Better By the (Half) Dozen

"Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff" by Fred Pearce

2011-01-27T14:59:00.001-07:00

I got this book from the library on a whim. It's one of those books you can't stop reading and yet, kinda wish you'd never picked up. In it Fred Pearce picks different things around his house, like green beans, computers and clothes and tracks where it came from and where it goes when he's done with it.

This book goes along with what I've been feeling recently, as well as the article that I posted previously.

It's a fascinating book and really made me think about how I do actually have an effect on the global economy. That what I do, effects lives of individuals that, while I may never see them, are just as important and have needs, wants and desires, just like me. In an economics class, D's teacher told him that each dollar he spends is a vote. While I thought that was a cool concept before, I understand it better now.

Fred follows the gold in his wedding band down miles below the earth's surface to the dangerous mines of South Africa. He follows his produce back to Kenya where farming is encouraging young people to stay on the land and use eco-friendly growing means. He follows his clothes from sweatshops in Bangladesh to the cotton fields that are destroying Uzbekistan and the Aral Sea. He follows his furniture back through China to where it was probably logged illegally and unethically in New Guinea. He follows the computer he donates to an organization that fixes using disabled workers and donates them to schools across Kenya. he follows his recycling to China, where it is used to make new containers that are shipped back to where the recyclables came from originally.

The point (and the problem) with this book, is that it makes me realize that I can't follow all my goods back and know that they're grown, created, or traded fairly. It also made me realize, that as much as I might want to, there is no way that I can truely become completely self-sufficent. It's also made me much more aware of the waste products I'm producing and conscious of how much I'm recycling and how.

It's given me a much stronger desire to want to be as self-sufficent as possible. To know the people who are producing my food. To compost more, to waste less and hopefully to make a more possitive influence on the world around me, rather than an unconscious, thoughless negative impact. To realize that each dollar I spend is a vote. I can either help or I can hurt with it. But I'd better know which I'm doing.

But also remember a couple quotes from the book. "As Ghandi put it: ' There is enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed.'" And, "... We should not make the perfect the enemy of the good."

"The Oil We Eat"

2011-01-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

I will blog about WHY I posted this later, but I don't want to loose it now. I am posting the link here but just in case it becomes a bad link, I wanted to have the information...

This is from Harper's Magazine:

The oil we eat:
Following the food chain back to Iraq
By Richard Manning

The secret of great wealth with no obvious source is some forgotten crime, forgotten because it was done neatly.—Balzac
The journalist's rule says: follow the money. This rule, however, is not really axiomatic but derivative, in that money, as even our vice president will tell you, is really a way of tracking energy. We'll follow the energy.

We learn as children that there is no free lunch, that you don't get something from nothing, that what goes up must come down, and so on. The scientific version of these verities is only slightly more complex. As James Prescott Joule discovered in the nineteenth century, there is only so much energy. You can change it from motion to heat, from heat to light, but there will never be more of it and there will never be less of it. The conservation of energy is not an option, it is a fact. This is the first law of thermodynamics.

Special as we humans are, we get no exemptions from the rules. All animals eat plants or eat animals that eat plants. This is the food chain, and pulling it is the unique ability of plants to turn sunlight into stored energy in the form of carbohydrates, the basic fuel of all animals. Solar-powered photosynthesis is the only way to make this fuel. There is no alternative to plant energy, just as there is no alternative to oxygen. The results of taking away our plant energy may not be as sudden as cutting off oxygen, but they are as sure.

Scientists have a name for the total amount of plant mass created by Earth in a given year, the total budget for life. They call it the planet's “primary productivity.” There have been two efforts to figure out how that productivity is spent, one by a group at Stanford University, the other an independent accounting by the biologist Stuart Pimm. Both conclude that we humans, a single species among millions, consume about 40 percent of Earth's primary productivity, 40 percent of all there is. This simple number may explain why the current extinction rate is 1,000 times that which existed before human domination of the planet. We 6 billion have simply stolen the food, the rich among us a lot more than others.

Energy cannot be created or canceled, but it can be concentrated. This is the larger and profoundly explanatory context of a national-security memo George Kennan wrote in 1948 as the head of a State Department planning committee, ostensibly about Asian policy but really about how the United States was to deal with its newfound role as the dominant force on Earth. “We have about 50 percent of the world's wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population,” Kennan wrote. “In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.”“The day is not far off,” Kennan concluded, “when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.”

If you follow the energy, eventually you will end up in a field somewhere. Humans engage in a dizzying array of artifice and industry. Nonetheless, more than two thirds of humanity's cut of primary productivity results from agriculture, two thirds of which in turn consists of three plants: rice, wheat, and corn. In the 10,000 years since humans domesticated these grains, their status has remained undiminished, most likely because they are able to store solar energy in uniquely dense, transportable bundles of carbohydrates. They are to the plant world what a barrel of refined oil is to the hydrocarbon world. Indeed, aside from hydrocarbons they are the most concentrated form of true wealth—sun energy—to be found on the planet.

As Kennan recognized, however, the maintenance of such a concentration of wealth often requires violent action. Agriculture is a recent human experiment. For most of human history, we lived by gathering or killing a broad variety of nature's offerings. Why humans might have traded this approach for the complexities of agriculture is an interesting and long-debated question, especially because the skeletal evidence clearly indicates that early farmers were more poorly nourished, more disease-ridden and deformed, than their hunter-gatherer contemporaries. Farming did not improve most lives. The evidence that best points to the answer, I think, lies in the difference between early agricultural villages and their pre-agricultural counterparts—the presence not just of grain but of granaries and, more tellingly, of just a few houses significantly larger and more ornate than all the others attached to those granaries. Agriculture was not so much about food as it was about the accumulation of wealth. It benefited some humans, and those people have been in charge ever since.

Domestication was also a radical change in the distribution of wealth within the plant world. Plants can spend their solar income in several ways. The dominant and prudent strategy is to allocate most of it to building roots, stem, bark—a conservative portfolio of investments that allows the plant to better gather energy and survive the downturn years. Further, by living in diverse stands (a given chunk of native prairie contains maybe 200 species of plants), these perennials provide services for one another, such as retaining water, protecting one another from wind, and fixing free nitrogen from the air to use as fertilizer. Diversity allows a system to “sponsor its own fertility,” to use visionary agronomist Wes Jackson's phrase. This is the plant world's norm.

There is a very narrow group of annuals, however, that grow in patches of a single species and store almost all of their income as seed, a tight bundle of carbohydrates easily exploited by seed eaters such as ourselves. Under normal circumstances, this eggs-in-one-basket strategy is a dumb idea for a plant. But not during catastrophes such as floods, fires, and volcanic eruptions. Such catastrophes strip established plant communities and create opportunities for wind-scattered entrepreneurial seed bearers. It is no accident that no matter where agriculture sprouted on the globe, it always happened near rivers. You might assume, as many have, that this is because the plants needed the water or nutrients. Mostly this is not true. They needed the power of flooding, which scoured landscapes and stripped out competitors. Nor is it an accident, I think, that agriculture arose independently and simultaneously around the globe just as the last ice age ended, a time of enormous upheaval when glacial melt let loose sea-size lakes to create tidal waves of erosion. It was a time of catastrophe.

Corn, rice, and wheat are especially adapted to catastrophe. It is their niche. In the natural scheme of things, a catastrophe would create a blank slate, bare soil, that was good for them. Then, under normal circumstances, succession would quickly close that niche. The annuals would colonize. Their roots would stabilize the soil, accumulate organic matter, provide cover. Eventually the catastrophic niche would close. Farming is the process of ripping that niche open again and again. It is an annual artificial catastrophe, and it requires the equivalent of three or four tons of TNT per acre for a modern American farm. Iowa's fields require the energy of 4,000 Nagasaki bombs every year.

Iowa is almost all fields now. Little prairie remains, and if you can find what Iowans call a “postage stamp” remnant of some, it most likely will abut a cornfield. This allows an observation. Walk from the prairie to the field, and you probably will step down about six feet, as if the land had been stolen from beneath you. Settlers' accounts of the prairie conquest mention a sound, a series of pops, like pistol shots, the sound of stout grass roots breaking before a moldboard plow. A robbery was in progress.

When we say the soil is rich, it is not a metaphor. It is as rich in energy as an oil well. A prairie converts that energy to flowers and roots and stems, which in turn pass back into the ground as dead organic matter. The layers of topsoil build up into a rich repository of energy, a bank. A farm field appropriates that energy, puts it into seeds we can eat. Much of the energy moves from the earth to the rings of fat around our necks and waists. And much of the energy is simply wasted, a trail of dollars billowing from the burglar's satchel.

I've already mentioned that we humans take 40 percent of the globe's primary productivity every year. You might have assumed we and our livestock eat our way through that volume, but this is not the case. Part of that total—almost a third of it—is the potential plant mass lost when forests are cleared for farming or when tropical rain forests are cut for grazing or when plows destroy the deep mat of prairie roots that held the whole business together, triggering erosion. The Dust Bowl was no accident of nature. A functioning grassland prairie produces more biomass each year than does even the most technologically advanced wheat field. The problem is, it's mostly a form of grass and grass roots that humans can't eat. So we replace the prairie with our own preferred grass, wheat. Never mind that we feed most of our grain to livestock, and that livestock is perfectly content to eat native grass. And never mind that there likely were more bison produced naturally on the Great Plains before farming than all of beef farming raises in the same area today. Our ancestors found it preferable to pluck the energy from the ground and when it ran out move on.

Today we do the same, only now when the vault is empty we fill it again with new energy in the form of oil-rich fertilizers. Oil is annual primary productivity stored as hydrocarbons, a trust fund of sorts, built up over many thousands of years. On average, it takes 5.5 gallons of fossil energy to restore a year's worth of lost fertility to an acre of eroded land—in 1997 we burned through more than 400 years' worth of ancient fossilized productivity, most of it from someplace else. Even as the earth beneath Iowa shrinks, it is being globalized.

Six thousand years before sodbusters broke up Iowa, their Caucasian blood ancestors broke up the Hungarian plain, an area just northwest of the Caucasus Mountains. Archaeologists call this tribe the LBK, short for linearbandkeramik, the German word that describes the distinctive pottery remnants that mark their occupation of Europe. Anthropologists call them the wheat-beef people, a name that better connects those ancients along the Danube to my fellow Montanans on the Upper Missouri River. These proto-Europeans had a full set of domesticated plants and animals, but wheat and beef dominated. All the domesticates came from an area along what is now the Iraq-Syria-Turkey border at the edges of the Zagros Mountains. This is the center of domestication for the Western world's main crops and livestock, ground zero of catastrophic agriculture.

Two other types of catastrophic agriculture evolved at roughly the same time, one centered on rice in what is now China and India and one centered on corn and potatoes in Central and South America. Rice, though, is tropical and its expansion depends on water, so it developed only in floodplains, estuaries, and swamps. Corn agriculture was every bit as voracious as wheat; the Aztecs could be as brutal and imperialistic as Romans or Brits, but the corn cultures collapsed with the onslaught of Spanish conquest. Corn itself simply joined the wheat-beef people's coalition. Wheat was the empire builder; its bare botanical facts dictated the motion and violence that we know as imperialism.

The wheat-beef people swept across the western European plains in less than 300 years, a conquest some archaeologists refer to as a “blitzkrieg.” A different race of humans, the Cro-Magnons—hunter-gatherers, not farmers—lived on those plains at the time. Their cave art at places such as Lascaux testifies to their sophistication and profound connection to wildlife. They probably did most of their hunting and gathering in uplands and river bottoms, places the wheat farmers didn't need, suggesting the possibility of coexistence. That's not what happened, however. Both genetic and linguistic evidence say that the farmers killed the hunters. The Basque people are probably the lone remnant descendants of Cro-Magnons, the only trace.

Hunter-gatherer archaeological sites of the period contain spear points that originally belonged to the farmers, and we can guess they weren't trade goods. One group of anthropologists concludes, “The evidence from the western extension of the LBK leaves little room for any other conclusion but that LBK-Mesolithic interactions were at best chilly and at worst hostile.” The world's surviving Blackfeet, Assiniboine Sioux, Inca, and Maori probably have the best idea of the nature of these interactions.

Wheat is temperate and prefers plowed-up grasslands. The globe has a limited stock of temperate grasslands, just as it has a limited stock of all other biomes. On average, about 10 percent of all other biomes remain in something like their native state today. Only 1 percent of temperate grasslands remains undestroyed. Wheat takes what it needs.

The supply of temperate grasslands lies in what are today the United States, Canada, the South American pampas, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Europe, and the Asiatic extension of the European plain into the sub-Siberian steppes. This area largely describes the First World, the developed world. Temperate grasslands make up not only the habitat of wheat and beef but also the globe's islands of Caucasians, of European surnames and languages. In 2000 the countries of the temperate grasslands, the neo-Europes, accounted for about 80 percent of all wheat exports in the world, and about 86 percent of all corn. That is to say, the neo-Europes drive the world's agriculture. The dominance does not stop with grain. These countries, plus the mothership—Europe—accounted for three fourths of all agricultural exports of all crops in the world in 1999.

Plato wrote of his country's farmlands:

What now remains of the formerly rich land is like the skeleton of a sick man. . . . Formerly, many of the mountains were arable. The plains that were full of rich soil are now marshes. Hills that were once covered with forests and produced abundant pasture now produce only food for bees. Once the land was enriched by yearly rains, which were not lost, as they are now, by flowing from the bare land into the sea. The soil was deep, it absorbed and kept the water in loamy soil, and the water that soaked into the hills fed springs and running streams everywhere. Now the abandoned shrines at spots where formerly there were springs attest that our description of the land is true.
Plato's lament is rooted in wheat agriculture, which depleted his country's soil and subsequently caused the series of declines that pushed centers of civilization to Rome, Turkey, and western Europe. By the fifth century, though, wheat's strategy of depleting and moving on ran up against the Atlantic Ocean. Fenced-in wheat agriculture is like rice agriculture. It balances its equations with famine. In the millennium between 500 and 1500, Britain suffered a major “corrective” famine about every ten years; there were seventy-five in France during the same period. The incidence, however, dropped sharply when colonization brought an influx of new food to Europe.

The new lands had an even greater effect on the colonists themselves. Thomas Jefferson, after enduring a lecture on the rustic nature by his hosts at a dinner party in Paris, pointed out that all of the Americans present were a good head taller than all of the French. Indeed, colonists in all of the neo-Europes enjoyed greater stature and longevity, as well as a lower infant-mortality rate—all indicators of the better nutrition afforded by the onetime spend down of the accumulated capital of virgin soil.

The precolonial famines of Europe raised the question: What would happen when the planet's supply of arable land ran out? We have a clear answer. In about 1960 expansion hit its limits and the supply of unfarmed, arable lands came to an end. There was nothing left to plow. What happened was grain yields tripled.

The accepted term for this strange turn of events is the green revolution, though it would be more properly labeled the amber revolution, because it applied exclusively to grain—wheat, rice, and corn. Plant breeders tinkered with the architecture of these three grains so that they could be hypercharged with irrigation water and chemical fertilizers, especially nitrogen. This innovation meshed nicely with the increased “efficiency” of the industrialized factory-farm system. With the possible exception of the domestication of wheat, the green revolution is the worst thing that has ever happened to the planet.

For openers, it disrupted long-standing patterns of rural life worldwide, moving a lot of no-longer-needed people off the land and into the world's most severe poverty. The experience in population control in the developing world is by now clear: It is not that people make more people so much as it is that they make more poor people. In the forty-year period beginning about 1960, the world's population doubled, adding virtually the entire increase of 3 billion to the world's poorest classes, the most fecund classes. The way in which the green revolution raised that grain contributed hugely to the population boom, and it is the weight of the population that leaves humanity in its present untenable position.

Discussion of these, the most poor, however, is largely irrelevant to the American situation. We say we have poor people here, but almost no one in this country lives on less than one dollar a day, the global benchmark for poverty. It marks off a class of about 1.3 billion people, the hard core of the larger group of 2 billion chronically malnourished people—that is, one third of humanity. We may forget about them, as most Americans do.

More relevant here are the methods of the green revolution, which added orders of magnitude to the devastation. By mining the iron for tractors, drilling the new oil to fuel them and to make nitrogen fertilizers, and by taking the water that rain and rivers had meant for other lands, farming had extended its boundaries, its dominion, to lands that were not farmable. At the same time, it extended its boundaries across time, tapping fossil energy, stripping past assets.

The common assumption these days is that we muster our weapons to secure oil, not food. There's a little joke in this. Ever since we ran out of arable land, food is oil. Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten. In 1940 the average farm in the United States produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil energy it used. By 1974 (the last year in which anyone looked closely at this issue), that ratio was 1:1. And this understates the problem, because at the same time that there is more oil in our food there is less oil in our oil. A couple of generations ago we spent a lot less energy drilling, pumping, and distributing than we do now. In the 1940s we got about 100 barrels of oil back for every barrel of oil we spent getting it. Today each barrel invested in the process returns only ten, a calculation that no doubt fails to include the fuel burned by the Hummers and Blackhawks we use to maintain access to the oil in Iraq.

David Pimentel, an expert on food and energy at Cornell University, has estimated that if all of the world ate the way the United States eats, humanity would exhaust all known global fossil-fuel reserves in just over seven years. Pimentel has his detractors. Some have accused him of being off on other calculations by as much as 30 percent. Fine. Make it ten years.

Fertilizer makes a pretty fine bomb right off the shelf, a chemistry lesson Timothy McVeigh taught at Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995—not a small matter, in that the green revolution has made nitrogen fertilizers ubiquitous in some of the more violent and desperate corners of the world. Still, there is more to contemplate in nitrogen's less sensational chemistry.

The chemophobia of modern times excludes fear of the simple elements of chemistry's periodic table. We circulate petitions, hold hearings, launch websites, and buy and sell legislators in regard to polysyllabic organic compounds—polychlorinated biphenyls, polyvinyls, DDT, 2-4d, that sort of thing—not simple carbon or nitrogen. Not that agriculture's use of the more ornate chemistry is benign—an infant born in a rural, wheat-producing county in the United States has about twice the chance of suffering birth defects as one born in a rural place that doesn't produce wheat, an effect researchers blame on chlorophenoxy herbicides. Focusing on pesticide pollution, though, misses the worst of the pollutants. Forget the polysyllabic organics. It is nitrogen—the wellspring of fertility relied upon by every Eden-obsessed backyard gardener and suburban groundskeeper—that we should fear most.

Those who model our planet as an organism do so on the basis that the earth appears to breathe—it thrives by converting a short list of basic elements from one compound into the next, just as our own bodies cycle oxygen into carbon dioxide and plants cycle carbon dioxide into oxygen. In fact, two of the planet's most fundamental humors are oxygen and carbon dioxide. Another is nitrogen.

Nitrogen can be released from its “fixed” state as a solid in the soil by natural processes that allow it to circulate freely in the atmosphere. This also can be done artificially. Indeed, humans now contribute more nitrogen to the nitrogen cycle than the planet itself does. That is, humans have doubled the amount of nitrogen in play.

This has led to an imbalance. It is easier to create nitrogen fertilizer than it is to apply it evenly to fields. When farmers dump nitrogen on a crop, much is wasted. It runs into the water and soil, where it either reacts chemically with its surroundings to form new compounds or flows off to fertilize something else, somewhere else.

That chemical reaction, called acidification, is noxious and contributes significantly to acid rain. One of the compounds produced by acidification is nitrous oxide, which aggravates the greenhouse effect. Green growing things normally offset global warming by sucking up carbon dioxide, but nitrogen on farm fields plus methane from decomposing vegetation make every farmed acre, like every acre of Los Angeles freeway, a net contributor to global warming. Fertilization is equally worrisome. Rainfall and irrigation water inevitably washes the nitrogen from fields to creeks and streams, which flows into rivers, which floods into the ocean. This explains why the Mississippi River, which drains the nation's Corn Belt, is an environmental catastrophe. The nitrogen fertilizes artificially large blooms of algae that in growing suck all the oxygen from the water, a condition biologists call anoxia, which means “oxygen-depleted.” Here there's no need to calculate long-term effects, because life in such places has no long term: everything dies immediately. The Mississippi River's heavily fertilized effluvia has created a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey.

America's biggest crop, grain corn, is completely unpalatable. It is raw material for an industry that manufactures food substitutes. Likewise, you can't eat unprocessed wheat. You certainly can't eat hay. You can eat unprocessed soybeans, but mostly we don't. These four crops cover 82 percent of American cropland. Agriculture in this country is not about food; it's about commodities that require the outlay of still more energy to become food.

About two thirds of U.S. grain corn is labeled “processed,” meaning it is milled and otherwise refined for food or industrial uses. More than 45 percent of that becomes sugar, especially high-fructose corn sweeteners, the keystone ingredient in three quarters of all processed foods, especially soft drinks, the food of America's poor and working classes. It is not a coincidence that the American pandemic of obesity tracks rather nicely with the fivefold increase in corn-syrup production since Archer Daniels Midland developed a high-fructose version of the stuff in the early seventies. Nor is it a coincidence that the plague selects the poor, who eat the most processed food.

It began with the industrialization of Victorian England. The empire was then flush with sugar from plantations in the colonies. Meantime the cities were flush with factory workers. There was no good way to feed them. And thus was born the afternoon tea break, the tea consisting primarily of warm water and sugar. If the workers were well off, they could also afford bread with heavily sugared jam—sugar-powered industrialization. There was a 500 percent increase in per capita sugar consumption in Britain between 1860 and 1890, around the time when the life expectancy of a male factory worker was seventeen years. By the end of the century the average Brit was getting about one sixth of his total nutrition from sugar, exactly the same percentage Americans get today—double what nutritionists recommend.

There is another energy matter to consider here, though. The grinding, milling, wetting, drying, and baking of a breakfast cereal requires about four calories of energy for every calorie of food energy it produces. A two-pound bag of breakfast cereal burns the energy of a half-gallon of gasoline in its making. All together the food-processing industry in the United States uses about ten calories of fossil-fuel energy for every calorie of food energy it produces.

That number does not include the fuel used in transporting the food from the factory to a store near you, or the fuel used by millions of people driving to thousands of super discount stores on the edge of town, where the land is cheap. It appears, however, that the corn cycle is about to come full circle. If a bipartisan coalition of farm-state lawmakers has their way—and it appears they will—we will soon buy gasoline containing twice as much fuel alcohol as it does now. Fuel alcohol already ranks second as a use for processed corn in the United States, just behind corn sweeteners. According to one set of calculations, we spend more calories of fossil-fuel energy making ethanol than we gain from it. The Department of Agriculture says the ratio is closer to a gallon and a quart of ethanol for every gallon of fossil fuel we invest. The USDA calls this a bargain, because gasohol is a “clean fuel.” This claim to cleanness is in dispute at the tailpipe level, and it certainly ignores the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, pesticide pollution, and the haze of global gases gathering over every farm field. Nor does this claim cover clean conscience; some still might be unsettled knowing that our SUVs' demands for fuel compete with the poor's demand for grain.

Green eaters, especially vegetarians, advocate eating low on the food chain, a simple matter of energy flow. Eating a carrot gives the diner all that carrot's energy, but feeding carrots to a chicken, then eating the chicken, reduces the energy by a factor of ten. The chicken wastes some energy, stores some as feathers, bones, and other inedibles, and uses most of it just to live long enough to be eaten. As a rough rule of thumb, that factor of ten applies to each level up the food chain, which is why some fish, such as tuna, can be a horror in all of this. Tuna is a secondary predator, meaning it not only doesn't eat plants but eats other fish that themselves eat other fish, adding a zero to the multiplier each notch up, easily a hundred times, more like a thousand times less efficient than eating a plant.

This is fine as far as it goes, but the vegetarian's case can break down on some details. On the moral issues, vegetarians claim their habits are kinder to animals, though it is difficult to see how wiping out 99 percent of wildlife's habitat, as farming has done in Iowa, is a kindness. In rural Michigan, for example, the potato farmers have a peculiar tactic for dealing with the predations of whitetail deer. They gut-shoot them with small-bore rifles, in hopes the deer will limp off to the woods and die where they won't stink up the potato fields.

Animal rights aside, vegetarians can lose the edge in the energy argument by eating processed food, with its ten calories of fossil energy for every calorie of food energy produced. The question, then, is: Does eating processed food such as soy burger or soy milk cancel the energy benefits of vegetarianism, which is to say, can I eat my lamb chops in peace? Maybe. If I've done my due diligence, I will have found out that the particular lamb I am eating was both local and grass-fed, two factors that of course greatly reduce the embedded energy in a meal. I know of ranches here in Montana, for instance, where sheep eat native grass under closely controlled circumstances—no farming, no plows, no corn, no nitrogen. Assets have not been stripped. I can't eat the grass directly. This can go on. There are little niches like this in the system. Each person's individual charge is to find such niches.

Chances are, though, any meat eater will come out on the short end of this argument, especially in the United States. Take the case of beef. Cattle are grazers, so in theory could live like the grass-fed lamb. Some cattle cultures—those of South America and Mexico, for example—have perfected wonderful cuisines based on grass-fed beef. This is not our habit in the United States, and it is simply a matter of habit. Eighty percent of the grain the United States produces goes to livestock. Seventy-eight percent of all of our beef comes from feed lots, where the cattle eat grain, mostly corn and wheat. So do most of our hogs and chickens. The cattle spend their adult lives packed shoulder to shoulder in a space not much bigger than their bodies, up to their knees in shit, being stuffed with grain and a constant stream of antibiotics to prevent the disease this sort of confinement invariably engenders. The manure is rich in nitrogen and once provided a farm's fertilizer. The feedlots, however, are now far removed from farm fields, so it is simply not “efficient” to haul it to cornfields. It is waste. It exhales methane, a global-warming gas. It pollutes streams. It takes thirty-five calories of fossil fuel to make a calorie of beef this way; sixty-eight to make one calorie of pork.

Still, these livestock do something we can't. They convert grain's carbohydrates to high-quality protein. All well and good, except that per capita protein production in the United States is about double what an average adult needs per day. Excess cannot be stored as protein in the human body but is simply converted to fat. This is the end result of a factory-farm system that appears as a living, continental-scale monument to Rube Goldberg, a black-mass remake of the loaves-and-fishes miracle. Prairie's productivity is lost for grain, grain's productivity is lost in livestock, livestock's protein is lost to human fat—all federally subsidized for about $15 billion a year, two thirds of which goes directly to only two crops, corn and wheat.

This explains why the energy expert David Pimentel is so worried that the rest of the world will adopt America's methods. He should be, because the rest of the world is. Mexico now feeds 45 percent of its grain to livestock, up from 5 percent in 1960. Egypt went from 3 percent to 31 percent in the same period, and China, with a sixth of the world's population, has gone from 8 percent to 26 percent. All of these places have poor people who could use the grain, but they can't afford it.

I live among elk and have learned to respect them. One moonlit night during the dead of last winter, I looked out my bedroom window to see about twenty of them grazing a plot of grass the size of a living room. Just that small patch among acres of other species of native prairie grass. Why that species and only that species of grass that night in the worst of winter when the threat to their survival was the greatest? What magic nutrient did this species alone contain? What does a wild animal know that we don't? I think we need this knowledge.

Food is politics. That being the case, I voted twice in 2002. The day after Election Day, in a truly dismal mood, I climbed the mountain behind my house and found a small herd of elk grazing native grasses in the morning sunlight. My respect for these creatures over the years has become great enough that on that morning I did not hesitate but went straight to my job, which was to rack a shell and drop one cow elk, my household's annual protein supply. I voted with my weapon of choice—an act not all that uncommon in this world, largely, I think, as a result of the way we grow food. I can see why it is catching on. Such a vote has a certain satisfying heft and finality about it. My particular bit of violence, though, is more satisfying, I think, than the rest of the globe's ordinary political mayhem. I used a rifle to opt out of an insane system. I killed, but then so did you when you bought that package of burger, even when you bought that package of tofu burger. I killed, then the rest of those elk went on, as did the grasses, the birds, the trees, the coyotes, mountain lions, and bugs, the fundamental productivity of an intact natural system, all of it went on.

Prayers

2011-01-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

I don't think there are any prayers as fervent as those of a parent for their child.

Harrison woke up and climbed up on the bathroom sink to throw up. Most of it looked like old blood, with some new blood mixed in. Dallas is taking him to the emergency room right now. I'm alternating between trying not to think and worry since I have no idea what is going on, and thinking and worrying and praying for my little boy.

I'm sure he'll be okay... but... My heart is aching.

Ah, the joys of sickness

2011-01-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Poor D got sick on Friday night, and has been pretty sick the whole three day weekend. Then yesterday poor little Izzy got it. Dallas was able to go in to the doctor today and found out it's strep throat. Which means that is probably what Izzy has too. D took him to Urgent care as the base hospital was apparently too busy to see him.

D keeps saying he's just doesn't understand why I didn't complain more and why I didn't go to the doctor. I did complain some, but when it was at it's worst, the only thing I wanted to do was sleep, which is exactly what I did as soon as he came home from work. That didn't give me a lot of time for complaining.

Partly, I don't like going to the doctor because I always feel like the worst part is behind me and I'm getting better now, so why bother. But really, I just HATE going to the doctor. I hate taking the kids to the doctor. I don't know where this aversion comes from, but it is strong.

In hind-sight however, I'm figuring it would have been better for my family if I had, indeed, gone to the doctor. Then I could have gotten on anti-biotics and saved D and Izzy from getting sick. I'm just hoping we get it handled before the other three get sick. My poor L-bug is stuffy and congested, but I don't think she's got strep (yet) and Autie and A-bug seem fine so far.

So I guess there is more to that whole, "Take care of yourself" idea than just making me feel good. It's to make sure my family doesn't get sick too. Let's see if I can remember that next time.

6 month update

2011-01-17T16:14:00.001-07:00

So there are those among you that actually expect me to UPDATE my blog??!! What? Really? Just cause it's ben 6 months since I wrote something? Okay...

So life has been rather interesting for the last bit.

The girls were born in June and the first part of August, D left for Afghanistan. Luckily I had so much help from the ward and Heather was here too. Not to mention the couple VERY good friends I've made here in Tucson, Lauren and Courtney.

If you want a day to day account of the life in The Allen home for the 3 months D was gone, there's a blog for that. If you want the overview, let's just say, it was an experience.

In October, we decided to be crazy and took all four kids, Heather and me on a trip from Tucson to Provo, UT. We were able to stay with my wonderful brother and drove him crazy for a little over 2 weeks. We went up for two sealings in the Bountiful temple there in Utah. Mike and Mariah Smith got sealed on the 14th and Pama and Derek Alder were sealed on the 29th. The trip went better than I thought it would be, mostly because we ended up driving the long distances at night, so the kids could sleep. Though we did all get pretty sick, Uncle Ammon gave us all blessings, which was a cool experience.

The biggest project I tried to get accomplished was the backyard. I wanted to get it finished before D got home as his Birthday/Christmas/Going Away/Homecoming present. While I didn't get it completed, I got a LOT done on it. I planted several trees, put in edging stones and tree rings and block around the new garden area. Then, with a LOT of help, we got gravel delivered and hauled by the wheel barrow full to the back yard. Thanks go out to the Nichols, the Ards, the Rosenbaums, the Scouts of the Valencia ward and mostly to my fabulous Dad! It was 13 TONS of gravel! Whew!

The week of Thanksgiving, Heather decided it was time to move out. She moved out on Monday, and moved in with a couple friends. I think she is an amazing person and am so grateful for the help she was to me when I needed it. I don't know how I could have handled this pregnancy and the early months with the twins without her. She has recently become engaged and I wish her peace.

D came home a couple days before we had been expecting him, which was wonderful. We were able to spend a little time together before we started traveling for the holidays.

We were able to visit all the grandparents for Christmas this year. We decided to drive at night as that had worked so well on the trip to Utah. So we left in the afternoon on Sunday and drove to El Paso and visited with Auntie Marcia and Uncle Steve for a little bit, then drove over night to my parents house. They watched the kids while we attempted to sleep that day, then we drove on again the following night.

We went to Arkansas first a spent time with Tom and Dorothy. We got to spend Christmas at Rachelle and Bills house, with Donna and her kids, Brent, Alex and Evan. For our Anniversary, D and I spent the day in Eureka Springs, which is where he proposed to me (Awe!!)

After that, we headed to Paula's house in Texas. We got to spend some time on "the property" in Memaw's 5th wheel, where they're building a house for Memaw. We also got to see Miss Teri, Uncle Tom, Auntie Laura, Auntie Lori, Uncle Andres, and the cousins, Julian, Marcelino and baby Kiev. We got to spend a couple days there and had a second Christmas on New Year's day.

A couple days later, we drove the couple hours to my parents house and had a third small Christmas and some play time with Pat and George. We even got to eat some freshly caught fish the first day we got there, caught, cleaned, and cooked all by Dad.

On the way back, because we were starting to get sick, we decided to spare Marica our germs and drive straight through. On a whim, D decided to head up to Taos, NM to see the earthship community up there. (check it out here) I was amazed to see one in "action". After a couple hours in Taos, we headed the rest of the way home.

And it is GOOD to be home!

At 6 months, AR has decided that crawling is okay, but she prefers walking. So rather than perfect her crawling skills, she has started pulling up on EVERYTHING and is most content when standing. LS is doing a great break-dance move to get where she wants to go and so doesn't feel the need for that whole crawling thing either. They are both happy babies which is such a blessing.

HT is so spunky and so smart all at the same time. He can get into so much trouble in so little time and then just smiles. But, oh, what a smile. There's a little hint of trouble in each one of his smiles, which just seems to make them that much more endearing. He has learned to count and is working on potty training.

AC is such a sweet little man. He is a great help with his sisters and loves to help with anything. He's decided he wants to start reading and writing and will ask me over and over how to spell this and that through out the day. I plan to start working more on his home schooling and want to be a bit more organized in it.

We recently turned off the internet at home so the kids would spend less time on the computer and we can have the time to spend on home schooling. I'm planning to start that this month and get a little more scheduled and a bit more structured in our lives.

So that's kind of an update on the last 6 months. Hopefully, I'll find time more frequently than that to update this. Though I make no promises!

Twins!

2010-08-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

So I said I'd post the twins birth story, if you're not interested, just skip it, it might be a tid bit graphic.

I went in the 25th of June to be induced at 38 weeks, 5 days. I had had some minor contractions but nothing major and nothing consistent. I kept trying to decide if I should actually get induced. I really, really wanted to go into labor naturally. But the contractions I was having didn't seem to be going anywhere and I could wait and be in pain for the next week and a half and still not go into labor and be induced. At this point I was really in quite a bit of pain. Like - a LOT! So I decided to go ahead and get induced as scheduled.

I went in at 8:00 am. They checked me in and my main nurse was Laura and the doctor in charge was Doctor Miller. Dallas, Mom and my doula, Lindsay Schneider came with me. The nurses, Laura and (I think) Heather, set me up on the monitors and IV and started the pitocin drip. It started some very mild contractions as they started to increase the drip. I chatted some with everyone and listened to my Hypnobabies and dozed.

I didn't progressing as quickly as I had expected. With both of the boys, I progressed pretty quickly, a couple hours of Pitocin and I was ready to have some babies. Not as quick this time. About noon, the doctor in charge came in to talk with me. Dr. Miller said he understood that I wanted to labor naturally, without an epidural. But he also said that he understood that my main desire was to avoid a cesarean section, and my best bet for that was to get the epidural. He said that since the second baby was currently transverse rather than head down, there was a risk that she would come down breach. If that were to happen, I would need the epidural so that he could do what was nessasary to deliver the second baby. I understood what he was saying, and though I really didn't want to hear it, I knew that he was right. He also said that he wanted to break my water to increase the contractions, as it hadn't broken on its own yet. I told him I had to think about it for a little bit. He said he had to deliver triplets at 1:00 pm and was off at 5:00 pm so I needed to make up my mind soon . I talked with Dallas and Lyndsay and Mom and decided that it really was the best option. I decided to get the epidural first and then have my water broken.

The anesthesiologist came in. Since I wasn't currently in a lot of pain and my previous two epidurals had completely blocked any feeling, I spoke with him and asked that he do a lighter version. He said that was fine and went with about half the normal dose.

When the assisting doctor came in to rupture my membrane, she checked me and could feel the first babies hand by her face. This was a concern, as if I progressed rapidly, she could be in the wrong position to birth easily. The doctor said she wanted to check with Dr. Miller before doing the procedure. It ended up being several hours before Dr. Miller made it back to check on me, about 3:00 pm. By then, the first baby had moved her hand and he went ahead and broke my water.

Now we were on a bit of a time crunch, because Dr. Miller was one of the few doctors who would even attempt a breach delivery if the second baby came down butt first. With most doctors, it would be an automatic c-section. Since he was supposed to go home at 5:00 pm, that only gave me 2 hours to progress completely and be ready to deliver. This apparently wasn't enough time this time.

At five, the next doctor came on, Dr. Hood. She came in to talk to me. I asked what she would do if the second baby came down breach and she said that she would have to do a c-section. She didn't have the experience to do a breach delivery. I was really upset about this, of course.

They were having a lot of trouble monitoring the babies. At the first, it was the second baby who was hard to track, but after they broke my water, the first baby became diffuclt. Dr. Hood said she'd like to do an internal monitor so they could monitor her better. As she was getting ready for that, she checked me and I was almost completely dialated. Dr. Hood had just talked with Dr. Miller who said that he would stick around a little while longer in case I got ready to deliver. So Dr. Hood stretched me and was able to get me complete.

At this point, the epidural had never been raised and I was actually able to feel the need to push, which was pretty cool, considering I'd never had that before!

They got me ready to move to the operating room (all twins deliver in the operating room in case of an emergency c-section) and off we went down the hall. Only one person was able to go with me, so, of course, Dallas went with me. They got him all set up in the white paper outfit and hair net and everything.

Once everything was set up, Dr. Hood told me to start pushing. She had to tell me to "push down, not up" a couple times before I got what to do. (Again, I've never felt any of this before.) After a minute or two of pushing, they had me grab my legs and start pushing. I honestly didn't know that I could reach my legs, but I did. I was a little suprised at how much I felt, considering I had had the epidural. I could feel a lot, and it was rather painful and a lot of work! And a couple minutes more of pushing and Lily Spring Allen was born at 6:23 pm on June 25th. She weighed 7 pounds 1.6 ounces and was 19 inches long. I turned to Dallas and said "I CAN'T do that again! That hurt!" To which he replied something like "Of course you can." And in reality I had no choice!

This is the point the "fun" began. The second baby came down and she did indeed come down breach, which we had been hoping she wouldn't. Dr. Hood was kind enough to go and get Dr. Miller, who had been kind enough to wait over an hour and a half after he was supposed to go home, just in case this happened.

Dr. Miller came in and checked the baby. He had the anesthesiologist increase my epidural. He broke my water, which was apparently under some pressure as it splashed all over. He waited for a bit for the increased epidural to take effect, and reached in and grabbed a foot and pulled the second baby out. So Autumn Rose Allen was born doing the splits at 6:42 pm on June 25th, weighing 6 pounds, 5.8 ounces and was 19 inches long.

I can't say how grateful I am to both Dr. Hood and Dr. Miller. Dr. Hood for delivering Lily and being willing to step aside and let Dr. Miller do his "thing". And Dr. Miller for staying so much later than his shift and being willing to go out of his way to make sure I didn't have a c-section. And for having the experience and confidence to birth Autumn breach. It might not have been the birth I hoped for, but it turned out the best way it possibly could. I have two amazingly healthy babies and all three of us are doing great.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

2010-08-05T23:16:00.000-07:00

So, I have apparently been a bit remiss in updating my blog. I have a couple excusses... Twins!! Tomorrow I will try to add their birth story and the interesting developments since then. If the girls will let me.

Cleaning Products: #1 laundry detergent

2010-05-07T09:04:00.001-07:00

I try to use as few chemicals in my home as possible. This includes in my laundry room. I have been using home made laundry detergent for about 8 months now and love it. I also don't use fabric softener, but vinegar instead. I started that when I was cloth diapering Austin, as fabric softeners make it harder for materials to absorb water. This goes for towels too.

The laundry detergent recipe that I've been using is from the Duggar family recipes. It's about the 3rd recipe down. It uses a bar of Fels Naptha soap

1 cup of washing soda (not baking soda)

and 1/2 cup of Borax.

And it makes 10 GALLONS of laundry detergent! Since I have a HE front loading machine, I use about 1/4 cup per load, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. I do about a load of laundry or two a day, and the first batch that my mother-in-law was kind enough to make for me lasted me 6 months. I recently had to make another batch. It was super easy. I used a food processor to grate the soap, and the rest was simple!
Finding the ingredients was a bit of a challenge the first time. I've heard that Wal-mart carries washing soda, but I have yet to be in a store that acutally does. Strangely enough, I found that Ace Hardware actually carries all the ingredients, though the store might have to order it, or you can order it online and have it shipped to the store. That way you don't have to pay shipping and handling. Last time I ordered, I got a whole box of Fels Naptha and a crate of 12 washing sodas. Borax I've never had a hard time finding, so I didn't stock up on that.
I have heard that there are "kits" on ebay that will sell you just the ingredients in the amount that you need to make your own. These kits run about $7.50 and make about 5 gallons. Even if you used on of these kits rather than getting the seperate ingredients yourself, that would be about $1.50 per gallon. How does that compare with what you're buying at the store? When I buy the ingredients seperately, I know it's cheaper than that. One bar of Fels Naptha is about $1.30, a 3 1/2 pound box of washing soda is $3.80 and a box almost 4 pounds of Borax is about $6.00. Again, I only need a cup of washing soda and 1/2 cup of Borax. I'm probably spending less than $2.50 for 10 gallons of detergent, so about $0.25 a gallon.
I also have more control of what I put in the detergent. Let's go over the ingredients.
Borax is a naturally accuring mineral, a salt. There is some need for caution with this in your home. While "It is not accutely toxic...a significant dose of the chemical [can]cause sever symptoms or death."
Washing Soda is a sodium salt and is used regularly as a water softener. It can be extracted from the ashes of many plants. It's actually used in cooking, including the dorm room favorite, Ramen Noodles. It is non-toxic.
Fels Naptha soap, there are some concerns about this soap as it it can cause eye and skin irritation. I looked at the Material Safety Data Sheet, or MSDS, which stated that it did not have a significant environmental effect. It also states that there are no known chronic health effects. But I may start looking for a homemade lye soap to use instead.
If I want a scented detergent, I could add essential oil to the mix. I don't since I'm doing kid and baby laundry. But the ability to control what you put in your detergent is comforting to me.

Tree-Free Home: #3 Wipe Boards and Laminated Pages

2010-05-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

I use wipe boards and dry-erase markers a lot around the house rather than pads of paper. I have a wipe board calendar like this one:, and another larger wipe board to keep track of things like meals (though that one gets used by the boys more often as a drawing board). The calendar is great, as I can add the next month as I manage to make it through this month. That way I almost always have 4 weeks ahead of me visible on the board. I have things that happen every week, like gymnastics, in permenent marker. Permenant marker will come off if you color over it with dry-erase markers and then wipe it off.

While I generally don't like to have plastic in the house, I do have a couple exceptions. I have a notebook that I keep household stuff in, like additional calendar pages, grocery lists, budgets and stuff. Most of these pages I have laminated, so I can use dry-erase markers on and they can be used repeatedly.

I found my laminator (this one:) at Wal-mart and got a box of the laminating pouches there as well.

The grocery lists are one of my better ideas. I made a list of the things that we buy on a reasonably regular basis and then I can just mark the things that I need as I run out of them. I have the list organized according to the store that I usually go to, so it's easy as I shop, and I'm not making multiple trips down the same aisle. I also have one for my food storage. It lists the items that I want to have supplies of and how much I want of each item. As I buy them, I mark off how many I have, as I use them, I erase the marks. This tells me I have so many cans of refried beans and need this many more. Then, when it's on sale, I stock up.

I have household chore lists around the house that are laminated so I can keep track of when stuff was done last. Since we have Heather here, there are three of us doing chores. I don't always remember when someone last changed the sheets or cleaned the carpets or washed the windows. I have blank sheets with each person's name at the top of Daddy and Mommy Do lists that can be added to and wiped off when we finished projects (or given up on them). It helps us have a single place to write everything down, rather than having lots of scraps of paper running around the house. Blank laminated sheets are great for scrap paper. I can figure out how many yards of this fabric I need for that project or how much food I need to feed all the people coming to dinner on Friday.

I have also used the laminator to laminate pages for Autie to practice writing his letters and numbers. Again, they're great because they're reusable. I'll be able to use them for both the boys and the girls, rather than having to print of multiple sheets for each child.

The laminator was a good deal for me as it helps me save LOTS of paper.

Disclaimer #2: Ad sense and Amazon ads

2010-04-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

So, I've added both Ad-sense ads from Google and will be linking to Amazon ads in some of my posts. I added the Google ads because, while I can't say I'm worried about making money from a blog, I figured, "What could it hurt?" right? Also, when I link to things from Amazon, it's because I am a visual person, I like pictures! I want people to see what I'm talking about, and don't want to "steal" pictures from around the web.

So, hopefully the ads don't detract too much and no one gets offended. If, however, you happen to see something that you like, by all means, click away! Just come back and read some more.

Tree-Free Home: #2 Cloth Napkins

2010-04-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

I like to use cloth napkins instead of paper. I like the way they feel so much better, they don't leave a papery mess on little sticky faces and hands, and they're reusable. Besides, they add a nice edge of class to that special mac and cheese you're making for your kids.

Check out these ones at Amazon:
They're even made from recycled cotton.

But heck, at $15 for 4, I bet you could hire someone with a sewing machine to make some for you. Amazon, among other stores, does have cheaper ones. I've even found them at a number of the discount stores for about $1 or $2 per napkin.

I have a number of cloth napkins, but don't seem to use them for fear of staining them. (I know, I know, that's kinda what they're there for!) I want to make some simple ones that I can use with the kids and not worry about spaghetti sauce on them, or whatever the flavor of the day is.

If you're looking at making your own, just about any scraps of cotton or cotton/poly material that you have on hand would probably work, though linen ones are de rigueur. The traditional dinner napkin is 20 inches square, but other regular sizes include 12, 14 and 16 inch squares. For family dinners I'd probably make them even smaller, maybe even as little as 8 to 10 inches square since I'm cleaning small, messy faces. This way it would be less strain on Dear Mother when washing a set each day.

You should be able to make about 12 napkins per yard, more if it's 60 inches wide. And then you can pick and chose colors that match your decor, or hide stains. You know, whichever... :) Here's a website that tells how to make your corners pretty when sewing your napkins.

I might just start out with some flannel material that I already have and just serge the edges and call it good so I can start with something. Pretty much anything you can get your square from, that would other wise go to waste, could be utilized. What about all those old flannel receiving blankets that your kids grew out of in about 2 weeks? Or those old t-shirts would make some soft napkins. I bet cutting some squares from old dress shirts would work well, and you could end up with some interesting, eclectic table settings that way.

The other benefit of cloth napkins is the eventual need I will feel to make a lot of super-cute napkin rings. These will make cute craft projects for the kids or good ways to use some material around the house that was otherwise going to get thrown away.

Still need more benefits? You can teach your children the "correct" way of setting a table. Or, you could teach your kids napkin origami. Who doesn't like to fold stuff up to make swans?

Tree-Free Home: #1 Cloth Diapers

2010-04-28T19:23:00.006-07:00

Another idea I came across that I've been trying to do in my home (with better success before the pregnancy) was a "tree-free home".

I used cloth diapers with Autie for about the first 6 months. Then we moved and were sharing a washer, so the practice kind of died. We didn't do so well with Izzy either. My excuse is that we moved 15 times the year he was born. I plan to go back to it for the twins since we are (hopefully) a little more settled and not living with room-mates. (Sorry, Heather doesn't count as a room-mate. As Big D says, "She's your little slave girl." Good thing she has a sense of humor!)

Not only does it greatly reduce the waste from a home, it saves LOTS of money. The average baby uses about 6,000 (!!) diapers in the first two years of their life. At about $0.25 per diaper, that would be $1,500 each year for two babies. And many moms who cloth diaper say that their children potty train sooner. So less time dealing with poop! Who would complain about that?

I personally prefer the prefolds rather than the all-in-ones (AIO) or pocket diapers. Besides the fact that they're cheaper (About $1.00 per prefold vs. about $15.00 each for the either of the other two), they were just easier for me to use. Even Big D could change a cloth diaper in the same time and with the same yuck factor as a disposable one. Besides, the flat diapers come in handy after the baby is older. They can be used for cleaning rags and they last forever. I still remember my mom having and using them when I was a teenager - as cleaning rags, I swear!! All totalled (I bought preemie prefolds, infant and regular sizes) I invested about $200 in prefolds and probably another $50 between snappies (the bestest thing EVER if you use prefolds) and diaper covers.

So, in just a monetary way, I saved about $500 with Austin, and if I consistently use them with the twins, I'll save about $4,500 (if they potty train at about 3 years old). So, $5,000 savings for maybe $250 invested (plus the soap and water for the washing). And I can still sell the used diapers on ebay for at least some of the money that I've paid for them once the girls are done. I'd say it's a big win. Not even mentioning the 20,000 diapers that DON'T end up filling our land fills.

Not only is there the money issue (seriously, do you need a better reason?? If so, just send me the extra money and give it a try anyways!) there is the fact that it's just way better for little butts and the earth.

We'll start with the "Save the Earth" crowd. Disposable diapers are just that, disposable, thrown away, disposed of. Check out the all-mighty Wiki and look at the debate section [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper ]. It states: "An estimated 27.4 billion disposable diapers are used each year in the US, resulting in a possible 3.4 million tons of used diapers adding to landfills each year." That's a lotta poop!

Now, honestly, depending on how they are washed and dried, cloth diapers can still cause a strain on Mother Earth. But I have a HE washer, and live in the driest place in the world (maybe not, but it feels like it) so can hang dry the diapers. I use homemade laundry detergent, vinegar as a fabric softener and don't ever bleach my diapers. I'd say I'm being reasonably kind to Mother.

Disposable diapers have all sort of chemicals. Depending on which anti-disposables website you look at, some of the loverly things in diapers will include: polyethylene and polypropylene plastic with bleached paper pulp, AGM (a gelling substance), petrolatum, stearyl alcohol, cellulose tissue, elastic, and perfume.
[ http://www.diaperjungle.com/disposable-diapers-exposed.html ]

These things aren't great for the environment, but they're worse for the delicate skin of our babies tushes. When I was cloth diapering, we almost never had a problem with diaper rash. Yet there are several types of disposable diapers neither of my boys could wear because they would end up with a rash within a couple diaper changes. The best way to cure diaper rash for my kids? Put them in cloth diapers for a couple days. We never had to use the extra diaper creams and butt pastes when we were using cloth. (Again, saving the earth and some $green$)

Besides, there ain't nothing cuter than a baby butt in a cloth diaper!

Even better would be the idea of Elimination Communication. Check out http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/ for more info on that!

Now, before you get the idea that cloth diapering is getting to be pretty common and therefore I'm not too far off main stream, I have to add that I not only use cloth for the kids, but I use it for myself. Instead of the store-bought maxi-pads, I use cloth when I'm menstruating too. Honestly, that hasn't happened too much in the last couple years, but when I'm on the rag, I use rags. Well, not really rags, but mama pads. I've found that they are way more comfortable than the plasticy pads available at the store, I change them about as frequently and some people say they even reduce the cramping and other DMS (during menstrual syndrome) effects that they normally feel using "normal" pads or tampons. I personally can't use tampons, but for those who prefer the not-lining-your-panties type of protection, there are Diva cups
[ www.divacup.com ] Again, better for the earth and better for our bodies.

Simplicty

2010-04-28T10:46:00.004-07:00

I was looking up carbon footprints and stuff and came across an idea that I've looked at a lot before (and even blogged about before), but hadn't necessarily connected with the whole "reduce/reuse/recycle" idea. It's voluntary simplicity. There's ton's of sites and information online about it and different versions, but I'll give my take on it.

To me, living simply, in part, means to go back to a simpler time. The grass may always be greener, but I see the "Leave it to Beaver" era/ideal as one I'd like to get a little closer to. Mom stays home with the children and cooks home cooked meals that the whole family sits down to, Dad goes to work, come homes and plays with the kids. The kids can play outside safely and have neighborhood friends. Things are more likely to be made at home than bought in a store (except he crazy stuff that the boys buy mail order, like alligators). Now, living at that time was probably very different than what I envision, but I like my little fantasy.

More so, though, the whole idea is really simple. Live simply. You only bring things into your life that you need and love. You get rid of anything in your life currently that doesn't fit that. I've looked at this as ways of getting rid of clutter and lessening what I buy (though I still have and buy too much). As you clear space in your life you clear space in your mind as well.

There are groups that promise not to buy anything for a month. There is even a yahoo group [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thecompact/ ] about "The Compact" [ http://sfcompact.blogspot.com/ ] where people commit, among other things, not to buy anything for a YEAR! Pretty impressive in a consumerist drive society. I have to say, I don't know that I could do that at this point, but it would be awesome, and is a goal that I would like to work towards. Right after I get that new laptop I've been wanting... oh, wait! Don't forget the new toys for the kids.... and the girls will need some cute clothes, right?

Hmmm... Apparently, I have a ways to go, even in my mind...

In the Kitchen: Part 2

2010-04-27T13:09:00.003-07:00

EATING:
This is one area where I'm not as good as I want to be and I REALLY want to change.

There are a LARGE number of theories on the ~right~ way to eat. We personally have tried veganism and vegetarianism. I find both difficult to do as I was raised eating meat and it's hard for me to think of meals that ~don't~ include meats. I don't mind eating it, I just have a hard time planning it. We have, however, greatly reduced the amount of meat that we eat.

I've looked into a number of diets and the ideas that appeal to me most are the ideas of Wesley A Price. Basically he proposes that we eat foods as unprocessed and as close to nature as possible. Animals should be raised as free-range as possible. Grass-fed and with access to roam and lack of hormones and vaccinations. Natural game like bison and deer is better for you than cows. Free-range chickens who haven't been pumped full of antibiotics lay better quality eggs and are better to eat.

I get my eggs from a lady who allows her chickens free range of her organic garden. When I have at get store bought eggs, there is a huge difference in the color and the taste in the eggs. (The farm fresh ones being better, obviously)

Big D doesn't think we should eat dairy, I think we should, so we compromised. I currently get my milk from a cow share program. Basically, we pay an initial fee to buy a "share" of a cow, and then pay weekly for a supply of fresh, raw cows milk. Because it's truly whole milk, I get cream and have made butter and a basic cheese from it with pretty good success. I'm going to be changing soon to get fresh, raw goats milk from the same lady that I get my eggs from. Goat milk is more easily digestible than cows milk and less likely to cause allergies.

Because we eat less meat, we are trying to be able to afford better quality meat. Next year, what I'd like to do is purchase a portion of a grass-fed cow and possibly a pig and chickens. We will need a large freezer to store the meat, but it's the most cost effective way to get high quality meats.

We were part of a CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture) program. Each week we received a box of local, organically grown produce. It was a challenge because a lot of the time there was something in there that we'd never had before so we had to figure out how to eat it. But it exposed us to a lot of new stuff. It got us to eat more vegetables and fruits.

I would LOVE to be able to grow more of my own food. Raising anything is a challenge here in the desert. There are a number of ways to do it that I just haven't tried here, including container gardening. Next year, that's one of my biggest goals even if I have to start small. I'd even like to have my own goat and chickens, but my HOA has rules against them. (We won't buy a house in an HOA again!)

The other area that we're working on is eating less processed foods. I buy wheat in the grain form and have a wheat grinder. I make my own pancakes and waffles and things rather than buying them pre-made or in the mixes. I love to bake my own bread, though I do have a bread maker when I just don't have the time. We eat 100% whole grain whenever possible, including pastas, breads and rices. There are a number of grains out there that I'd like to explore when I have a little more energy, including quitoa which is supposed to be a "super-grain". I stock a lot of basics in my cupboards and try to make things from scratch (though I did better on this before I got pregnant). We also eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.

We try to avoid processed or artificial sugars whenever possible. We don't allow the kids candy or ice-cream or things like that. When they want something sweet, we give them fruit and they love it. Occasionally we will make cookies, but I make them from scratch and use whole grains and things to make them a little more healthy than store-bought cookies. I also have a couple of sugar-free cookbooks that use fruit purees and juices rather than any type of sugar or artificial sweetener. Sugar is a BIG issue to my husband as a large number of his relatives have diabetes and he and I are both addicted to sugar.

We also try to avoid fast food as much as possible, though I've broken down more often now that I am pregnant. Almost everything on fast food menus contains high-fructose corn syrup. Even at sit-down restaurants, anything on the kids menu is likely to have added sweeteners so the kids like it better. And we won't even start on portions and calories per serving, etc.

In the Kitchen: Part 1

2010-04-26T15:40:00.004-07:00

STORING:
I'm a big proponent of using plastic as little as possible. It's not natural, it lasts forever in landfills and it leaches bad chemicals into your food when used around it. So, especially in my kitchen, I try to avoid it. I do have some plastic containers and use plastic bags, but I prefer to store food in glass, and try to avoid micro-waving anything in plastic or styrofoam. (Of course, microwaves aren't the best anyway and should be used as little as possible. More on that later.) I use glass to freeze in, but that's where a lot of my plastic containers and bags end up - in the freezer. I'm still looking for a good replacement. Waxed paper can be used for a number of things, and it is compostable. But some waxed papers are actually coated with petroleum products. Ones coated with paraffin (wax like used in some canning applications and candle making) are a better option.

For a replacement for some of the snack bags, I recently saw a "wrap-n-mat" which can be used instead of some plastic bags. Check it out at: [ http://www.wrap-n-mat.com/fabrics.php ] They are made using a cotton/polyester blend on one side and a non-chlorinated, BPA free LDPE (low-density polyelthylene) material on the other. LDPE is recyclable and is unreactive at room temperatures. It is used regularly in food grade applications, including plastic bags. A similar option is the snack taxi at: [ http://www.snacktaxi.com/ ] though I couldn't find what they're lining theirs with. These might save a lot of plastic baggies from going to the landfill, but still expose your food to plastics. At least these are BPA free, but I just keep wondering what else will come out that is toxic in all these plastics we surround ourselves with. Another blogger, who mentions the waxed paper ideas in her blog, also suggested just wrapping lunch items in cloth napkins. [ http://ecochildsplay.com/2008/01/05/acting-green-by-acting-retro-–-food-storage-the-old-fashioned-way/ ] This works for short term storage, but not longer term like freezing. So the best alternative I have, still, is glass.

COOKING:
I cook with pyrex, stainless steel, or cast iron - my favorite being enamel coated cast iron. I try to avoid all the "non-stick" pans. The cheap ones chip and the coatings end up in our food. And even the ones that haven't chipped yet have issues of their own. Teflon is known chemically as polytrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and is a fluorocarbon. According to wikipedia: "Man-made fluorocarbon based compounds are implicated in a variety of environmental and health related issued." At high temperatures (400+ degrees) PTFE begins to deteriorated and can cause flu-like symptoms and even kill birds which are more sensitive to the fumes. [ http://www.wisegeek.com/is-teflon-dangerous.htm ]

I avoid aluminum pans for pretty much any cooking. Aluminum is reactive, meaning that the metal can react with the foods cooked in it to form aluminum salts. These are associated with impaired visual motor coordination and Alzheimer's disease. (Most deodorants have aluminum in them as well... I'll get to that later too.) Calphalon makes a line of anodized aluminum pans and claims that the final stage in this process seals the aluminum. I have one of these pans, which I use almost exclusively for eggs, just because I HATE cleaning eggs off pans. It has been getting less and less non-stick, which makes me think it's about time to get rid of it.

Pyrex is awesome for baking in. Glass is the most inert of all cookware and doesn't leak anything into food. I have a loaf pan, a 8" by 8" pan, a 9" by 13" and two big ones, even bigger than the 9" by 13". I have used these a number of time and they are great as there in no leaching of strange chemicals into the food. There have been some complaints of the glass breaking, though I've never had a problem with it. This is more likely to happen if the pans are exposed to sudden or extreme temperature changes, I also have a number of pyrex bowls that I have both stored and served food in. Pyrex is my friend (for now).

Stainless Steel is one of the most common types of cookware available. So far, there have been no reports of them contaminating food. The best type to get has a label of 18/10 (chromium steel/nickel steel) and is 3-ply, with stainless steel, then either aluminum or copper (my choice), and another layer of stainless steel throughout (not just on the bottom). These distribute the heat more evenly. Also, pots and pans should have stainless steel handles, riveted to the pan itself. Then they can go into the oven and you don't have to worry about plastic handles melting and releasing fun fumes into the kitchen. Check out [ http://missvickie.com/howto/cooking101/secret.htm#Cookware ] which gives great advice on picking and cooking with stainless steel.

Cast iron has excellent heat retention properties and diffuses it well so you don't end up with hot spots. It can be used over a fire, on the stove or in the oven. Regular cast iron pans can actually add iron to the food. The higher the acidity of the food, the higher the water content and the newer the pan, the more iron is released into the food. This is great for us pregnant ladies who need the extra iron, but should be watched carefully with children, especially those under 3 years old. Also, acidic foods like tomatoes should not be cooked in cast-iron for extended cooking times.

Enamel coatings on cast iron are fabulous. The pots are covered with a layer of porcelain enamel which is similar to glass. The enamel coating can, however, chip and stain. They are expensive, though there are several new brands coming out that are much more economical than when I bought my uber-expensive Le Crueset. They have all the great properties of cast iron, but are more non-stick, and don't leach iron. Non-scratch utensils should be used with these and more care should be taken in cleaning them, so the coating doesn't scratch. But I LOVE my Le Crueset.

You've probably noticed that pretty much all of my cooking gear is aimed at the stove and oven. I try to avoid using the microwave as much as possible. Here is an incredibly biased article on how "Microwave Cooking is Killing People" [ http://www.relfe.com/microwave.html ] or this one titled "The Proven Dangers of Microwave Ovens" at : [ http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/microwave-ovens-the-proven-dangers.html ] Did you know that the Soviet Union banned the used of microwave ovens in 1976? Now, even if I don't take this extreme of a view on microwaves, I don't think that they are the best, most natural way of defrosting, heating or cooking food. So, I avoid it.

To get really "out there", there are those who say that cooking food at all is wrong. my mother-in-law encouraged us to try a raw foods diet. While we didn't go completely raw, there is a LOT to be said for eating more and more of our food in the raw. Cooking of any sort diminishes the nutrients of the food. Many of the foods are "processed" and some are dehydrated, but the idea is to not let the food get over about 110 degrees, which is where the nutrients start degrading. Check out these sites for more info :[ http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/ ] [ http://www.alissacohen.com/ ] or [ http://www.living-foods.com/faq.html ]

SERVING:
We serve on corelle ware dishes. Corelle is a laminated, tempered glass product or so says the magic wikipedia. Corelle is actually made by the same parent company as Pyrex. Again, glass is non-reactive and therefore doesn't leach anything into your food. I love the different sizes that these come in. I have three or four sizes of both plates and bowls, which means I have the right size for the little boys as well as Big D. However, whatever their claims may be, they are in fact, quite breakable. Our second son, Izzy LOVES the sound of breaking glass and has found the precise angle at which these need to be dropped on our tile floor to make them explode into tiny shards that scatter all over the downstairs. It's really quite impressive.

What I'd like, especially for the kids, is some stainless steel plates like we use when we're camping. The enamel coated ones would be cool, but I recently saw some that were simply stainless steel, which means I wouldn't have to be concerned with chipping the enamel. I can also toss them in the dishwasher (on the rare occasions that I use it), though they couldn't go in the microwave - probably a plus - and would likely conduct heat more than the corelle that we currently have. That last might be an issue with Autie as he is rather temperature sensitive.

We used to have glass drinking glasses, but I think I mentioned Izzy's love of breaking glass. Only about 3 survived and I finally had mercy on the final three and gave them away before they too were shattered on the tile. I changed to stainless steel drinking mugs instead. These are more expensive, one costing about as much as a set of glasses, but I don't fear taking them anywhere. There are a number of different brands out there. We got a couple of the Foogo sippy cups and thermoses for the boys, but I didn't like that the sippy and straw parts were still plastic (though BPA free). I'm still looking for something that I like for the little ones that doesn't spill. For us big kids, I got a couple of Senja stainless steel mugs, which I really like. I usually leave the (plastic) lids off and they're still comfortable to drink from. I think I probably should have just gotten the plain ones, as the color is chipping off the colored ones i bought. Hmm... wonder how bad that is for us?

For the babies, I switched to glass bottles for Izzy, and will (be buying more to be able to) use them with Thing 1 and Thing 2 when they arrive. (Did I mention Izzy and glass??) I have since found some plastic wraps that go around the base of the bottle to give them a little cushion when the babies start tossing them around. These wraps don't go near the nipple, so I'm compromising between them and more broken bottles, at least until the babies start chewing on the bottoms of their bottles. I'm trying to find nipples that I like, but again with that whole plastic thing.... Though, honestly, bottles aren't used that much around here and I breast feed as much as possible. Though we have used formula occasionally, I'd really like to avoid it with the girls, which could be a real challenge. We'll see!

Disclaimer!

2010-04-26T15:24:00.003-07:00

Okay, let me start by saying that I've done a lot of research but some of it was a couple years ago. I could find sources for most of the info I will be posting, but I don't necessarily have it on hand. I will try to add some resources as I go along.

Also, some of the ideas that I espouse are a little controversial, so others can take what fits their lives and leave what doesn't. Hopefully this will encourage people to research it themselves and find out what really matters to them and then share it. I try to listen to others but make up my mind for myself.

And, just because I've researched it and have a strong opinion about something, doesn't mean that I'm practicing it in my life the way I'd like too. I would like to do a lot more than I do, which is why I research it, but I do what I can at this point and add things as I go. I start small and do well for a while. Sometimes I find that something just doesn't work for me, or sometimes I just get lazy and I backslide. But hopefully, in the long run, I'm doing better at the things that come to really matter to me.

A NEW POST!

2010-04-25T19:33:00.003-07:00

Okay, so I haven't posted since December 5th. I kept thinking about it, but plans have changed a bit since then and I was considering if I should continue on this blog, or start a while new one, and if so, what am I gonna write about?? Well, I recently had a small epiphany (wow, I spelled that right even!). But first I'll start with some of my thought processes over the last few months and how I got to from where I was, to where I am:

So last I wrote, we had been planning on getting a 5th wheel trailer and moving into it full time, until I found out that I was pregnant with twins.

We sold the red beast of a F550 4 door truck, and bought a white LIFTED beast of a Ford Excursion. So a 5th wheel is really out of any thought processes for at least a couple years. But we can still tow a decent sized trailer with the Excursion. It's about equivalent to an F250. However, because of the twins, we don't think we'll be doing that as soon as we would previously have liked.

I am due the 4th of July with twin girls, Thing 1 and Thing 2 as they are currently being called. From pretty much everything I've read, the first year is rather difficult and then it gets a bit more "normal". So I have decided that moving around during that first year is more than I want to deal with. Also, making the boys deal with a new space (the trailer), little play area, and the possibility of leaving pretty much everything that they're currently comfortable with so close to two new siblings seems like a recipe for not fun times and some serious upset-ness. I would like the boys to have as much support as the can during what will be an interesting transition.

Since Dallas is still going to be getting deployed, likely not long after the babies are born, we knew I was going to need some additional support for myself and the boys. While member of the Church are awesome about helping when there is a need, I knew that my need was going to be long lasting and extensive. I started looking for someone who would be willing to move in with us and help out with the kids and household duties when I couldn't do them. I wanted some consistency for myself and my kids, especially for the kids.

After a while of no luck (we can't pay almost anything), I talked with one of my young women from our old Nebraska City ward (one of the best wards, EVER!). She was nanny-ing in Casa Grande, about an hour and a half from here. She said that another of the girls was looking into being a nanny. I talked to her, and she suggested I talk to Heather. And Heather agreed to come out!! Woo-hoo!! She is ideal in so many ways. Her father was in the Air Force, so she has a pretty good handle on the whole military thing, plus she can get on base. She was home-schooled for a number of years, which is something I'd like to work at starting with Austin. Her mom had fraternal twins when she was 6 years old, so she has some exposure to the fun of twin infants. AND she's just plain awesome!

So, getting on the road full time was really ruled out for the present. This, and the fact that I can barely move as my belly gets bigger and bigger, have made me think more about making this house into the type of home I want to live in. A large part of the reason we were looking at moving into a trailer was to simplify our lives and our home. Well, twins kinda threw an adorable wrench in the trailer plan, but I can still make my home more simple and more in tune with the lifestyle that I want to live. Which is really the epiphany that I wrote about at the beginning. I may not be able to make the major changes like getting on the road (right now, though it is still in the plans for later), I can make some of the minor changes that will end up making the major changes easier.

This was exacerbated when I posted on Facebook about how I love giving advice (shocking, I know) on natural living. I had a couple people ask me about it and what it means to me. I've sent a couple messages to a friend who wants to do more, and started thinking that that's what my blog should be about. About all the little aspect that make up the life I want to live. Natural living, crafts that matter to me, my home and most of all my family. So, there will be a change of focus in what I blog, but hopefully that will mean that I actually blog. Though it still might seem a bit random to the casual reader, hopefully it will become a place where I can put all the stray threads of my life and weave something beautiful from it.

I will be posting some of the information that I messaged my friend as a start. I hope you enjoy the new emphasis.

Twins!

2009-12-05T12:57:00.002-07:00

A lot has happened since I last posted.

The end of October, the 24th, I found out that I was pregnant. This was a little earlier than we had planned, but only by a couple months. It got me thinking more and more about how we would do the On-the-road life with a new baby. In a LOT of ways it got me even more motivated. I really like the idea of being able to take the kids when we want, when we want. I really want out of this house and the baby made me feel that more strongly.
Unfortunately, almost immediately after I found out I wa pregnant, I started have some complications. I was having some serious cramping and spotting. At this point, I hadn't told Dallas, as I was trying to keep it a suprise until his birthday. I met with the midwives at the birthing center where I was so excited to be able to go. They ran tests on my HCG levels which came back fine. I was so relieved, I told Dallas that night that I was pregnant. It was the 6th, only 4 days until his birthday. He was excited, and suprised that I had waited that long, and not waited until his birthday. The following Monday, the 9th, I had an ultrasound to find out why I was spotting. I went in and the tech did a little looking around and turned to me and says, "Are you ready?" Now, I'm pretty nervous that something is wrong, and what exactly do I need to be "ready" for??!! So I said, "Yes" and she said, "It's TWINS!". I was shocked and started crying a little, but very excited. They were just tiny little eggs at that point (6 weeks 1 day) but we could already see the flickering of their tiny heartbeats. It was a huge relief. So I waited a WHOLE day and a half before telling Dallas. He still ended up getting a baby for his birthday.
And while we are super excited about the twins, it causes some serious reconsidering to our previous plans. While theoretically we could fit everyone in the Beast of a truck that we already bought, that would mean that Harrison would have to be in the middle in the front, and I'm just not comfortable with that. That means we are going to have to sell the truck and buy an Excursion. This means instead of a 5th wheel, we would have to go with either a travel trailer, or buy a bus and have it tow the Excursion.
Because twin pregnancies are high risk pregnancies, I need to be near my own doctor and a hospital with a good NICU. Not that I think anything will go wrong, but I want to be prepared, just in case. Also, becaues I have been having complications, and have been told not to do any heavy lifting and to take it easy, we're looking at finding a college student near by that would be willing to trade room and board for child care and light housekeeping. For that, we need to stay in the house at least until next August. We will probably put off moving into the trailer or bus for at least a year. That is, unless Dallas gets accepted to Officer Training School, in which case we'll have to figure it out then.
So a LOT of changes with just two words! "IT'S TWINS!!"

Soft Addictions

2009-09-05T16:12:00.003-07:00

This is probably a strange place to post this but I needed it said. And maybe this is part of the reason we're making the decisions to move into an RV.

When my parents came to visit, my mom taught Austin how to play some games on her laptop. It was very cute at the time to see him so intense about the game and to see him learning and developing new skills. However, since then, all Austin wants to do is either watch movies or play games on the computer.

I was in the book store last week with Dallas on our date night and saw a book titled "The Soft Addiction Solution." Here is a blurb:
Soft Addictions are those seemingly harmless habits like over-shopping, overeating, watching too much TV, endlessly surfing the internet, procrastinating—that actually keep us from the life we want. They cost us money, rob us of time, numb us from our feelings, mute our consciousness, and drain our energy. And we all have them.
— Judith Wright, author of The Soft Addiction Solution

Since then, I keep thinking about it. I didn't even read the book, but the idea of it really got to me. It hit me yet again today. Since I've been sick and Dallas was gone most of the week (excuses, excuses), Austin spent A LOT of time on the computer. I found a web browser that will only allow him access to games that are age appropriate and that he can maneuver. It's really pretty cool. He's been working on his letters and counting. A number of great things.

But he's addicted. He doesn't want to do anything but be on the computer. He isn't interested in eating, in playing with toys, going to the park. Nothing, except playing on the computer.

I know where he gets this. He's following my example (and I'm following my parents - Sorry Mom and Dad). I spend WAY too much time on the computer - but it's research!! I over-shop rather than do something productive with a friend. I over-eat. (Let's not think too much on this one, right?) I watch movies rather than talk to my husband. I read novels rather than interact with my children. I've used books to escape from reality as much as the computer. Only it's more socially acceptable. But why? Fictitious books are the same as watching a movie. The only difference is that you have to imagine the pictures. Even a lot of non-fiction isn't benefiting anyone.

So what is really the problem with these? We are escaping reality. What is so wrong with reality after all? It's stressful, it boring and it wears us out. Would we be so stressed out, and bored, and worn out if we spent the energy that we use escaping to enjoy?

Honestly I've already made some progress in some of this. Or at least recognized the need to. We don't have cable or any TV except what movies we get and Netflix. We had previously put a timer on the computer so I wouldn't spend all day on it rather than spending time with my kids. And I've (tried) to stop getting novels from the library. But I still have so many areas I need to work on. I don't know. I just know this is something I need to work on.

Maybe I should get off the computer and enjoy my family..

Back on the Fence

2009-08-27T15:35:00.002-07:00

So, just when I think we have made a decision, I find we're back at the beginning again.

We have been looking at a number of trailers. There aren't very many in our price range with living quarters. There are very few in the length range (35' to 40') that we're looking for. And most of them seem to be far away. So the option of building our own from a car hauler trailer came up again. But even the the basic trailers are $7,000 to $10,000. Plus the cost in time and money of fixing one up the way that we want. So even before the fix up, we're at $17,000 to $20,000, which is as much as we really want to spend total.

So, we have started thinking again about doing a bus conversion. If we sell the truck and buy a bus for $7,000 or $8,000 and the 1 acre of land for $5,000, we're at $12,000. And and actually ave some place to put the RV.

It would probably cost between $5,000 and $10,000 for convert either the trailer or bus. We could plan it how we like, including a bunk house for the kids, with probably 3 bunks (for the next little bundle, which, while I'm not pregnant yet, is another story all together).

We could use the Jetta as a tow vehicle, rather than having to set up for the trailer to tow a car. However, then it would add up the miles on the Jetta since we would have to pull it as a toad. But we also wouldn't have the open space in the RV for the kids to be crazy in. And the bus will likely be about 35' which is shorter than the majority of trailers we've looked at. But in some ways, that will be good, as it will then fit in more RV parks.

So the real issue is the amount of time it will take, and if we can make it look good, or if it will look a little too country for us to be happy with it.... Hmmmm....

Still evolving

2009-08-24T10:57:00.004-07:00

Well, we didn't go to Phoenix to check out that one as we decided that a 48' trailer is probably going to be too long to be practical in most RV parks. We're looking at 36' to 40' as probably the best. We would still be able to fit the car in the back (it's 15' long) and have a living area set up in the front, with 8' over the gooseneck hitch.

Another option that I recently discovered (though Dallas swears he mentioned it long ago) is a bus conversion. I think I didn't consider it before because I didn't realize we could set it up with bunks. The biggest issue with this idea, is that we already have the F550. While we could probably sell it for what we bought it for, that's just a pain. Do we really want to do that?

We're Going to See Another One!

2009-08-20T14:50:00.002-07:00

Tomorrow, we are driving back up to Phoenix to look at another car/race hauler. Dallas is afraid that this one is a bit too plain, but I think it's just what I'm looking for.

It's a 48' Vintage. It has a 12,000 A/C unit that was removed to install a 15,000 one, but that was never done. It already has fresh, grey and black water tanks. And new tires.

In the front is the "master" bed. Then on the drivers side is a bathroom with a shower and toilet, though it looks like no sink. That's enclosed. Then, still down the driver's side, there are some cabinets and a kitchen sink. There is a microwave, but no fridge or range. There is a bed/couch on the passengers side but other than that it's pretty plain. There is no divider between the living area and the cargo area.

It's listed at $10,000. Hopefully we can get it for less than that. Since it's so plain, we might be able to use our own furniture in it, including the boys own beds, our couches and if I could figure out how, our own appliances. Hmmm.... I'm off to research how to use regular household appliances in an RV situation.

The Why of It All....Part II

2009-08-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

So why don't we just stay in the house that we bought?

Again the answer is multifaceted.

The easy answer is we plan to move again, probably several times in short succession.

Dallas is planning on applying for Officer Training School. If he gets accepted, we would move to Alabama for a couple months, then probably somewhere else for more training, then maybe to his finally duty station, maybe we'd bounce around even more. Then about two years later, we would get a new duty station and have to move again. Yes, we could get apartments and just move all our stuff around like we have in the past.

Dallas is also going to be getting deployed. Then there is a question of what I should do when he leaves. I can stay in a town that I've only been in for a couple months. or I can go to visit family. It is very important to me that my children have a chance to get to know their extended family as much as possible. Also, having family around gives me, as a mother, a break from being the only caretaker. If we have an apartment or a house somewhere, then when I leave to visit family, we have to be concerned with what happens at the house or apartment while we're gone. We are also still paying for it while we're gone.

Living in an RV means we can move as needed and visit family when we like. But, in reality, the moving is only a part of the whole.

Since we've moved into this house, it has started feeling more and more wrong. I thought, especially after all the moving of the previous year, that once we had a house and settled down then things would be all better. I've found that isn't true. In many ways, I like the house that we have. It's nice to own a home and know that I can decorate it as I please. It's nice to have space for the boys to play. It is nice to be settled after all the moving of last year.

One of the reasons we got this house specifically was the amount of square footage for the price. It's a smidgeon over 1900 square feet. However, much of the space in this house has tended to be wasted space. We have a loft area that rarely gets used. A guest bedroom that only gets used as a laundry depository unless guests are actually here. The boys room only gets used to sleep in as does our master bedroom. The breakfast nook never gets breakfasted in. Really the only rooms that get used regularly are the kitchen, the boys playroom and where ever the computer has ended up. And if I'm on the computer, the boys don't even want to be in their playroom.

I had hoped that once we moved into a neighborhood, we would meet people and make friends with our neighbors. However, we haven't. Part of the problem in our current neighborhood is that a large majority of them speak Spanish, whereas I don't. Also, a number of the houses around us have gone up for rent, which means new people moving in and out. But I think the problem is larger than that. I think that the neighborhoods that I grew up in are largely a thing of the past. There isn't the feeling of friendliness and hospitality, of backyard bar-b-ques that I was hoping for. You wave as you drive by but you don't stop to talk. There aren't front porches to sit on, there are tall walls in the back yards. It's just a very different feeling then I was hoping for.

Then there is the very real desire I have to be as self sufficient as possible. To live a simple life. This house does not lend itself to self-sufficiency or to simplicity. When I mentioned this aspect to my mom, she said that an RV wouldn't necessarily be a great place to these things either. I wouldn't be able to make my own soap or sew or harvest water. But I think, for once, she's wrong. I might have limited space to be able to store supplies for things like soap making. However, if I visit the same places on a regular basis, I could store specific things at specific locations. Like when I visit Tom and Dorothy's property, I could make enough soap for 6 months, until I can return to do it again. When I visit my parents' house, I could work on sewing clothes for the next 6 months. When I visit Paula's house, I could work on setting up the solar power on the RV. I might not be able to do everything in the RV that I want to do, but it need not stop me from doing what I want to do.

There is also a feeling of wanting to get out of the consumerist society. I mentioned before that in all the moving we often had to buy things that we already had, just because we couldn't get to the one that we already owned. In this house, it is so easy to go out and buy, buy, buy even if we don't need anything. I feel that we've gotten too caught up in needing all the coolest gadgets, but we don't appreciate what we have. Everything has become disposable.

After the fire, we decided that rather than get a lot of something, we should just get one good one. Instead of having several cheap TVs we would get one good one that we really liked. Instead of a whole set of pots and pans, we would get a couple that were high quality. I think we started out with good intentions, but we've gotten away from that idea. It's so easy to walk into Wal-mart and come out with too much. And nothing with real value.

If we move into an RV, our space will be severely limited. Everything must have a purpose and a place. We will have to decide what is really important to us and then take care of it. If we have less and buy less, that means we can buy the quality that we want. I would rather support work-at-home-moms, or artisans, or craftsmen who take the time and care to build a good product, rather than buy a product that is mass produced in another country under questionable standards. These items often cost more to be able to pay the maker a decent wage. As Dallas reminds me, each dollar we spend is a vote. I want to vote for quality versus quantity.

So, the RV lifestyle for us is more than just a mobile lifestyle, although that is part of it. We hope that the RV lifestyle will also be a simpler, more self-sufficient lifestyle, more in tune with the kind of lives we want to live.

The Why of It All....Part I

2009-08-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

When I've told anyone about our decision to move into an RV, the first question is usually, "Why?" Here's the first part of a long answer I don't usually give...

Last year, I moved to Texas in the hopes of not moving while pregnant. That, in fact, back fired badly, and we ended up moving 15 times in a 12 month period. This was very stressful for a number of reasons.

1. I was pregnant or had a new baby which makes moving a bit more challenging. I usually had to have help with packing and unpacking the car when I was pregnant, which meant working around someone else's schedule. It was difficult to come home from the hospital to a place that wasn't our own and not be able to set things up in a way that was conducive to a new baby. I think Harrison learned to crawl at 4 1/2 months because he was put down so often so I could pack or unpack.

2. Most of my stuff stayed packed so I didn't have my own things. This often meant I bought something new that I knew I had packed somewhere but it was either in a different state or was just to much of a challenge to get to. We stayed in AF lodging for a large portion of the 12 months, so we were able to use their supplies, but it never feels like home. You don't have your own knives, or plates or even sheets. And I don't want to think about who else has slept (or not) on the beds we slept on or when the last time the duvet covers were washed. Even when we stayed with family, we were staying in their house, with their things, and their rules.

3. We were constantly having to get used to new environments. Trying to figure out the television in each new hotel room, or where they put the towels, or the how to turn on the oven. Where is the toaster? Is there any plastic wrap? Does this couch fold out into a bed?

4. The uncertainty of how long we could stay somewhere and when we'd have to move again. There were times we had to pack up everything the day after we unpacked to move out of a room in lodging, only to be told a couple hours later that we could move back into the same room. Especially with military lodging, we we never sure if we'd be able to stay or how long. We would often have to call the office in the morning to see if we would have to move out that afternoon, or if we had another days reprieve.

5. Often the spaces where we lived were not set up for a family of 4, with a very active toddler and a new born baby. The military lodging tended to be the best for this, but where we were staying when I gave birth to Harrison was a bit of an exception. They did not have any two bedroom units. The bed in the bedroom was a double, which was not big enough for both Dallas and me in my very pregnant state. I ended up sleeping on the (double) fold out couch for several weeks up until and even after the birth of Harrison. The day I came home from the hospital, I shared the couch with my mother and my new born baby, while Dallas shared the bed with Austin. Even in the larger accommodations, we were always concerned with what Austin could get into and since it wasn't our stuff, he had to be careful not to play with anything that wasn't his. The floors and furniture were made for hotel living, not family living.

So, why an RV?

1. Hopefully this time I won't be pregnant or have a new baby. But even if I do become pregnant, moving an RV would be much less stressful than moving a house full of goods. If I have a baby while in the RV, I can set it up with what I need ahead of time, without having to worry about moving in the mean time. We would have the things we need and can set things up the way that works for us.

2. The packing and unpacking will be minimal. We would have a set-up and break-down routine. Beyond that, most of the stuff would stay were we put it on a regular, daily basis, rather than having to be put in boxes and packed away. We would have our own things. Our own beds, our own dishes, our own food, our own toys. If stuff gets broken, it's our own stuff. If the kids spill, it's on our own furniture.

3. We would have a consistent routine and environment for the kids. They know where their toys are and where they go when they put them away. They know where we are when they wake up in the middle of the night and have had a bad dream.

4. While we might have to move the RV occasionally, theoretically we would be able to stay at an RV park as long as we wanted. Also, even if we move RV parks, our "home" stays the same, it just gets a new backyard.

5. We can set up our RV how WE want it and change it as our needs change. While there will be distinct limits mainly because of size, we can do what we like with what we have. We can baby proof or not. We can set up a play area for the kids. It will be ours to do with as we please.

So, while an RV lifestyle might not work for many families, I think for us, it makes sense.

The Evolution of an Idea

2009-08-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

Our ideas are still evolving, but this is how we got where we are today...

When we were first looking for a place to buy in Nebraska, we thought briefly about buying some land and living in a trailer or barn type building. Instead we bought the house in Union.

That house burned down. We moved into an apartment and then Dallas got accepted for training and we moved to California. After I found out that I was pregnant, I moved to Texas in the hope that I wouldn't have to move while pregnant. The idea was to move into a small building. That fell through. Then the idea was to borrow my mother-in-law's 5th wheel. That idea also fell through.

I ended up moving around 15 times in a 12 month period, half of which I was pregnant, the other half I had a very new baby. We lived in some very small accommodations during this time. We lived in a 17x20 room in Arkansas, and several military lodgings, and for a couple weeks in a a small hotel room with only one double bed and my brother for a couple days.

When we finally settled down, we bought this house in Tucson. Since we've moved in, this house has seemed more and more like too much. It's a great house, but it doesn't fit with the kind of lifestyle that we want to live. There is so much space that we just don't use, we could live so much more simply in a much smaller space. We also have seemed to get sick a LOT in this house.

We had been thinking sporadically about a small trailer or moving into a smaller house and renting this one out. Especially as Dallas will start getting deployed soon. If he leaves, it would be nice to be able to take the kids to go visit family without having to worry about the house here being left empty.

When Dallas's mom came to visit and we told her about our ideas. She offered to fix up her trailer for us to use. This made the idea very real and we started planning, including looking at trucks and places to put the trailer.

We went back and forth a bit on the type of truck that we wanted. At first, we really wanted a Dodge Mega cab. It gives the most in-cabin space - meaning less seat kicking from the kids in the back. But even used, these are just too expensive. And Dallas was pretty set on getting 4 wheel drive, which again ups the price.

Then we started looking at how much each truck could haul. And the 250 or 2500 models didn't seem big enough, according to a lot of the forum threads I read, to haul and STOP a big, heavy trailer. I decided we needed a 450/4500 or 550/5500 which pretty much left us with Fords.

We (meaning I) spent a LOT of time on craigslist and ebay and a number of other sites trying to find the right truck. Finally, we found it! A Ford F550 4x4 with the Lariat package right in our price range. And it was even in Arizona! Awesome. We bought it. It has a couple of problems that we're going to have to get fixed but, hopefully, this will be a truck we'll never have to upgrade.

We found out that Dallas was going to be getting deployed early in the new year. Which gave us a specific time frame for getting on the road.

Just after we got the truck, we found out that Paula's trailer was in too bad of shape. Paula wasn't going to be able to fix it, especially not by the time we would need it.

This got us back on the hunt for a trailer, which meant hours and hours looking over craigslist in every state near family. We had already checked out the RV dealerships nearby and knew that we wanted a two bedroom 5th wheel model. This really limited our options, as did our very small budget. Most of the ones that we looked at had a leak or other water damage, and, as that was what had caused the problems with Paula's trailer, we weren't going to risk it.

We kept trying to figure out how to take both the truck (which only gets about 9 mpg diesel) and the Jetta (which gets about 40 mpg diesel) without having to drive separately. We looked at toy haulers, but the weight ratings for the ramps were only 1000lb and the frames were about the same. They really are made for bikes and quads. The Jetta weighs at least 3500 lbs.

In looking through the craigslist ads, I sent an ad to Dallas as kind of a "don't we wish". But he got very excited about it, and, as it was in Tucson, we went to go see it. Instead of a toy hauler, it was a race hauler, built to haul race cars. The front had a living quarters and the back was a garage area, with a doorway between. It was a gooseneck trailer, while we had been looking mostly at 5th wheels. The price was well above what we'd been looking for. But when we saw it, we saw the potential. And for us, potential is a dangerous word.

This would allow us to haul the car where ever we are going to be staying for a while. Then when the car is out, it would give us open play space for the kids. The living quarters up front would be used mostly just for cooking and sleeping. The back would be the living room and play room.

We got very serious about this one and even made an offer on it, but the man wouldn't come down on his price or work with us. So we're back on the hunt, but this time for a race trailer with living quarters.

We had considered briefly getting an empty one and building it the way that we wanted, but it would probably cost more than getting one that has at least the basics already installed, like running water. We will probably get one about half way in between. It will be set up with a bath and kitchen areas, but won't be too fancy.

And that is how we slowly lost our minds...