Family Cloth

When looking at your average family's monthly budget, the idea of toilet paper is pretty much a given. You have got to have TP, right? Maybe not. There are other options out there. Some, like a bidet, may not be in your budget. However, "family cloth" is one of those out there ideas that might not be so crazy after all.

Almost two years ago now I was given some reusable baby wipes as a shower gift. I had never considered using reusable wipes, even though we planned to use cloth nappies. After a brief check of the interwebs to find how people use them (we go with a simple solution in a spray bottle), I was on board. The longer I used them, the more I liked them. I got some cheap baby wash cloths to add to the stash. I made some wipes out of scrap flannel. I cut old stained t-shirts into nice little wipes. Basically, the more I used them, the more that I loved them. The Little Girl's tushy was so clean and pampered, and it really did not take any extra effort since I was already washing the cloth nappies. It was just one more thing to toss into the bin next to the changing table.

Then, we went from breastmilk poops to solid food poops in those nappies. It was definitely a difference. I quickly came to the conclusion that we needed a different system. The poops needed to be flushed, and taking the nappy from the changing table in the bedroom to the bathroom and back again was a pretty risky endeavor. A second bin for the bathroom was going to be needed.

I had heard of the idea of family cloth, but I was not sold on it. However, when that second bin made its appearance next to the toilet, I figured that I could give it a test and see. By day number two, I was all in and not going back. You have no idea how nice your tush can feel when you clean it with actual cloth and a bit of water. I now am sad any time that I have to use ordinary TP. It is just not the same. I cut up a few more stained t-shirts to make up for how many more wipes were going to be used before washing, and we are blasting forward.

I am not, however, unreasonable. We will probably always have ordinary TP on hand for guests who are less adventuresome. As of now, we will have it on hand for an unconvinced husband too. If you are ever a guest at our house, I invite you to give it a try for yourself. It is ok. No one else has to know.

Jams and Jellies

It has been a busy summer for us here on our urban homestead. It is really astounding how much time and energy is required for gardening and food preservation. Things have slowed down considerably as of late giving me time to catch up on all the things around the house that were ignored all summer. While many would probably question my spending hundreds of hours doing this, they do not know what they are missing.

There was a time in my life when I thought nothing of purchasing jam from the grocery store. That was before I started to eating homemade. This year our dining will feature strawberry, strawberry rhubarb, and mixed berry jams as well as dandelion jelly. All were picked at the peak of freshness and quickly processed to preserve maximum flavor. Cost of supplies figures to about $1 per half pint jar (if you are reusing jars - add another $1 or so for a new jar). That obviously does not include the hours required to make the jam or can it. However, we will be enjoying jam all year that tastes considerably better than even the fancy stuff from the store.

You can go buy your "locally sourced" stuff at the farmers' market. We will stick with our even more locally sourced and produced version.

Earth Day

Today, pagan Gaia worship reaches its annual pinnacle. Millions of school children will "celebrate Mother Nature on the holiday that has been set aside for her" by making craft projects and chanting "reduce, reuse, recycle." A few members of the Religion of Earth Savers will be interviewed on TV bewailing Climate Change. (A few years ago, it was Global Warming. Within my lifetime it was Global Cooling.)

Every year, I mark (not celebrate) this day. Previously, I have made a canvas tote bag emblazoned with "Vegetarians are eating the Rainforest," burned an empty plastic bottled in the front yard, ate about a pound of meat for breakfast (eggs, steak, bacon, sausage - and a belly ache that was totally worth it), and chopped down a tree. This year, I will be setting traps for the bastard bunnies who try to eat up my garden. 

Wailing for the Trees

While this video has been around for a while, I keep going back to watch it again and again. It is a bit like watching a train wreck - you can not look away. Moonbats in their Temple of Gaia doing performance art. I suspect that they have scared away all of the wildlife for a half mile with their racket. Some of the noises that they are making sound a lot like what you would hear in the labor and delivery ward at your local hospital.

Seriously? How could they possibly expect anyone to take them seriously when they are doing this? Watching this makes me want to take a chain saw or an ax out into the woods. 

Grocery Budgeting

Last weekend, Gwyneth Paltrow was all over the interwebs for taking a Food Stamps Challenge by living on the $29 per week (per person) that they estimate a person on SNAP receives, and she posted what she got for her $29 at the grocery store. Of course, everyone on the web lost their ever living minds over the amount of food and her choices.

Before I go further, attempting to see how people in less financially fortunate circumstances live is commendable. I do not judge her harshly for it. 

A lot of people have weighed in on how difficult it would be to eat for a week on so little and how doing so week in and week out is not reasonable. In my experience, it is actually much more difficult to do for a single week than it is over an extended period of time - we stock up when things are on sale, so we can stretch our dollars much mo. We live quite comfortably and healthily on a budget that is equal or less to this and have been for years. Oh, and yes - we eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.

First of all, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a staple and are on the menu for lunch almost every day. Buy bread at a bakery outlet (we pay 80 cents a loaf for whole wheat bread most of the time but sometimes can get 2/$1 depending on the day) and stock up on peanut butter when it is on sale (maybe $2 per week total). I make homemade jams and jellies, so the PB&Js are not such a deprivation (and the jams are cheaper than purchasing it from the store). It takes a fair bit of time and energy, but it is worth it. Apples, oranges, and bananas are less than $1/pound (bananas come in less than 40 cents a pound at our local gas station). Lunch for a week runs about $2-$3 per person. For the week. If we're splurging, I will get a bag of Aldi's brand chips for less than $2, and it lasts over a week.

Breakfast is an inexpensive meal. Eggs on sale run about 99 cents a dozen. Otherwise, we are looking at $1.29. Two eggs (about 20 cents or less), a couple of slices of toast (12 cents) and a piece of fruit, makes a healthy breakfast for $3-$4 per week per person. For a change up, oatmeal is filling and an even better bargain.

We have breakfast and lunch covered for easily less than $10 per person. Now, we've got about $20 each for a week for dinners. There are plenty of websites that have recipes that you can make for $5 to feed 4 people. (This generally means 2 meals for us). If we are eating those strictly, it costs us less than $10 per person for the week. That leaves an extra $10 at the end of the week for any additional items that we might need and to allow for stocking up on sale items.

Garden Preparations

Last week

I have a track record when it comes to gardening. I grow weeds. I have never had success getting the things that I want to grow. I am not satisfied with things staying that way. Therefore, I have sought out a mentor. Basically, I have a master gardener who is willing to work with me as a low (ok zero) skills apprentice. Last weekend, I started working on my first assignment in the west garden. (Yes, we have two.) The space was filled with dead leaves and crab grass. Last weekend, I raked out all the dead leaves and started turning over the soil. You can see in the back corner where I started. Then, it rained pretty much all week. Since it was pretty soggy, I did not get out during the week to do any more work.

Today

Today I was back out at it turning soil and raking the dead grass out of the lawn to use on the garden. Most of the area that will be used for planting vegetables this year has been turned. The part that remains is very slow going as it has a lot of crab grass that needs to be pulled out. This will be completed this next week.

Next week, I will be finishing raking the dead bits out of the rest of the lawn. I will also be beginning work on the east garden. It is in a lot worse shape than the east. 

The Year 2000

I grew up in the 80s. The Cold War was in its final stages, and the future should have been as bright as the neon clothes that everyone was wearing. Instead, we got a steady stream of gloom and doom about environmental catastrophism. Let me give you a quick look at some of what elementary school children were told 25 years ago about how things would look by the year 2000 for those of you who have forgotten or who are too young to know:

• Landfills would be full
• Fossil fuels would have entirely used.
• Rainforests and their bio-diverse ecosystems would be wiped out.
• The ozone layer would be completely gone causing blindness in wild animals and anyone who did not wear sunglasses.
• Smog would be make it difficult for people to breathe anywhere in the world.
• Global warming would result in it being too hot for people to survive at the equator, and the sea levels rising would have wiped out coastal regions and all of Florida.
• In short, the Earth would likely be so damaged that we would need to live on colonies on the moon or other planets. 

You think that I am exaggerating these claims? In science class (multiple years no less) during the lead up to the eventual opening of Biosphere 2, we were given the assignment of designing moon colonies. (My mom may still have a completed project or two stashed in a box of my class projects somewhere.) The traditional 3 Rs of Reading 'Riting, and 'Rithmatic were replaced with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. There were stories about people protesting excessive packaging in cereal boxes by leaving the box at the grocery store and taking the inner bag with them when they finished at the checkout lane. McDonald's started making the benches at their playgrounds out of compressed styrofoam packaging from Big Macs. People who used plastic bags instead of paper ones were practically evil incarnate.

We are now 25 years down the road and 15 years past the due date on these predictions. None have happened. (Paper bag usage at the grocery store is now more evil than plastic. We have always been at war with Eastasia.) You want to know why people do not believe in Global Warming (or Climate Change, or whatever it is called today)? You want to know why folks are skeptical about your dire predictions? This would be it.