Baby steps

Today I was going to blog about taxes or voting. My friend is dying of cancer, I'm smoking the wrong kind of weed, my kids are home for three more weeks and I'm really just not in the fucking mood to vent about shit like that.

Instead I thought I might talk about what I keep in my refrigerator. If your lucky I'll talk about the pantry and freezer in the future. I love food. I thought it might put me in a better mood.

My fridge staples are cream, milk, butter, buttermilk, juice, eggs, bread, cheese, beer, champagne, simple syrup, tortillas and lettuce. My family won't starve if these things are in my fridge.

I buy whipping cream because it is versatile. I use a little fancy glass milk jar I got from a local creamery and make my own half and half, I also make sour cream, soups and whipping cream. I've saved a little, wasted less and it tastes better. I keep a quart of buttermilk for ranch dressing, biscuits, sour cream, pancakes and other stuff. I always have milk, orange juice and frozen grape juice. The rest of the shit is pretty self explanatory.

I've been blogging how to change the world around you and how I think it starts with shit you buy. My first goal is to reduce the amount of prepared food that I buy. I was digging weeds in my garden the other day and I noticed that many of them looked like the salad blend I had recently bought. I'm not saying eat weeds, I mean you can, but that isn't my point. I started to realize that most of us would have no fucking clue how to survive without a grocery store. I couldn't even recognize edible weeds. How many generations ago were wild edibles identifiable? We really are becoming dependent on others to feed us.

So start small. Try making salad dressings. You'll be reducing the amount of plastic you consume, you will know what the ingredients are and where they came from and you'll be feeding yourself. They are so much better when you make them yourself. I've put recipes on the sidebar for some of the most popular dressings. I'm hoping a few friends will try it out and let me know if they found it doable or too cumbersome.

Love, Constance

A growing revolution

I don't like the way things are and I want change. Individuality has been lost as people have become slaves to the machine. People medicate themselves and pretend we can all keep going. We won't and we shouldn't have to. So let's change it. It sounds daunting so let's just take baby steps: Food and water.

Both food and water have gotten extremely expensive for most people, especially those of us who live in urban areas. My water bill last month was $100.00. It used to be much higher but I brought it down. I live in northern California where there is plenty of rainfall to get us through the summer. Well there used to be. We face the threat of drought all of the time now. Some of the reasons for this are over development, agriculture, aging and leaky water systems that are no longer efficient and we ship A LOT of water down south. The farmers, actually the corporate farms, of the San Joaquin valley depend on water imported from the north. The San Joaquin valley is a desert so they already have that working against them. The use of pesticides and fertilizers require more than ten times the amount of water, greedy bastards. Also, the San Joaquin valley has become salanized due to over farming so whether or not they get the increased water that they demand, which they will not, large scale farming in the San Joaquin valley is becoming impossible.

There are so many water agencies, water boards and water officials that getting anything done beyond paying their six figure salaries is impossible. My water company has raised my rates more than 40 percent in the last five years. When we conserve as a community, they still raise our rates, claiming they no longer get a volume discount because we all conserved too much. On our property taxes we are still paying for a damn that was built forty years ago and which falls short in supplying our current needs. So much for thinking ahead.

I've had to conserve. We used to say "if its yellow let it mellow....(you know the rest of this revolting slogan no doubt)" There is no way I am not going to flush my toilet. If I were going to let my waste sit in my toilet I might as well go in an outhouse. That is the advice of the water agencies for conserving water. I'm trying to be much more progressive than that. I keep a bucket in my shower to collect the water while it heats. I use that water to flush the toilet. I flush a few times a day that way. I don't make my husband or kids flush with it but they do have to catch their cold water so that I can use it. I was using the grey water from doing my dishes to water my garden but it was hard lugging that water around and the water was gross. It would be nice if there was a system set up from the tub and sink that would filter and store the grey water for irrigation. Someone come up with that please!

Now we catch the rain from our roof to water the garden. We made rain catchers from wine barrels. You can see how to do that here: raincatcher. The key to water conservation is being able to catch and store fresh, potable water. I hope that one day soon catchment and containment will become part of the basic develpment plan of all new construction. At the same time we need to figure out how to deal with our waste. If you aren't composting and you have room to do so, it would help. If you live in an apartment find out if there is a composting bin. If there isn't, demand one. When I need additional soil I get it from the dump. They compost all of the collected garden waste and sell it to the public. It is really good dirt!

George Washington used a compostable toilet. I went to Mount Vernon and I couldn't believe how progressive George was. His farming, ranching and waste managment were sustainable. He used no chemical fertilizers, pesticides or municipal sewer system. When I saw Mount Vernon, I realized we are taking steps backwards.

If you haven't planted a garden, why not? I'll admit it is work but it is fullfilling to eat what you have grown. You know how it was grown. If you don't want to be bogged down by a garden, grow a few of your favorite veggies in containers on your patio. If you don't like to garden at all, check out the local farmers market. It may be a little more expensive, but it tastes better, it is fresher and it is grown by people who live in your community. Besides when you factor in the cost and pollution of tranportation, and the impact of pesticides and fertilizers on us and our environment maybe the cost of local, fresh veggies is not that much more. I have posted some gardening photos under recipes, videos and ideas.

Does anybody have anything to add? I'd love to hear some new ideas.

Love, Constance