StepWise

Communicating Climate Change at NASA Langley Research Center

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:11:00 +0000

I had considered shutting the blog down since I've become less willing to have my personal life hanging out there in Internet land, but whatever.

I just arrived back from the NASA Langley Research Center, where I was brought in to do two climate communications workshops. I was impressed with the sheer magnitude of the facilities. They have things about which they say "yeah, that's where we drop airplanes". They have a great big structure where they crash big model airplanes and model spacecraft and even a model NASCAR car (Is that redundant? Is it just NASCAR?). Soon they will dig a giant pit under the thing and fill it with water so they can simulate water landings. They have giant wind tunnels and giant expansion tubes, whatever those are, and giant hangars full of giant planes.

We had a good group for two workshop sessions. The crowd was especially engaged in the morning, with a mixed group of scientists, engineers, communicators and educators. Some of the Branch Managers showed up, which was a nice signal to their groups that the topic is important. In the afternoon there was at least one person and possibly two who are not on board with the climate science as expressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). All are welcome as long as we can get our job of learning communications skills done, but there was some disruption and it seemed that at least one person was there to scoff and debate, rather than to do what we were there to do. I've had people who disagree with the IPCC science before, but in the past there hasn't been disruption. Well, it comes with the territory when one chooses to be engaged with a publically controversial topic.

I was impressed with the communications and facility staff. They really roll out the right stuff in getting things done, down to the small details. I am indebted to the staff who made me feel welcome. But, Langley is a damn long way away because you essentially can't get there from here. The last three hours of the flight home last night were among the longest of my life, even worse than going to Taiwan.

Salsa dancing tonight if it doesn't snow more. Both the kids had swine flu, so now they're done and if I could get it tomorrow and get it over with I would.

Photo: A half-scale model of the Orion Crew Module is lifted at the Landing and Impact Research (LandIR) Facility Tuesday, Sept. 22, at NASA Langley Research Center in preparation for a pendulum swing test where it will land on Kennedy Space Center simulated sand.
The test helps engineers understand how a contingency land landing on sand would impact the crew module after a launch pad abort scenario.
Photo of me and others at the workshop. I'm the stick with a dot on top standing in front. An enlarged view shows I need to buy new pants that fit better.

Golden Community Garden Opens!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:52:00 +0000

Yesterday I had the singular pleasure of being present at the birth of our new community garden. Grading was just completed, the water line was installed Friday and gardeners arrived ready to work on Saturday. I overheard the organizers say to each other "yesterday it was a construction site, today it is a garden", and that's pretty close to the truth.

It looked a lot like a construction site, since the work of making a garden is just beginning. There were piles of mulch and topsoil and a big graded swath of compacted clay. But gardeners set to picking rocks out of their plots, digging (not my thing), and spreading mulch and compost.

I am thrilled because I am gardening with my old friends, former neighbors whom I have known since Patrick was a newborn. I've seen them more in the last two weeks than in the previous few years. They are a good counterbalance to my tendency to take on too much and regret it later. I met several new people; a master gardener, a sculptor, the core garden group, and saw others whom I know from other places.

Everyone kept mentioning how one gentleman had really made it happen above and beyond the call of volunteer duty. He had gotten the crew donated, and the Bobcat, and put lots of time into the whole project. One of them said that without his help the garden opening would have been delayed for at least another two weeks. When I thanked him, he passed the credit off. Kudos to the whole group, who made this thing happen through good old-fashioned volunteer organizing.

It takes a lot of vision to see a beautiful community space emerge from this raw earth, but a good start happened yesterday. People riding by on the bike path were gaping at us, and if you know where to look you can just see the garden from the Rec Center.

Lizzie and I are to go finish our boxes this afternoon for use with the Square Foot gardening method. I got a gift card to the nursery for Mother's Day so we'll go pick up some seedlings maybe Monday.

The Golden Community Garden HomePage

A Fair Question

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Sun, 10 May 2009 13:06:00 +0000

Last night the kids said they didn't *want* to set the table, and I set off on my familiar mom harangue, "What do you mean you don't *want* to set the table?! Lucky for you, I do things I don't want to do all the time!...Why, just this afternoon I dug dandelions out of the front yard for two hours, and..." Pat said "That's not what we're having for dinner is it?".
I was stopped mid-harangue because this is a legitimate question at our house in May. This spring we have so much parsley and sorrel that the dandelions haven't tempted me, but I had to laugh. My poor normal son just doesn't want to eat weeds, like any other normal teenager, or normal American for that matter.

Here's my favorite spring recipe for Chinese Pan-Fried Flatbread, made with greens in our yard. This recipe is recycled from last year.

Must get going, Lizzie's down making pancakes for Mother's Day and pretty soon I'll have to be surprised by breakfast in bed. Happy Mother's Day.

Photo: http://revitalizeyourchurch.blogspot.com/2005/11/dandelion-people.html

Hope and Despair

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:11:00 +0000

I'm usually a pretty happy person but I've bounced around a lot this week. What makes the difference between one state and the other? Last week I learned a scary climate science thing that I promised not to discuss until the paper comes out. Suffice to say it's about the amount of time we have to make a relevant response to global warming. It's not that long.

Then Lizzie and I went up to an art retreat at the Abbey of St. Walburga. I meant to just go have fun with Lizzie, but it turns out making art doesn't let a body off that easy. Before long, I found that I can't actually draw without expressing what's really going on. I had to make some drawings of a possible future that scares me and that was very very painful. One's mind cannot be academic and distanced while drawing, it's all right there. That's not usually how I spend my days.

At the same time, I was reading The Road, an imagining of a world so nightmarish and bleak that I can barely cope. A person like me has a hard time with an entire planet of streams where no trout swims and all that's left of the ferns are standing ash. I had been told that there was hope at the end. The hope turned out to be that the boy and the man are "carrying the fire", the light of good and decency through all of this hell. The man and the boy are trying to survive in a world where decency is not rewarded. The boy is disturbed because he has learned that they are "the good guys", but he says they don't help people. They help now and again, but mostly this world is too hard for charity. In the end it's better. Not a lot better, but it's something.

I had to follow up the "what I'm scared of" drawing with "what I hope for" as the antidote, like snake-bite serum for the soul. In the end, after the chanted High Mass, remembering the fire, the last drawings were all right, with some sort of imperfect accomodation.

I saw a different kind of fire earlier this week when I went to visit a group called the Alliance for Climate Education in Oakland. This group of young people educates, inspires and empowers high school students to combat global warming. I saw committed young educators, the phones ringing with teachers, and a commitment to communicating the best science and solutions. In addition, kids are using art to express how they feel about what they learn. There's art to engage kids, to be angry and sad, to inspire and to heal. There's lots of passion and fire to go around there.

It's just what a world-weary mom needed to see to trust that maybe the present might lead to a version of the world in which I hope. The ACE educators ask kids how old they will be in 2050. The high school kids will be in their fifties. I will be eighty four. Lizzie will be fifty-two. What will it look like here then?

Lizzie's First Dance

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:23:00 +0000

Lizzie went to her first school dance tonight. I need to go pick her up in a few minutes. It's a sock hop, and families are theoretically welcome, but I'm not. Lizzie prefers to be independent tonight. That's OK, Pat and I hung out and he'd rather die than go to a sock hop.

We've been working up to this for days. Lizzie folded laundry to make money to go, and we went on search for fifties clothes. We spent about two hours today at least curling her hair, and munchkin was pretty cute. She hasn't called to come home early so I guess she's having fun.

We were hoping to get in the garden today but it's been pretty overcast and drizzly all day. Maybe tomorrow.

Photo: http://www.departments.dsu.edu/dsuarchives/histcalendar.htm

City of Golden Earth Day Awards

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:20:00 +0000

Last night I got to do something fun. I gave out the first annual Earth Day awards for the City of Golden on behalf of the Sustainability Advisory Board. We had a sixth grader, two community members, a trio of businesses and a great new community group.

Student: The student awardee has been recycling at his elementary school for years. He comes to school early every week to do it, and even showed up on a snow day. That one was the most fun to give out. His whole family was there, with a little baby and a little brother and everything. So cute, I almost got all choked up and had to count backwards so I didn't.

Individuals:
Our first recipient is an orthodontist in town, Dr. Chuck Courtad, known by all tweens and teens in town. He put up a SkyStream wind turbine off one of the main streets on town, and is expanding his demonstration site to include new technologies.

Steve Stevens can be seen riding his Victorian bike around town, complete with knickers. He turned his home into a net-zero home, then took it further and is now making more power than he consumes. He maintains an antique bike museum in his home and opens his home to visitors to show off the bikes and the technologies he used to transform his home. He even rode his Victorian bike straight into the Toyota dealers' office and said he was looking to update his wheels. He got such a deal on his Prius that he was able to convert it to a plug-in. The photo is Steve on a ride across America.

Business:
Several businesses in town have partnered to recycle their bottles. The Foss Liquor Store, Ace Hi Tavern and Blue Canyon Bar and Grill all take their bottles to a bottling facility locally, saving resources that would be used in sorting and transporting elsewhere. The owner of Blue Canyon said they can have 50 pounds of glass in a night. The owner of the Foss Liquor Store even gives a 5% discount for customers who bring bottles back for recycling.

Community Group:
It has been a great pleasure to watch the Golden Community Garden group emerge and make it happen. Our board set "Establilsh a group to administer a Golden community garden" on our list of short term priorities, and this group just stepped up with amazing energy and commitment. In what seemed like no time they got training from the Denver Urban Gardens, established a formal group and are going to put plants in the ground next month. The city provided a site, soil, a fence, raw water irrigation and our board provided funds for irrigation. We have needed a garden here forever, and I can't believe how fast it happened. Some of the things I really like about this group is that they intend to engage all groups such as those in the nearby senior housing, have elevated beds for handicapped gardeners and grow food for donation. It's all good, the best of sustainability.

It's amazing what is happening in Golden. Our mayor had the vision (though he always shifts the credit elsewhere), and the community is emerging to make things happen.

Photo credits:
Wind turbine story and photo: http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=69563
Golden Oldy's Cyclery: http://www.goldenoldy.org/
http://www.salisbury.gov.uk/recycling-bottles.jpg
Golden Community Garden: http://denver.yourhub.com/Golden/Stories/News/About-Town/Story~599632.aspx

New Solar Panels are ON!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:55:00 +0000

I turned on the new solar panels for the first time today-Yay! All day I thought about how our electricity was carbon-free.

I was happy with our company, Namaste Solar Electric. The person who reviews permits with the City of Golden said that if all contractors were as good as Namaste the inspections would all go well. I ended up getting both the Xcel rebate at 2008 levels and the 2009 federal tax credit that went up with the federal bailout. I think a lot of Namaste's integrity for offering to carry the project until 2009. They didn't need to let me know and they would have had an easier cash flow.

We went for a hike up Apex Trail today with another family. I know the dad from the Golden Sustainability Advisory Board, and we were wanting to get the kids together. We had a good hike on a lovely day, but I'm not sure the kids spoke to one another. It felt like they were on a blind date. But, I guess we'll try it again. It's worth it to have more connections in the neighborhood.

The first crocuses were up today. I need to look at my garden journal and see when it happened last year.

Namaste Solar Electric
Apex Trail

Happy Inauguration Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:27:00 +0000

Today everyone I met was happy and hopeful. There is such a sense of relief among the people I know, though everyone also talks about knowing that Obama is not a miracle-worker, that we have a long way to go to come up from where we are, and that it will not be easy.

I cannot believe how much in agreement I am with most of what Obama says. He is talking of dealing with climate change, putting science in it's rightful place, about not compromising our ideals for "safety", about changing the way we use resources and energy, and on and on. It's like a dream, I never thought I'd hear some of these things from our president.

I am so touched by the people I saw crying at the ceremony. The people I know are touched and sometimes crying not necessarily because of Obama's race but by the ideals he stands for. Race was not relevant for me in my decision to support him; but I am so happy for the people for whom his race is affirming and healing. He has been able to engage people who were disenfranchised and it will take all of us to bring this country back up. I am also proud of our country; to think that in other countries people are still killing their countrymen over tragedies that happened thousands of years ago and that in our country we have come from slavery to Obama since 1865 makes me proud. I heard one gentleman talking on NPR, a journalist who had gone undercover with the Klu Klux Clan and began work in civil rights in the 30's. He said he tells people he has been working on the Obama campaign since 1932.

I was also happy about McCain's gracious concession speech. He called us, regardless of our politics, to work together and to offer our support to the new president. To the extent that we are able to do that, I have hope for our future and for our ideals as Americans.

Don't Fall for the Recall

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:25:00 +0000

To continue on the political theme, this weekend Lizzie and I were involved with some old-fashioned grassroots campaigning. The citizen's group which is supporting our local city government against an unnecessary recall attempt organized a literature drop throughout the city. Lizzie went with me to the organizing meeting, we picked up lists of households and door hangers countering the recall attempt.

We are urging people not to sign the recall election petition as we think the recall is expensive ($50K of city funds), unnecessary as four of the six targeted seats will be up for election in November, and counterproductive as the city responds to real issues.

We've had beautiful weather all week, so it's not exactly hardship duty. Lizzie went with me on the first go-round while we left literature on the doorsteps. From a sustainability standpoint, it was great. We got some good exercise walking up hills and up endless stairways, we helped to support our city government, Lizzie and I talked about what we were doing and why, and I met a number of my neighbors.

The reactions of people varied. Our job was to leave literature, not to engage in conversation unless we were asked, but if homeowners were out it often led to discussion. Most people I talked with were in agreement that the recall is a bad idea, and some thanked us for what we were doing. Some people wanted to know more about the citizen's group and the neighborhood character planning that has been going on with city support.

Others were more skeptical. One fellow believed the rhetoric he had heard about council meetings being held in secret, so I was able to let him know about how the meetings are televised, and about the tapes of council meetings on file at the library, and to let him know about some other ways to be informed. In fact, the city is so very concerned about following the open meetings rules that our sustainability advisory board can't share our draft working documents on a public yahoo group or city blog site in case some people don't have internet access. And we don't even make decisions-we just advise! One person told me thanks but no thanks, but he was polite.

The reaction that disturbed me came from a kid. I had just dropped a door hanger off at a house with an open garage when two stick-carrying young boys came from a side yard. One said suspiciously "you didn't take anything did you?". I said no, of course not, I left a paper on the door for your parents. Lizzie and I went down the street and stopped to consult our map and as we walked on I saw the boy was following us with his stick, looking like he intended to run us off. This bothers me. Who raises their kids to be that suspicious? Poor child, to come at the world that way.

In my opinion, this city council has shown itself to be responsive to citizen input, and has already voted against some developments that are not consistent with what citizens want. We would be seriously shooting ourselves in the foot to disband this council, so hopefully we won't have to be distracted by this recall when we have more important things to deal with.

P.S. Our big news is that Pat found out he is accepted to the Lakewood High School International Baccalaureate program. The application consists of five letters of recommendation, a placement test, a writing sample, transcripts and a personal interview. Pat was a good candidate because of his academics, service and leadership with Boy Scouts, orchestra and sports. I hear that lots of parents push their kids into programs like this, but this is all Pat's initiative. I didn't even know the program existed until he told me about it. Pat, I'm proud of you!

Citizens for Golden grassroots group
Lakewood High School

That's OK, I Wasn't Using my Civil Liberties Anyway"

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:01:00 +0000

The title is from a bumper sticker I saw during the last administration. At that time I had not been the least involved in any kind of politics at any level besides showing up to vote and watching Jon Stewart. I got kind of teary at the ladies in black in silent vigil against the war. But that's as far as it went.

Lately there have been lots of opportunities to be involved in local politics. Sunday I went to a Congressional Action Training workshop held by MoveOn. MoveOn did lots of organizing on behalf of the Obama campaign, and is now engaging citizens to communicate with their representatives as legislation moves forward. I learned something about how relationships are built with representatives and how an effective meeting with a representative can be planned. I've never attended this sort of meeting, and I was surprised at the range of people there and the lack of piercings. There were passionate young things, and retired ladies, immigrants of different origins, and lots of people my age. I didn't see any dreadlocks but there was a dapper older European man in a suit who said not three words the whole time.

This local group is in Boulder, but a gentleman who lives in Golden intends to start a local "council" group here. I know that no one organization or candidate represents my views entirely, and I know that on some issues that I have serious areas of disagrement with MoveOn, but I do think it will be useful to keep the spirit and momentum of the campaign alive in my own district, and to be sure our representatives are aware of our views.

Also, tonight I attended a City of Golden focus group to provide input on a potential circulator bus for the city. There used to be a city circulator here about twelve or fourteen years ago. It was called the GUS bus, it had a cartoon of a miner named "Gus" on it, and apparently no one rode it. It folded, but now that we have light rail coming into our town and gas has been at $4/gallon and we have a city sustainability goal to reduce vehicle miles travelled, the notion is being revisited. Again, there was a full table of regular folks there to give their opinions. There were lots of good ideas, including being sure the bus serves the affordable housing areas of town and having more than two slots for bikes on the buses. This last is because our terrain is hilly-it's easy to ride down and hard to ride up. Once on the way back Lizzie started crying and begging me to leave her seven year old behind on the side of the highway and go get the car. It took at least an hour to push the bikes up the hill. I would have paid any amount of money to ride a bus at that moment. This is just a feasibility study, but I was encouraged to hear city representatives talking about feasibility beyond dollars and cents-there was also discussion that meeting our VMT goals is an element of feasibility as well.

These recent experiences, along with the work of the sustainability advisory board make it clear how influential regular citizens can be with just a small investment of time. For example, there is a bogus effort going on to recall our mayor and several councilpeople, but citizens organized immediately to counter the misinformation and to support our council. That could save us a lot of unnecessary divisiveness, expense and distraction.

I used to think that in order to be politically active one had to be an activist or protester. Some of my favorite Catholic figures are activists, such as Dorothy Day who was arrested throughout her life for civil disobedience including on a picket line at age 75. At this time, that's not my style-but it doesn't have to be.

Using my civil liberties is easier than I thought. Maybe I'll get to keep them.

Links:
Find a local MoveOn Council

Citizens for Golden Oppose the Recall Effort

Another New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Happy New Year! This year I'm not so much making resolutions as recommitting myself to the important things that are always on the list. This year I'm experimenting with the coaching notion of "standards:, or the things we hold to be true about ourselves and our lives. Standards are rooted in personal foundation, or the extent to which our lives promote our robust health and happiness and integrity.

Relative to last year's resolutions, the big thing that did get accomplished is that our solar panels went in last week. The electrician will hook up the inverter this week, then the power company needs to come out and inspect it. I lucked out, because I had a contract with Xcel for the 2008 rebate, then as part of the federal bailout the tax credit for solar PV went up. The solar company, Namaste in Boulder, allowed customers with projects in progress to wait until 2009 in order to get the maximum tax credit. So my system, which has a total cost of $30K will end up costing me $10K after all the rebates are done.

When it comes to the rest of my resolutions I still need to become more fit, keep working on the house, increasing my connections with my neighbors and friends, and to keep working on being more self-sufficient. But instead of focusing on what I haven't done, I will focus on what is true and important to me, and the actions come out of that, little by little, day by day.

Here are some examples of standards:
"I am a person who takes care of myself" Because this is true, increased fitness is a natural outcome. To do this I exercise about five times a week, keep track of what I am eating and how much, get bodywork when I need it and see my health practitioners regularly. So it's not about ten pounds, it's about health.

"My family lives in a pleasant and adequately (not obsessively) clean house" To do this I need to clean, paint, declutter and organize consistently. I have been having good success with this by spending a few hours a week working on house stuff while I listen to books on tape. Also, the kids have been good about doing their chores and helping. My time painting and listening to books on tape is time I really enjoy.

"I am increasing my connections in my community" Notice I didn't say I have a great network, since I don't feel that's true. It's important that a standard be something that is a stretch but is not untrue so as to promote guilt and "shoulds". It's all right to be growing into a new area. But in order to make my standard true, I am reconnecting with old neighbors and getting to know people in my town through new involvement in the city.

"I am working towards more self-sufficiency" The solar panels are a step in this direction, but my family has a long way to go. Consistent steps in this direction make this standard true.

This is a more enjoyable way to meet my goals, not focused on what I haven't done or am not, but on keeping integrity between what is true and important and the actions it takes to make it true.

Here's hoping for all good things for everyone in 2009. May we all thrive and be a light in the world.

Sustainability for Artists: "Greening Art" supplies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:00:00 +0000

"Pigment dust should not go into the earth, water or landfill, but into paint," says Robert Gamblin (Owner of Gamblin Artists Colors)

I was pleased to be invited to give a sustainability workshop for artists at the Dairy Center for the Arts this week, as part of the EcoArts program. EcoArts is a wonderful set of events organized by my friend and colleague Marda Kirn. The project bring artists and scientists together to raise public awareness of climate change and sustainable living. EcoArts happens from September 12 through October 9 this year, and the schedule of events may be found online.

Marda asked me to find out about "Greening Art", or how to make the practices of art more sustainable. I found that if someone wants to write a book about "greening" art, the field is wide open. Information on environmental practices in art is scattered throughout the internet and print world, but it seems the field is only just beginning to consider how to be more sustainable. It goes way beyond using recycled materials.

Information on health and safety is more widely available than environmental information, so I presumed that if a material is toxic or accumulates in humans, it is probably not a good thing to put into the environment. It turns out that just going by Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDS) is not adequate; they are based upon warning of short-term toxicity after eight hour exposure of a healthy adult. MSDS don't warn of chronic health risks. Also, an artist with a home studio may be exposed 24/7, or may be way more "familiar" with their materials than just daubing them on a canvas with a brush. If children or elderly people are present in the home they may experience a more significant risk. Some pigments which have not been tested are considered "non-toxic" because no one has proven them harmful. Furthermore, "natural" labeling does not mean safe. Citrus-based solvents contain d-limonene, which is also used as a pesticide, and has a safe permissible exposure limit much lower than that of other solvents. "Biodegradable" does not necessarily mean non-toxic. So, what's a health and environment conscious artist to do?

The Arts and Creative Materials Institute (ACMI) provides labeling that is more conservative, for both short-term and chronic hazards. The ACMI labels materials "AP" Approved Product or "CL" Cautionary Labeling. The most stringent labeling is that of the California Proposition 65, but the only art materials that include Prop 65 labeling is the Golden Artist line. The others are for the most part battling having to use the Prop 65 label, according to my reading.

I went to the big art supply store in Denver, where the most environmental manufacturer was thought to be Gamblin. The Gamblin solvent is less toxic than others, and the company captures the pigments lost in their manufacturing process. Once a year, Gamblin makes an oil paint out of the accumulated residue, which is of course, gray. Some years it's a warm gray, some years it's a cool gray, and the tubes are given away for free. The nice gentleman at Meinenger's gave me a tube of this "Torrit" gray. The Gamblin company has a competition every year for the best values-based oil painting made only with Torrit gray, black and white paint. You can see the winners of the 2007 competition here. Isn't that the elegant thing about sustainability, making something of beauty and creativity that respects limits and efficiency?

So where do you get these more environmental art supplies? I found one on-line art supply store called Eco-Art Supplies , which carries Gamblin and Golden Artist Colors among other supplies.

More sustainable practices in art topics include reducing waste, recycling supplies, and "green" promotion, but that will need to wait for another post.

Here are some helpful resources I found on the topic of hazardous art materials, again presuming that if it's bad for you it's bad to dump in a landfill or down the toilet:

Artist Beware: The Hazards in Working with All Art and Craft Materials-and the Precautions Every Artist and Photographer Should Take by Michael McCann

The Artist’s Complete Health and Safety Guide by Monona Rossol

Facts Sheets on Art Safety Topics by Monona Rossol, at her company ACTS. Free with postal address Example titles: All About Wax (5 pages), Art Painting (5 pages), Ceramic Ware Hazards (7 pages), Dyes and Pigments (5 pages), Labels: Reading Between the Lies (6 pages)

Material Safety Data Sheets for art supplies at BLICK art materials

Online Health and Safety in the Arts Library ; University of Illinois at Chicago

California Proposition 65: Most stringent labeling list for hazardous substances

Independence days Update #5

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:13:00 +0000

This week has been pretty busy, but we did get some things done. We took a couple of days off while Pat went to football camp and the rest of us hung around the house. We shopped for school supplies and are in general looking forward to Fall. Or wishing summer would last longer, as the case may be.

Planted: Buckwheat and Good Bug Blend.

Harvested: Onions, tomatoes, parsley, eggplant, peppers, clover (for rabbits). Lizzie harvested plantain and we picked chokecherries down along the bike trail.

Prepped: Bought double of everything on our list at the grocery store, bought 50 lbs of organic hard red winter wheat from Golden Organics, acquired some more items for our two week reserves. Maintained inventory. Patrick dug up a little more vegetable bed in the backyard.

Preserved: Made parsley up into pesto with home grown garlic and froze in ice cube trays. The chokecherries are to be juiced and made into syrup.

Lizzie made plantain oil. She used fresh plantain leaf poultice on a nasty bruise for a few days and is convinced the it healed her. She really did heal very quickly. She submerged the leaves in olive oil and put it in the crock pot on low for a couple of days. Reading other people's instructions, we should have wilted the leaves to reduce the moisture content and increase the shelf life of the oil, so we will keep it in the refrigerator. If we get some beeswax we can make the oil into a salve. It's easy to find instructions on the internet.

Reduced waste: Commited to a solar photovoltaic system. The system will meet all of our yearly electricity needs and then a little. We get a big rebate from XCel, and there is a $2000 federal tax credit. I will be out of pocket by about $12K, of which about $9K will immediately accrue back to us as higher property value. I decided not to get a battery backup system at this time, but it would mean that if the power goes out our inverter will shut off and we will be down also. I'm not happy with that but since battery technology is improving it seems like a good decision for now.

Learned a new skill: Making plantain oil was new, and I did learn what lambsquarter looks like. It's edible.

Cooked something: Everything ricotta, since we made ricotta when we intended to make mozzarella. I made ricotta sauce for pasta, sweet ricotta stuffed in apricots, roasted peppers and squash blossoms. I used ricotta in bread pudding and in smoothies.

The whey from cheese making got used in apricot smoothies made from frozen Farmer's Market apricots, and it was pretty good. I'm the only one who will knowingly use the whey It's just part of the milk, so where's the logic?

Managed reserves: Rotated and added to stock. We are closing in on our goal to have two weeks worth stored. I have a hard time believing that all of this food and stuff would be needed for just two weeks, but maybe I'd feel differently if I actually needed it.

Local food systems: I went through a friend's garden, inherited whole and lush from the previous homeowners. I identified all the herbs and edible plants I knew and he and his girlfriend were thrilled to know more about their treasure. They have a magical place there.

My quarter of a grass-fed steer has been processed and I have alerted the people who will split it with me. I found out that the pasta I have been buying from Farmer's Market is not actually local-bummer. The market bunnies are growing like mad, going through food like crazy. We take them to the 4-H Fair on Thursday. I am ambivalent, but it is a good exercise in knowing where food comes from.

An aside: Lizzie drew me a picture yesterday. It had a crescent moon and a bunch of stars in the sky. One of the stars was a flower. She said I am the flower because I'm not like the other moms. She says that's ok, so that's a relief.

Ricotta and Apricot Recipes for Breakfast and Dessert

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:05:00 +0000

The ricotta glut is now officially over. I made the ricotta that was supposed to be mozzarella into a sweet filling by adding a couple tablespoons of honey, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and a good sprinkling of cinnamon. I had some dry leftover bread and a container of apricot-rum sauce we made to eat with the coffee cake Pat made.

Apricot-Rum sauce:
If you are a locavore, buy apricots at Farmer's Market or grow them yourself. The Western Slope Colorado apricot season was in full swing the last couple of weeks and the apricots were luscious. I got a twenty pound box for $30. Pick ten of the sweetest, most ripe fruits. Pit and chop. In a saucepan, cook on low-medium. Add rum to taste as a flavoring, sugar or honey to taste and cinnamon to taste. Simmer on low-medium heat until cooked through and then mash with a potato masher. Add water if a thinner sauce is desired.

Ricotta and Apricot-Rum Bread Pudding:
Grease a casserole pan with oil or shortening. Cut up dry bread into small chunks. Dot the top of the first bread layer with the sweet ricotta mixture and the apricot-rum sauce. Add another layer of bread chunks. Dot with more apricot sauce. Crack eggs into a measuring cup. For every egg cracked into the measuring cup add milk to equal a half cup mixture per egg. For example, in a two cup measuring cup, crack in four eggs and add milk until two cups is reached. Whisk in sugar or honey to taste and add about a teaspoon each of cinnamon and vanilla. Remember the sugar and seasonings in the custard mix will be spread through the bread, so make the custard a little more seasoned than you want it to taste. Pour the mixture into the casserole pan. If the level doesn't reach the top of the bread layers make more. Let sit for ten minutes so the bread can soak up the custard mix. Push down any bread chunks that are staying dry. Bake at 375F for 30-45 minutes, or until golden brown and non-mushy on top and a knife comes out mostly clean from the center. I think this tastes best slightly warm, not hot just out of the oven and not cold just out of the refrigerator.

Sweet Ricotta-Stuffed Apricots:
Pick firm fruit, wash and dry gently. Pit the fruit carefully by cutting in half. For this recipe, add only enough honey and vanilla to the ricotta to flavor, not so much that the mixture is runny and won't hold its shape. The batch pictured is a little too runny. Carefully pipe or spoon the sweet ricotta mixture into the apricots and sprinkle with cinnamon. This makes a nice breakfast, dessert or brunch dish. And it's easy.

P.S. I made that tray in pottery class with Lizzie. Forming things on a mold is way easier than throwing on the wheel. Also I realized yesterday that I've had my bread pudding pan for 25 years. Eventually I will have cookie sheets that are old enough to be President.

Enjoy!

Creamy Homemade Goodness: Pasta with Ricotta Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:05:00 +0000

Since we tried to make mozzarella and ended up with ricotta instead I have much more ricotta than I'm used to having. So, I tried a new ricotta recipe.

For dinner, we made Pasta with Ricotta Tomato Sauce, with a bunch of other stuff from the garden. I was really pleased with this recipe for the sheer unaccustomed homemade and homegrown feeling of accomplishment.

Here's a photo of the homemade/homegrown stuff that went into it. The ricotta was homemade from local milk, the tomato, peppers, little eggplants, parsley, scallions, garlic and rosemary were all from the garden. We used Cracked Pepper Fettucini from Pappardelles from the Golden Farmer's Market. The bummer is that when I looked up the Pappardelles website I found that they are a national company that distributes through farmers markets. The pasta is still good, but now I don't want to pay those prices for something that's not local. Guess we'll have to learn to make pasta. The parmesan, pinenuts and olive oil were also nonlocal but substitutions can be made.

We adapted from the original recipe which used rotini and didn't include the other vegetables.

Here is our recipe:
Cut eggplants, peppers, peapods and scallions in small chunks. Finely mince three cloves garlic. Spray pan with olive oil and saute, adding more olive as needed.

Start pasta cooking.

Combine about 15 oz ricotta cheese with 1/4 c. finely grated parmesan cheese and one tsp. black pepper. Mix 1/4 c. hot pasta water into the ricotta mixture.

Cut tomatoes into small chunks, mix with two tablespoons olive oil and 1/4 cup minced parsley.

When the pasta is al dente, drain and put in a big bowl. Spoon ricotta sauce onto the bed of pasta and toss with big forks. Add the sauted vegetables and the tomato/parsley mixture on top, toss lightly.

Serve with grated parmesan and pinenuts on the side. Lizzie and I made the little bowls in pottery class. We are not accomplished potters, which means we have an abundance of tiny bowls. In hindsight, I think rotini really would have been better, since the sauce is better suited for a chunky pasta.

Great Balls of Seeds

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:00:00 +0000

"Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature."
Masanobu Fukuoka

Yesterday I finally got around to trying something I've wondered about often. I have lots of good bug blend seed mix, buckwheat, clover and vetch seed from Peaceful Valley Farm, and I want to establish it in the dry barren hinterlands of the backyard where I rarely go. In this heat I know that I will only really keep the vegetables watered and won't be able to keep cover crop seed beds moist. Seedballs to the rescue!

Seedballs, or "Earth Dumplings" are an ancient technique reintroduced by Masanobu Fukuoka, pioneer of modern natural farming and author of "The One Straw Revolution". Seeds are mixed with compost, dry clay and water, then the mixture is shaped into marble-sized balls and dried. Once dry the seedballs can be broadcast into weedy or barren areas to sprout when conditions are right. The clay helps retain moisture and the seeds sprout protected inside the ball. You can even be a stealth gardener and seed weedy vacant lots in your neighborhood, but don't ever throw them into a natural area.

I made buckwheat seedballs for the hindmost piece of sandy backyard hell where only quack grass would grow. That way I'm hoping if I manage to water it a couple of times it will take and I can still go camping for a few days. I want to repeat this with the beneficial bug mix to go along the fence row with the currants/gooseberries/blackberry/rasberries. I have clover and vetch to go under the elderberries and under the pine. I suppose I should mix in some innoculant for the nitrogen-fixers. It seems like it would work for some of the herbs and flowers going to seed in the front, such as the sorrel and parsley and the coreopsis, yarrow, monarda and wild sunflowers. Instead of just deadheading and throwing the seeds into new areas unprotected, they might have a better chance as seedballs.

It took me probably forty minutes to form two trays of seedballs, so that's pretty labor intensive for a woman of my schedule. But, it's a perfect kid job. Lizzie digs in the mud and makes sculptures and pies for fun, so I think she will be willing to make mud balls for profit.

Seedball recipe:
Mix one part seeds (your choice) with three parts compost and five parts dry powdered clay. I used store bought compost, but too late I thought my vermicompost would work. Some recipes say terra cotta powder from a craft store, but you can also use clay from the garden. If you buy wet clay it has to be dried and powdered for some reason. I used clay from the yard that I had sifted when removing the hated gravel.

Add one to two parts water and mix well. Shape into small marble-sized balls and dry. The Path to Freedom site says the balls should be penny sized-mine were bigger. Throw about and add patience. It might take a long time until conditions are right. Seeds I threw around two years ago have just come up this year.

Interview with Masanobu Fukuoka: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC14/Fukuoka.htm

June and July Retrospective

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:52:00 +0000

I’m finding there is an inherent tension between making hay while the sun shines and writing about making hay. That's why the radio silence the last two months. Plus, we were gone to California for a couple of weeks, tooling a rented Prius to Six Flags Magic Mountain where they have a roller coaster that shoots flames at you when you go by. And we visited my family.

I can’t believe how much food there is there-lemons roll about on the sidewalks, dripping off the backyard walls. We u-picked some blueberries at Underwood Family Farms and feasted until we were sick of them. Turns out the kids mostly wanted to pick them, not eat them.

We’ve been getting a lot done, so this will be a thumbnail sketch that I will flesh out in later posts.

But first, I have to share the oddest compliment a mother has ever received. We were talking and Lizzie said “Mom, if there wasn’t any food I would want to live with you because you would know how to make earthworms taste good.” I’m conflicted: I’m proud because she thinks I’m a good cook or at least good to have around in a tight spot, but I don’t want her to be worried about food. I am storing food as a hedge against many contingencies, some of which are personal, not TEOTWAWKI.

Planted: Beans and more beans. But something is eating them as soon as they come up-likely culprits are legions of pillbugs.

Harvested: Garlic, peas, lavender, elderflower, mint, bell peppers, hot peppers, salad peppers, cherry tomatoes, strawberries (a few per day), potato (that’s right, single as in one potato, not bushels). But, for many of these things it’s the first successful bit of food out of several attempts. Harvested clover for the bunnies.

Prepped: Bought two fifteen gallon water containers from Emergency Essentials, bought a few vegetable oil lamp set ups to use spent frying oil. Mylar storage bags and oxygen absorbers arrived a while back. Bought more canning jars.

Preserved: Elderflower and mint tea, dried lavender, made apricot fruit leather and dried plums and apricots in the back of the car (it worked!), canned apricot and plum jam (20 half pints). Froze apricots and peaches in batches for jam making or fruit leather, and by halves for use in winter fruit smoothies. Lizzie made lavender water by soaking the flowers in the sun for awhile. It smells amazing and she spritzed it on everything for a weekend. Since there is no preservative I froze it in ice cube trays to keep for tea/linens/refreshing spray/baking flavoring.

Reduced waste: Not sure if this is where it fits, but I had my roof evaluated by Namaste Solar Electric and am awaiting a bid. I’m definitely going forward, finally. I’ll end up with about a 3 kw photovoltaic system. The nice young man who came out said he sees electricity usage three times ours in houses our size. Plus, though these months used to be our worst for electricity due to AC, we have cut our usage down by 75% because of the insulation we put in last year. Go Team Buhr!

Learned a new skill: We tried making cheese. It turns out that either we messed up or our Longmont Dairy milk is ultra-pasteurized after all. Instead of making mozzarella we ended up with ricotta. But, the ricotta is good and hope springs eternal so next time we are going to try the dry milk and cream recipe from New England Cheese Making Supply .

Cooked something: See cheese under learned something new. The leftover whey does make a refreshing lemonade with a touch of lemon and sugar or honey, and makes a good smoothie. I'm the only one who will drink it, but I don't see why buying powdered whey to put in a smoothie would be better than the fresh stuff.

I made jam for the first time since the kids were little. The kitchen was *really* hot. Apricot fruit leather dehydrated in the car worked great. I'm not as enamored of the dried apricots and plums, but it did work.

Managed reserves: La familia is getting used to writing it down when they take something from storage. That way I can keep the inventory up to date. Lizzie thought it looked like fun, so she learned how to use the food storage inventory software. I made up inventory sheets modeled after the ones described here for the family to mark up as items are taken. Bought a variety of beans for storage, some canned fruit and vegetables, socks and underwear and toiletries.

Local food systems: The big news is that we picked up a pen of three Californian breed meat rabbits to raise for the 4-H fair. Three kids from our rabbit club are raising meat pens for the livestock auction for the first time in about ten years.

Meat rabbits were once a common sight in urban backyards. These days, many people see rabbits as pets only, and view the idea of raising them for meat with repugnance. We have always had pets, not livestock, so I am sympathetic. However, meat rabbits provide a healthy meat, are an environmental choice for protein as part of an integrated backyard food system, and add to a family's self-sufficiency. We'll see how this baby step goes. Gentle readers-what do you think?

I sent in my deposit for a quarter of a grass-fed steer from Colorado's Best Beef. It will result in about 150 lbs of beef (six times what we used last year), but some of my co-workers will share. Since Patrick is growing like a time-lapse film of a growing boy and he is starting football he wants more meat and complains if we don't have it periodically.

I also potted up some parsley plants for my coworker.

We are far from where I would eventually like to be, but it adds up over time.

Photo credits:
http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/cheshire/watch_earthworms.htm

Independence Days Update #3

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:18:00 +0000

Wow, it's June already. This is the first summer for StepWise Family blog, and I can tell you it's hard to come in and write on the computer when the outside is so glorious.

Since I wrote last I have attended the Spring American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, where among other things, I learned that honey bee colony collapse disorder is not related to climate change. This, according to a NASA researcher-beekeeper who has kept great records and uses satellite data to study changes in nectar availability. However, the nectar season is starting earlier than a decade ago according to his data.

On the home front, I have been going great guns, but not writing about it. So here goes as an update:

Planted: Cabbage, onions, blackberry, raspberry, jostaberry, more strawberry, comfrey, squash, zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, oregano. Volunteer potatoes are coming up from last year's patch, also volunteer parsley. I threw some columbine seeds around two years ago and they are just coming up.

Harvested: Mint, chives, dandelions (leaves and blossoms), garlic scapes, sorrel.

Preserved: Started to preserve dandelion blossoms. Why? Because I came across some dandelion candy from South Korea and thought it would be fun to try making dandelion jellies, as in candies, not a spread for toast. I cut the petals off hundreds of blossoms. Midway through, Lizzie came up and watched me cut the petals off dandelion blossoms. I just kept going expecting her to ask *what the heck!* I was doing, but she didn't. She just watched for about a minute, then she looked up and caught my eye and we both fell all around laughing like crazy. What cracks me up is that the kids aren't even surprised anymore by whatever might happen. Later, I found myself thinking someone else must have a lot of time to do whatever fool thing they were doing and I had to remind myself I had just cut the petals off hundreds of dandelions, so who am I to talk.

Stored: Bought 25 lb black beans from the bulk organic warehouse and 30 lbs raisins. I bagged all the raisins in 2 lb sacks, which is not fun. Stocked up at the grocery store on canned tuna and clams. These are of course not local, but they are the only canned meat we eat. Also bought more at the grocery store to lead up to two weeks stores in the pantry.

Prepped: A lot. I am reading "Gardening When It Counts", which is a useful counterpoint to the other gardening books I read. I was able to let go of my perfectionism and practice the "Hills and Survival Gardening" section in the book, finally getting started on digging up a section of grass that I have been coveting for vegetables for years. I just dug hills within the grass and planted them, with the rest of the digging scheduled for the rest of the summer. Just dig as you go and don't freak out over it or think it has to look like a magazine.

Hung codling moth lures in the pear and apple trees and added Tanglefoot traps to the trunks. One of the lures is filled with moths on the tree where the Tanglefoot came away. The other has just one or two. I must research the codling moth lifecycle-is it the moths that climb up the tree or the larva?

Prepped and Managed: I added new drip irrigation to the elderberry bushes and the front garden where it used to be grass but now it's vegetables.

I bought Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers for my long term storage items, and my Freecycle buddy brought over some buckets. We bought Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) for the 72-hour preparedness kit and some first aid kits from Emergency Essentials. I bought the Revelar Food Storage Planner software, which has been really helpful. You can get free software but I liked the functionality of the Revelar software.

We are working on two weeks worth of storage, which has been a goal of mine ever since I become aware of bird flu. People sometimes think this kind of attention is due to alarmism or a survivalist bent. I am rather thinking of it as insurance, and as a reserve in the same way I have reserves of money and of time (sometimes). I'll never be sorry to be prepared. The other day when I was stacking cans in the storage pantry I thought "I'll never have to run to the grocery for dinner at the last minute again".

Cooked Something New: When I got up Saturday, 10 yo Lizzie was downstairs making sopapillas. She had gotten up, looked up a recipe on the Internet and was preparing the yeast dough when I stumbled down in search of coffee. She made the dough, and went through the knead, rise, rest, roll, cut cycles all by herself, then I fried them. I am so impressed that she can do this by herself at ten, and not even feel she needs to ask for help. We can make this treat from our storage easily. Well, not easily, but using what we have.

We tried some new things in the solar oven; corn bread and baked eggs. The eggs were overcooked and could have been done in a third the time, but it worked like a charm.

Worked on local food systems:
We went to the 4-H garden at St. Joan of Arc, where we were greeted by overwhelming weeds. The whole garden had to be re-rototilled and the warm season transplants planted.

We also found a local independent butcher who has local buffalo and rabbit meat.

Reduced waste: Just composting as usual.

Learned a skill: I learned how to set up the drip irrigation. It took a little learning curve but I can at least work with the tubing and connectors thingies now, even though at first my hand strength was not adequate. I have to drill a small pilot hole in the 1/2" polytube for the connector to work. Stronger people probably don't have to do that, but it's what worked for me.

Also, I'm happy to have baked bread in the solar oven. It has more of a steamed texture than baked, but it is pleasingly dense and a good option.

A couple of weekend days I intentionally stayed outside all day long working in the garden and not concerned with work or housework or cooking or paying bills. Those are restful days, though I come in filthy and sunburned, scratched and with lower back aches. Just like when I was a kid, except without the lower back pain.

Saturday I found an aspen seedling in my parsley patch, which I would normally pull. But, this one was covered with aphids and ladybug larva. I showed Lizzie what ladybug larva look like, since they are so alarming looking a person might just think they were bad and get rid of them. Since this aspen seedling is a ladybug farm I left it.

I love finding the volunteer plants coming up all around. I think the soil life is slowly getting better so that seeds which couldn't find purchase before are now emerging.

I'll try to post much more frequently, that may be the only way I can keep up. It sure is the busy season!

Independence Days Update #2

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:22:00 +0000

It's been a slowish week in the Buhr household, just trying to stave off entropy and make slow progress on my goals. So, here's this week's update for Sharon Astyk's Independence Days challenge. Sharon has a food storage online group which is amazingly erudite and energetic. What those people do in a week, I am lucky to do in a season.

But here goes:

Planted: More strawberries, a grape vine, an aronia shrub (some sort of chokecherry), a fig, cabbage seedlings and two blueberries. I am woefully behind on the annual vegetable garden and something ate all the radish seedlings, but I'm just trying to get my perennials in. It's hard to realize but slowly the yard is becoming more productive and perennial food plants are becoming established. The soil is still pretty infertile, so it's nothing like lush but right now I'm settling for alive.

Harvested: Just little bits of garlic greens, sorrel and a little mint.

Preserved: Nothing. There isn't much to preserve beyond dandelions, and I just can't bring myself to do it. Lizzie said she probably would not eat dandelion jelly, and if she won't eat it no one will except me. I did read about how to make dandelion coffee. I just imagined the brouhaha that would result if I tried to substitute roasted dandelion root for part of our coffee. But if we are ever in dire straits, I'll be ready, though bleary and with a headache.

Prepped: I picked up more bulk beans and raisins for the food storage. Also stocked up on cooking oil and doubled items on the grocery list for storage.

Cooked Something New: Lizzie and I love love love our new Sport Sun Oven. We made rice, which turned out to be the best rice I have ever had, and I don't even like brown rice. We ate it all for lunch immediately. It was tender, fluffy, and somehow "ricier" if you can imagine. Also we made beans and roasted potatoes and beets. It was like magic to put it out and come back to perfectly cooked food. The first day was even pretty marginal for sun, but it was no problem.

Manage reserves: Cleaned out the fridge and roasted the last of the winter CSA vegetables in the sun oven. Still lots of cabbage but the end is in sight.

Reduce Waste: We went through Lizzie's clothes to take to the thrift store, all the items that either don't fit her, or "I'm never going to wear that again no matter how much you make me!". One has to pick one's battles.

Local food systems: Nothing new here.

Learned new skill: See sun oven under cooked something new.

Spiritual/creative: I am talking more about religion on this blog then I set out to do, but that is where life is taking me these days. I picked up a book about keeping the sabbath since it has become clear that it's no longer optional. Imagine my surprise when the first practical chapter "Eating and the Sabbath" was about eating food that is grown in ways that care for creation, that support local economies, and that generally promote health and delight. Other chapters are about supporting local and just economies, caring for creation through environmentalism, and living simply. Since my theological education is lacking, I don't understand everything, but the take home message is that I'm on the right track. I already knew that, but now it has a deeper layer that I can't fully express.

Hope all of you are well, and enjoying spring.

Independence Days Update #1

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:59:00 +0000

I love Sharon Astyk's Independence Days challenge, drawing as it does on the "single daily action" so dear to a coach's heart. I already try to do something every day towards greater sustainability, but a challenge helps me to have more focus and motivation.

So, here is this week's update:

Planted: Some strawberry plants, red and black currant bushes, gooseberries and elderberries. Note-I had to call the utility company to have them mark the electricity, phone, and gas lines so I could safely plant. The very nice young man on the phone said the lines could be anywhere from a few inches to a couple of feet underground. Happily, the lethal lines are usually deepest, but still, the take-home point is to be sure, give a wide berth and not get electrocuted or blown up. That's just not sustainable.

Harvested: Garlic greens for use in cabbage rolls, sorrel for salad and tonight, yummy dandelion fritters. Recipe below.

Preserve something: I didn't do this. Sharon has been drying dandelions, and I need to ask if she is drying leaves or roots. I'm not sure what I'd do with either.

Prep something: I researched solar ovens and bought the Sport Solar Oven from the Path to Freedom online store. I had been looking at the more expensive Global Sun Oven that gets up to 360-400 degrees, but after reading reviews I decided on the Sport. According to the reviews the Global Sun Oven, because it is so efficient, can have fluctuating temperatures and overcook food. That plus the heftier price tag and the greater weight made me decide on the lighter, more inexpensive Sport. I intend to cook dishes that will sit while I'm at work and I can't watch to guard against overcooking food. I know that serviceable solar ovens can be made from scraps, but since I want to be able to use it during the sunny but cold winter days I decided to buy commercial.

Prep something II: I also cleaned, did a little more on the never-ending front entry project, and started decluttering the hall closet. This is where the online life maintenance list I subscribe to, Flylady, reigns supreme. When the house is clean and peaceful it's fun to be home, so we don't have to drive around "having fun". And, when our stuff is organized and decluttered we know what we have and where it is and others can use our used goods.

These days, the goods are barely even used. The kids are growing out of their clothes like one of those time-lapse movies, certainly faster than the clothes can become worn. Lizzie has taken to wearing my clothes, and Pat is a quarter inch taller than me as of this week. It's a big deal. He can finally call me "Little Mommy", the moment he's been waiting for for years.

Prep something III: Tallied up our stored water and bought a few gallons more, bought a couple of extra items at the grocery store for storage. A while back I asked our Freecycle list where I could find five gallon buckets for food storage. A lady who works at a restaurant is kindly keeping them for me.

Cook something: Nothing really new here, just cooking to manage reserves and to give me an excuse to eat dandelions. I told Rob tonight I'm probably the only mom on the block cooking up dandelions, and he thought I was probably the only one in the state. Certainly that is not true given the active relocalization movements and the mountain mamas with which the Centennial State is blessed, but I may indeed be the only one in the Heritage Dells neighborhood.

Manage reserves: Still awash in cabbage, and the Golden Farmer's Market has not yet started, so I'm trying to use up my root veggies and cabbage from the fridge. Lots of coleslaw with sorrel to tart it up, and the aforementioned cabbage rolls to use the grass-fed hamburger stored from the fall. And cabbage for breakfast with beans, and cabbage everywhere else. Is it possible I'll ever be glad to see cabbage again?

Local food systems: Lizzie and I went to the St. Joan of Arc Preschool 4-H Garden to plant another row of peas and some sweet peas. Since I knew about innoculants I have been placed in charge of legumes. In StepWise Coaching news, I learned this week that I will co-present a workshop on "Reducing Your Carbon Footprint" at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, premier museum in the Rocky Mountain Region. I am very excited about it, and one of my topics will be on developing a local diet. To be held on a Saturday in October TBD.

Spiritual/Creative: I've added this element, because it's important to my ability to do the rest, and just because. Since I attended a retreat at the Abbey of St.Walburga two weeks ago, I have been trying to continue drawing and building rest and enjoyment into my week.

Last weekend I took only an hour, but this week I worked hard Saturday so I could take all of today to read, plant stuff, be with the family, go to church and cook dandelion fritters. At sunset last night I lit a candle, poured a glass of wine, said a special grace at dinner and let go of getting stuff done. It was a big relief. Lizzie was a little worried-she wondered if having Sabbath meant she couldn't be hyper at the dinner table. I assured her that we weren't having a "Little House on the Prairie"-style sabbath, and she could be as hyper as usual. As if there's an option.

Here the recipe I used, cobbled together from a couple of sources.

Fritter Batter:
2 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
4 eggs
2 c. milk
2 tsp melted butter
2 c dandelion blossoms (washed, patted dry and coarsely chopped)

Drop by large spoonfuls onto a griddle and fry as pancakes. They are essentially vegetable tasting pancakes, which could be a main dish with sour cream and applesauce like latkes, a side dish, or maybe breakfast. Makes roughly 26, but it's hard to tell because I was eating them.

So, my day off is drawing to an end, the sky has a rainy look, the cats are laying about, and there's nothing to do but drink tea and relax until tomorrow.

Back at the Ranch

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:15:00 +0000

As Spring has sprung, I am finding less time to write since everything in the garden needs to be done along with everything else. I have begun posting once a week, on roughly Thursdays while I work on other things. So, the following is a grab bag of what's been going on.

Garden Survivors
Enough of the perennials in the garden have started leafing out that I can see what made it through the winter and what didn't. One of the two contorted quinces in the pots next to the door made it, but so far the other is looking pretty sad. The Crimson and Gold quince next to the aspens did survive, so at least I still have two varieties for pollination. I can take a cutting from the surviving contorted quince if I want to maintain the symmetry of the pots.

Of the two young kiwis, the male survived, but so far no sign of life from the female. I can't fix that with cuttings, so I'll have to buy another one.

I made the mistake of buying my raspberries and blackberries last fall, thinking I could plant them. But, it was too cold here to plant when they arrived, so they have been suffering through the winter on my grow light shelves. They are pretty pathetic, but about half survived. I may need to buy a few more. From now on I only buy perennials in the spring.

Two of the three rhubarb have come back and I haven't lost hope for the third. All of the little asparagus seem to have died, but they weren't in a very good place. The sorrel survived in two different parts of the garden, and is becoming pretty well established. The parsley is coming up all over the yard, where it reseeded. The little garlic patch is pretty well perennialized now too and garlic greens have met all our garlic needs since the winter CSA ran out.

The peas I planted at Easter have finally raised their cold, waterlogged heads. Much more work in the garden needs to be done, so thank goodness for the longer days of spring and summer.

Sustaining Myself
Sharon Astyk had a nice comprehensive list of how to "take a breath" and sustain ourselves when the world appears bleak, maybe even going to hell in a handbasket. My art retreat last weekend fit the bill for me. I carpooled up to the Abbey of St. Walburga to attend a retreat on "Contemplative Art", getting in touch with the inner landscape. The link is to an article about the retreats there, the abbey website appears to be down at the moment. Funny. While the retreat was not a Catholic retreat, it was at the abbey, so those of us who wanted to could have Mass and observe the Liturgy of the Hours with the nuns. The abbey chapel is built in a modern fashion and reflects a modern ecological awareness. The architecture symbolizes the amazing natural landscape around us. The nuns singing chant during the office, and their joy did my heart good. The oldest nun was well-cared for, the young nun who wheeled her in was sure she had her book and that her glasses were on comfortably and made sure she was set before joining the choir. During the sign of peace the oldest nun looked at us retreatants and smiled so happily. I almost cried.

The nuns were always composed during choir, but outside of chapel they were always laughing and smiling. About a third are young, younger than me. One of them always had a smile hovering during chapel, looking as though it threatened to turn into a giggle.

The art was intended to bring us out of our thinking, judging, critical brain and put us in our holistic, creative, process-oriented brain. Almost all of the participants said "but I'm not an artist" when introducing themselves. At the end the lady who had been next to me and who wouldn't accept compliments on her pieces cried because she could make art. I cried too because I had arrived with a big jagged hole in my peace, and through the art and the surroundings I could get back in touch with it. After that, my art was all essentially a prayer about how we live our lives and how we steward our world and each other. What a wonderful thing to spend some time with nothing to produce but only to enjoy the art and the colors and the beautiful landscape and the people. I want to bring Lizzie next time and establish a regular time in my week where I do nothing but enjoy and rest.

Golden Sustainability Board
Our board had our second meeting last night, and to be sure we are on the same page we had a facilitator who helped us develop our own definition of sustainability. We are going to sit with it for awhile and then I'll share it. We all talked about our vision and what it means to us, and I think we came up with a good definition. At the end the board nominated me to be chair and our former long-time mayor to be vice-chair. I am continually amazed at the long hours the city staff puts in to attend board meetings and take minutes and lead information meetings. After our last meeting a young woman came up and said she had moved recently from Oklahoma City. While there she tried in vain to even open a dialogue about recycling, so with her voice even a little trembling, she said it is so important to her to see that there is a whole effort and resources being put into sustainability in Golden. Let us on the board recognize the responsibility we have to that young woman, and all the others like her.

Hotter and Drier

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:21:00 +0000

While this title could be about being peri-menopausal, it's not. No, rather than examining climate change of a personal nature, it's about observed climate change impacts in the West, with particular attention to Colorado and the Colorado River Basin. The report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization (RMCO) draws from the IPCC 4th Assessment, lots of observed datasets and analysis done in part by people who work at the CIRES institute where I work at CU Boulder. Here are some paraphrased excerpts:

"The West is being effected more by a changed climate than any other part of the United States outside of Alaska"

"You can't call it a drought anymore, because it's going over to a drier climate. No one says the Saraha is in drought." Dr. Richard Seager, Columbia University

While for the last five years the global climate has averaged 1.0 degree F warmer than the 20th century average, the West has warmed by 1.7 degrees F, or 70% more warming than for the world as a whole. In Colorado, the warming has been 1.9 F. Much of the warming has been statistically attributed to human-caused global warming.

We are having substantively more heat waves of the deadly type, with heat persisting through the night. In contrast, the East is experiencing a decrease in the hottest days.

Our spring temperatures are warming, which means our snowpack, our natural water storage system, melts early instead of sticking around until summer when we need it the most. More winter precipitation falls as rain, instead of snow. Drought intensified dust storms deposit dark dust on the snow, which exacerbates the melting. What this means is that we experience more flooding early in the season, and more drought later. This affects everything.

Pine bark beetles are being seen at higher and higher elevations, including in areas where trees have not evolved defenses.

I heard a talk a couple of weeks ago that said pine bark beetle is being seen at the Mountain Research Station at Niwot Ridge for the first time. The scientist said it's a built in experiment to watch what happens. In addition, when we have earlier onset of spring, with less snow, there's a longer growing season but less uptake of carbon dioxide due to less moisture.

There's more climate change fun; wildfires, dying aspens, grizzly bears, tourism and so on, but that's probably more than enough....

Yesterday was a beautiful warm spring day, even a little too hot. Today, it's freezing cold, with sleet and snow and everyone was complaining about it at the bus stop. At the same time I'm trying to be happy about the cold. I told Rob we may need to move northeast at some point but he said he can't do that. He didn't say why but I think it has to do with general aviation and being close to Moab.

In the meantime, I'm glad my town has our Sustainability Initiative. This week our Public Works Director told me about his attendance at a conference on adaptive design for climate change. He was going to join our City manager to kick off a Walkability Task Force for the city. They were both showing up well after regular business hours. Tonight, there was a meeting to draw up a neighborhood vision plan for my neighborhood. Maybe these baby steps will help. Clearly we need to start somewhere and now.

Photos:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/nr/fid/health/1999highlights.shtml
http://www.icmpa.umd.edu/salzburg/climatechange/index.php/2007/08/14/359/
http://www.physorg.com/news74588419.html

Consuming or Creating?

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:31:00 +0000

I've been thinking about what we buy and don't buy because of the "Buy Nothing Month" Challenge on Crunchy Chicken. I signed up, with some qualms. Rob was all right with it, as long as he has some other way to socialize besides eating out. But then, knowing what I want to buy and reading the comments on the Sunday confessional, it made me think differently about using money. What if we think about using money to create rather than to consume?

No one is served by wasting money or buying useless things that end up as landfill. But, most of the "confessions" were about buying things that were needed or generally beneficial. For example, Crunchy went on an important family fun excursion. Others bought fabric for Crunchy's Goods4Girls project. Other people mentioned garden supplies. I don't think these things are "forgive me for I have spent" actions, but instead should be lauded as building the kind of world we want to live in. We can either consume and waste our money and our time, or we can use it to create.

There is value in going cold turkey off mindless consumption through a hard and fast rule, but if that's not an issue, then we miss an opportunity if we don't use all of our resources to create a better world. I decided that rather than simply not spend, which is an easy-to-understand policy, though hard to do, I would use money to create.

This month I am buying a LaMotte soil test kit, which will help me to create a more productive garden. I'm going to go on a contemplative art retreat at the St. Walburga Abbey, which will help me create some needed peace and time apart in my life. Yesterday, Lizzie and I went to the Goodwill and bought her clothes, since she is growing out of everything. That creates an appreciation in her for the joys of thrift store shopping ("It's AWESOME!!!!" Ten y.o. speak), and we had fun. I may buy a commercial solar oven this month. I feel fine about all these things, since they contribute to the world in which I want to live.

I don't like the name "consumer" as in to destroy or use up, but being a creator is just dandy.

P.S. Ten year old Lizzie now likes all wild, mod, graphic, bright orange clothes, preferably all together at the same time. She does not like anything I might pull off a rack. I reminisced about cute little dresses and the outfits she used to wear when she was little. Me: I remember when you would wear anything I picked out. Lizzie: UUh! Don't remind me. Me: But you were so happy then! Lizzie: That's because I didn't know what I was wearing.

Me: Doh-ith! So it begins.

In the Garden at Last!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:09:00 +0000

This weekend we finally had warm weather with time to be in the garden. I got to get into my own garden and our 4-H club put in a garden for the preschool at St. Joan of Arc. There was a pretty big contrast.

At my house, the main area for gardening is not very fertile, so it will be in cover crops for most of the season. The front garden has the best soil and is "the butterfly garden", but until I have more room it also grows annual vegetables and flowers. This weekend I dug out an area of Shasta daisy and Veronica which had been overrun with grass. My aching back! With much labor I cleared a space about 4' by 3', and will enlarge it a bit to plant with strawberries.

I am converting the areas around the house which are covered in plastic and pea gravel to planting area. Yesterday the kids and I built a topsoil screen to sieve out the rocks. With scrap lumber and a bit of 1/4" hardware cloth we built a screen for about $3. The one I saw in a catalog cost $39, and now we know how we can make smaller versions with hardware cloth and window screen to grow microgreens.

By dint of much labor I removed a steel fence bar with a pickaxe, and dug out and screened some soil. After about 30 minutes, a wheelbarrow full of sifted soil and a recycling bin full of gravel, an area only about 8" by 18" was ready to plant. This is going to be a really big job.

In contrast, the garden at St. Joan of Arc is well established. It used to be kept up as part of the preschool curriculum, but it has been idle for several years. There's a nice sprinkler system, a fence, an edged path and a big wide area to plant. The leader of our 4-H rabbit club hauled a bunch of rabbit dung (the only manure that may be used without composting), had it rototilled and when we arrived it was ready to plant. With four families and a master gardener from the Extension Office, it took about 45 minutes to have it laid out in hills and rows, early spring seeds planted and cleaned up. It would be lovely to have pictures of all the big and little kids, but no one remembered a camera. I'm not exactly sure what we intend to do with the produce-I believe the plan is to sell some and donate the proceeds to the preschool, and donate anything else to the food bank. It's a nice service project that teaches the 4-H kids and preschoolers about growing food.

How I would love to have a nice big area to plant instead of pockets here and there. The backyard beckons, but the kids play ball out there so I can only take up the grass around the edges. Given the work it takes to convert an area to garden, I suppose it's going to take me until the kids are grown to be ready for more garden anyway.

My back hurts a little but it does a body good to be finally outside working in the dirt. Isn't it funny how in the winter it seems like spring will never arrive, and during the sweltering heat winter seems like a rumor?

Maintaining Equilibrium

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Buhr) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:47:00 +0000

I was out of sorts a couple of days ago, overly sensitive, not sleeping, all twisted up in my back and neck, just well, out of sorts. I was talking with a friend about it when I realized, it was mostly me being upset by the state of the world, and taking the weight of it on myself. Duh! Poor Susan for not being omnipotent.

Sharon Astyk has written of being afraid, and one of the questions on Crunchy Chicken for David Wann was whether or not he ever gets downcast or afraid. I think it is an occupational hazard for people who are trying to make change, and change doesn't come fast enough.

My friend is in a profession where practitioners burn out in an average of six years. He has been in it for 27 years and is going strong. He said that he was burning out six years into it, but he learned how to do what he can and let the rest go. He does his level best, and then he lays the burden down, and prays, and takes care of himself physically, and spends time with his family.

That is an excellent example. This stuff can weigh on a person, and even smiley Susie Sunshine has a hard time being sunny sometimes. I decided that I need to look to my tradition, write in my journal, and read Catholic activists such as Dorothy Day, Philip and Daniel Berrigan, Sr. Helen Prejean, and all the rest. They are an interesting lot that can help ground me in my tradition while helping to fan the flames.

The diaries of Dorothy Day are to be published this month. She was a salty, earthy activist who earned her chops among the radicals of the teens and twenties. She converted to Catholicism to the bewilderment of her friends and family, and lost the father of her daughter, who would have nothing to do with religion or marriage. With Peter Maurin, she founded the Catholic Worker movement, established to further the cause of the poor and oppressed. At 75 she was arrested on the picket line with the United Farm Workers. After her death, her case was put forward for canonization, and she is now formally acknowledged as a "Servant of God". Some among her acquaintance say she would hate being canonized, as it might lead the rest of us to think she was somehow set apart and thus that we are off the hook. Right.

I need to follow my friend's example and advice, know what I can do and what I can't, and let the rest go. I spent my three day weekend (Spring Break) mostly walking around, riding my bike on errands, running, seeing friends and cooking. It was just what the doctor ordered. Now I yearn for a nice weekend silent retreat some place with a good garden and a bunch of books about making some noise for the greater good.

Photo:
http://www.nndb.com/people/495/000048351/