I went back inside to complete the dinner, I angrily pushed the kitchen mat over the floor vent, which blew so strongly that it scooted the carpet out into the middle of the kitchen....I took a moment and moved it back and then placed the empty stainless steel dog bowl on top of it - it still scooted out to the middle of the kitchen; I stepped over a bit so that I could keep one foot on it while I completed my tasks.....then complained about it (for the hundredth or so time) at dinner…….so finally, David brought in a hammer and laid it upon that mat so I could stay cool during clean up – the hammer did the job and that mat stayed put! And provided the two of us with a revelation, one which I’ll get to in a minute….

That offending vent is one of three floor vents put in the kitchen when the central system was installed by our previous owners.....while the rest of the house suffers from a dearth of venting. It seems that every single house I have lived in, the designers of the heating and a/c systems always put too many vents in the kitchen.....I’ve never understood this since the kitchen is a room in which a great deal of activity takes place raising body temperatures. Cooking also provides additional heat so can someone tell me who came up with the idea that you put extra vents in a kitchen but only one in every other room in the house? Anyone?

Now, some of you may be thinking...why didn’t she just close off the vent…..I did adjust the vent but since it’s the most direct and closest vent to the system, that didn’t help in any discernable way – I still had heat blowing straight up and into my face making me reach for the chap stick!

Others may wonder why we just didn’t turn the heater off or down temporarily.....well, that could work if this wasn't a 100 year old farmhouse in the long drawn out process of being fully restored and insulated....turning off or even down the heat temporarily allows the temps in the rest of the downstairs to plummet which in turn requires a lot of work by the heater to get the downstairs back up to a comfortable level for the rest of the evening...a lot of energy wasted (and money!). In order to keep the living room, office and dining room comfortable, the kitchen has to be over heated because of those three ridiculous vents in there!

In the summer time, it’s not that big an aggravation partly because we don’t run our a/c that often, and when we do, we keep it set at a pretty high temp; despite living in Florida. We have a lot of shade trees and the house, designed before a/c existed was designed for wonderful airflow from the 32 windows it has. And in the summer, we grill out and eat more salads, sandwiches and soups………..

Each winter, that vent plagues me –despite being in Florida, we do have quite a few nights that reach the low 40’s and even low 30’s….and the trees don’t allow the sun to warm up the house and the heater has to be on almost round the clock. We do a lot of soups and stews so I spend a lot of time in the kitchen – you know those comfort foods that warm not only your body but your soul? Our winter electric bills are the highest of the year….much higher despite all the insulation and sealing we’ve done over the past five years. Visitors are always amazed at the temperature drop as you leave the kitchen and step into the dining room and living room….we were beginning to think it was something we’d just have to live with indefinitely because no matter what amount of insulating we did, nothing seemed to change the problem…

Anyway, back to last night and the mat of revelation - We left it there after dinner and went on with our evening routines. I went into the living room to watch “Dancing with the Stars” where I covered myself with the afghan as I do each evening because of the chill in that room. We were set to have a record low (29 degrees!) and I was prepared for a chilly night of TV watching. After a bit, I found myself uncomfortably warm and got up to check the thermostat thinking that someone had adjusted it too high after dinner. I was extremely surprised to realize that it was set to only 72 degrees......normally we have to have it at 75 to even sit in that room without shivering and this is after renovating and insulating the walls and flooring. I began to think about that vent and its placement to the system……….

As an experiment, we left the vent covered with the mat and hammer when we went to bed and woke to a pleasantly warm living room despite those record lows here in Florida.....and a thermostat still set at its overnight level of only 68 degrees......and right now, at 11:00 am, when I would normally be freezing I find instead that I am very comfortable…….

As soon as it warms up enough for David to get under the house, he’ll be closing that vent off permanently…..That blowing, make me sweat and swear vent is going, going, gone. Apparently a great deal of the heat has been going to and through that vent causing the 10 degree temp difference between the kitchen and all the other rooms downstairs.....think of the money we'll save on the heating bill this winter without that stupid vent.

I like that floor mat even more now….but I’ll be glad to put the hammer away!

Candle Maker....?

So, two weeks ago in preparation for Tropical Storm Faye and any of her brother's or sister's that decide to make their appearance in Florida, I began an adventure in candle making.

First, I gathered up all the candles that were melted down to almost nothing, or those which had lost their wicks; then I sorted them according to color and/or scent. Once that task was completed, David and I made a trip into town to prepare in other ways...stocking up on water, peanut butter, hot chocolate and various comfort foods as well as batteries and water proof fire starting methods....and we stopped into Michael's for candle making paraphernalia.

We purchased a roll of wick, some sticky stuff and the little metal thingies and a thermometer, pouring pot, and a few molds. Back at home, I gathered up various containers to use as candles which included a green McCoy vase, old jars from Yankee Candle, chipped tea cups etc. A quick search on Google for candle making tips (including what hazards I should be aware of in using those various containers) and I was ready to go.

Two days later, I had about 10 candles made - one tall pillar, three votive and the rest were in some of the containers I'd gathered. Now was to come the test of just how well I'd done in this new adventure............it was a bit more difficult and tricky then I'd expected and I was a tad disappointed in the results, but I learned a lot in the process....here's some of what I learned in the order in which I think of them as I type....:)

1) It is a very hot job and is one that would be better suited to the cooler days of fall or winter.

2) Getting the wicks to the correct size for good burning of the candles is tricky...leave too little and the wick burns itself out in the melting wax...leave too much and you get a lot of smoke. But, its best to have too much then too little...

3) It is very time consuming...there is the first pour, then 30 minutes later, there is the second pour, then two hours later, there is the third pour, then 1 hour later, there is what could be the final pour but only additional time and vigilance can really tell you if a final final pour is necessary. Two of my candles appeared to be fine when I went to bed the first night, only to wake up to a huge "well" in each of them that had appeared while the house slept.

AND,

each subsequent pour must be at the same temperature as the original pour or you have lines in the candle....

4) When you add the scent is important. If you add it too soon, the heat dissipates it...so you have to get the wax to a higher temperature then you want it at pouring, then remove the wax from the heat source and add the scent and stir until melted at which point, your wax is hopefully at the correct temperature for the container you are pouring into.

The conclusion is this....I really enjoyed the process; most of the candles have burned well and didn't immediately drown out in their wicks. I will do it again, but with a few changes....

1) I will make fewer candles in a batch using similar containers...i.e. I will make the votive candles all in one session, pillars all in one session, and glass jars of similar size in one session etc. This will make keeping track of pour temperatures and times a whole lot easier. A lot of my mistakes the first time around was due to too many needs for too many different types of candles.

2) I was disappointed in the scent that burning the candles emits. I will add more scent to the first pour, I will continue to add scent to each consecutive pour (since bringing the wax back to pour temperature dissipates the scent).

3) I will pay much closer attention to the temperatures of each consecutive pour...I got confused and the evidence is visible in some of the candles.

4) I will do it on a day when I am home alone for most of the time required to do this right.....I was distracted by three kids, a coming tropical storm, a husband and four dogs, two cats and a rabbit coming in for the storm. Next time, I 'll only have to deal with the four dogs and two cats....

Some of the candles I made were beautiful, some a little less then beautiful. I forgot to pour from the same batch into two identical containers so now one is a deep gold and one a light gold. The pillar is probably the best of the lot, with the votive candles a close second. My favorite though is the Green McCoy bowl....it just looks good.

Besides enjoying the process, I was "greener" for the experience. I felt accomplished and self sufficient and like I belonged to this house and the history it holds. I recommend that everyone take a day or two to adventure into the art of candle making.....

Candle Making~

Earlier this summer I cautiously entered the world of canning the fruits of my labors (well the veggies anyway) and had moderate success. I enjoyed myself in the process so even though we had to eat it all up rather more rapidly then if the jars had actually sealed.......it was a rewarding experience.

Today, I'm venturing into the world of candle making.

This summer we've lost power on four different evenings and we've burned through a lot of candles in the process. Our supply was already dwindling from past adventures in surviving without lights and water (no electric, no well, no water!), including the five days in 2004 after Hurricane Francis tore through our area.

When the cypress limb in the power line left us without power for five hours two weeks ago, I suddenly realized just how dwindled our supply actually was....although I found lots of pillar candles (my kitchen table is covered with wickless pillars), I found only about four with wicks that would still support a flame! And guess what's forming down around the Keys? It was obviously time to do something about my candle supply.

In the past, I'd have simply run into town and bought a new bunch of candles, but my new greener self said "wait a minute...can't I recycle the wax and make my own?". I suddenly remembered that David's mother used to gather up the spent candles over the year and then spend a day making candles....if she could do it, then so could I! And so, into town I went and got the supplies needed to do the job; these included a pouring pot, a thermometer, some scent, a roll of wick and the little metal thingies that hold those in place.

The cost added up, but now I'm set to do this again and again.....and the way I burn through scented candles just because I can, I probably will do it quite often. And the way I figure it, I've been spending about $20.00 each on Yankee Candles so money to make and scent my own is money well spent. And, I plan on using the new, greener waxes as I run out of the candles over time...so I'll myself be becoming greener! Always a good thing.

I have four candles made already, and after typing every other sentence, I'm running in to check the wax melting away in my double boiler! My kitchen is filled with the scent of vanilla at the moment and I'm in farmhouse heaven except for only one thing......I think I'll make this a winter craft in the future.....wax melting makes for a very hot kitchen.....even if it does smell heavenly.

P.S. Since I've a random thought process that influences my days and my writings, I've felt a bit restricted by the 70% Farmhouse DIY guidelines......so I've created a second blog for my off topic ramblings.....(and because I just can't figure out how to do the separate feed thingie just yet!).....

Greening it up!

We're pretty green. Besides the grass, I mean....with all the rain north Florida has had this summer, green is abundant. But, I'm actually speaking to the "green" movement that is slowly sweeping the country.

I have to admit though that is isn't the global warming issue that made us go green-er (cuz we're not really buying that 100% just yet...I mean if we can't accurately predict just where a hurricane will make landfall or where an earthquake will hit... well then I have a little bit of an issue with computer models projecting weather and climate patterns 50 years into the future - not to mention the political side of the issue...sorry, but that is the way it is!) Anyway, despite our doubts about global warming, we are going green-er...for a couple of reasons.

1) This is an old house; it is an old farmhouse that may or may not have been built room by room and harvest by harvest (David has seen some signs that the family's story of room by room building may not be accurate) and as an old farmhouse, insulation was an issue. And, insulating it properly and in an environmentally friendly way makes financial sense! I mean who wants to heat the air above your attic or the ground beneath the crawlspace? Not me that is for sure.

2) This is an old house renovated by the previous owners in the most inexpensive way possible by a local handyman some would refer to as a crooked businessman who cut corners in every way possible. We usually experience those cost cutting corners when a frog or a snake or other critter peeks his head out of hole left between something or another - sometimes, it's the sudden appearance of an ivy vine that is attaching itself to a baseboard or a wall...or we just discover it as we gut another room for reno - . So room by room, we are insulating, patching holes that waste energy (and let in undesirables!) etc.

3) Being green is cost efficient.....tax incentives make it attractive, but actually it is the monthly savings on energy bills that really tell the tale. Over the past few years, we've replaced every light bulb with those long lasting energy saving ones...we've put in programmable thermostats and set them at 78 for the mid day and at 80 for nights or other hours when humans don't need the rooms to not be quite so oven-like in the heat of a Florida summer...and we got the kind that do the switch to winter temps that correspond to your summer ones so we don't have to re-program for the seasons. And we've learned that if we allow the separate upstairs heat pump to run on its programing schedule without interference from us, the downstairs unit turns on less often....much less.

4) Replacing those old kitchen appliances with the new energy efficient ones dropped our electric bill by at least $35.00 per month........! Our washer and dryer are getting up there in years - it will be interesting to see if there is an additional reduction in the cost of our energy bills when those are replaced as well (although they are Maytags and could keep going indefinitely) .

5). We're growing our own veggies as much as possible and/or as our learning curve allows....we buy as much as possible not only from the local farmers market but also recently started buying from the local butcher as well. But, if I'm to continue being honest, we didn't begin to buy locally to help the "green movement", we did it for the taste.

David and I were both country raised; me more so then him as his country was the suburb of a small town but we both remember the farmers markets and the local butcher shops that our folks frequented. In my childhood, Daddy Mac raised hogs for slaughter whenever we were stateside, and I can still taste the meats he brought home from the butcher. So it seemed a natural part of our flight from subdivision and city living to begin to shop at the markets whenever possible.

We've only just begun to purchase our meats from the local meat market, but with the first meal cooked I knew that I wouldn't be buying my meat from Wal-mart, Winn Dixie or even Publix ever again. Not only were the pork spare ribs wrapped in butcher paper which brought back memories of Dad's returning from the slaughter/butchering trips, but the flavor and tender nature of the meat were a wake up call. I turned to David and said "this makes me wonder just WHAT we are actually eating when we buy from the super markets!".

I haven't cooked beef in years - because to get a good cut of it you had to pay through the nose.....yet, the last few weeks, I've been pouring over the old cookbooks to remember just how to do it...and then I've been sitting down to a delicious meal because the meat I'm eating wasn't mass produced for Wal-mart.

And for any who think that you can't afford to buy from your local markets....I'm here to say that you can. For $12.00 at my farmer's market, I got vidalia onions, peaches, two types of lettuce, a jar of locally grown peanuts, a jar of locally grown honey...etc. As to the meat market, I got a weeks worth of beef, pork and poultry (to feed four) for $51.00!

And when you begin to cook "good" meat and fresh veggies, you find that you need to buy less of the pre-packaged, preservative filled stuff at your supermarket.....

In my humble opinion, by buying an old farmhouse and restoring it - instead of clearing trees and local fauna to build in another subdivision - we were already green. By hitting junk stands, flea markets, and antique shops for "loved" furniture, instead of buying new furniture - we were already green. But, I'm glad to say that as time goes on down here, we find ourselves living even more by the old "use it up, wear it out, make it do" school of thought....energy efficient renovations and locally purchasing of our food products when we can't produce it ourselves makes us "greener".

And, after all, as a Christian, I am to be a good steward of all that God has given me......global warming or not!

Sealed? Nope................

Well, my pickled squash didn't seal.....luckily I only made 6 cans of it....it tastes good though so some lucky people will be getting a gift this weekend. No way will my family eat it all up in the two weeks it can stay fresh in the fridge.

So, I'm looking at these pressure canners and geez they're expensive.....I think I'll just practice hot water bath seals a bit more.

Anyway, back to the kitchen..........

Cans of squash, cans of green tomato chutney......

I've done it............I finally got the nerve up and got down to the canning (uhmmm, why do they call it "canning" when you use a jar?...just wondering!)...so far I've done some pickled squash and par boiled more squash for freezing. I'm about to cook up the first of the spaghetti squash from the garden and then I'm ready for the green tomato chutney.

After all the angst, it actually is not as hard as it might seem to can things.....although I'll have to qualify that by saying that I won't know until tomorrow whether or not my cans actually sealed correctly ( but if not, I now have a h-u-g-e refrigerator screaming "look at me -").

I might actually get a handle on this gardening and canning thing....I've been feeling guilty that I have taken to "accidentally" leaving a squash or two sitting on the back bench and then turning a blind eye when the dogs decide it's fun to play tug of war with the huge yellow things (they eat them when they're finished playing so those squash are not going to waste after all). And I'm sure David will be glad that in the future he won't have to take quite so many to work to try to get his co-workers to "take one, just take one......pleaaase!"

And now, I'm actually looking forward to the hundreds of cumquat's that grow out in the back.....I can make marmalade and jar it......and those lemons.....lemon curd will be wonderful.

Anyway, I'm off to find some more recipes for canning..........after all, the fall planting will be just around the corner!