Weekend Link Lovin'

I thought I'd start doing a weekend post with a wrap-up of useful things that sprung up during the week. Enjoy!

1. Just because you haven't heard enough yammering about the Diva Cup, here's a review from Surviving and Thriving on Pennies. Anything that involves vaginas and contains the phrase "squat and go treasure hunting for it" deserves a read.

2. Still trying to figure out how to sow seeds indoors? Here's a quick tutorial. Plus, who can resist a blog with a banner consisting of people with overly large and out-of-proportion heads for no reason?

3. Forgot to participate in Screen Free Week (or didn't know about it)? Here are some alternatives to fill your time instead of rotting in front of the TV/computer screen.

4. If you didn't get caught up in the brouhaha about the plastic beach product, Turtlebacks, on Facebook earlier this week, now's your chance to get a primer recap from My Less Plasticky Life. I prefer to use the product as beach boobs (BB) instead. They get a lot less sandy that way. And, my enhanced bosoms won't kill real turtles because my BB, hopefully, won't get swept away in the waves. How embarrassing.

5. Feeling skunky? Getting rid of the stench of being sprayed by a skunk is a stinkin' pain. Here's a  solution that doesn't involve wasting your precious tomato juice.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend!

How connected are you?

I've been reading a few books on cyber security lately (don't ask), specifically Cyber War by Richard Clark, and it has really got me thinking about how vulnerable the peoples of the United States are against a major network failure or attack. What I'm talking about is of the information kind - meaning the Internet and everything connected to it. And I'm not just talking about web content and whether or not you can satisfy your Pinterest jonesin'.

The impact to daily 21st Century living would be intense. All our banking, payments, gas pumps, food distribution and much of our information and jobs depend on the Internet and its various parts. The Department of Defense, the NSA and other government agencies are working to protect government information and networks (and, for that matter, exploit other nation's vulnerabilities), but aren't doing much by way of protecting commerce and citizens.

Does your job rely on connectivity? How do you buy food, pay your bills, etc? Just protecting your immediate network won't matter much if the whole shebang is attacked. Even if you use cash or checks, the underlying bank systems are impacted.

Anyway, I'm just curious as to how much, if any, thought you've put into these vulnerabilities. I know we discuss a lot about getting off the grid, but unless you own your own home outright and grow your own food/stockpile it, you are impacted whether you like it or not.

For us, we use the web for online banking, we use credit cards for every purchase, we get all our entertainment from the web (Netflix, etc.), we get all our information from online (all newspapers, magazines, etc.) and our jobs are 100% dependent on it. How about you?

Finally, how vulnerable do you think we are? And how crippled would we be if attacked (say, by North Korea)?

2012 Independent Publisher Book Award winner

I'm so excited! I got news today that I've won a book award.

I won a Silver in the Health/Medicine/Nutrition Category of the 2012 Independent Publishers Book Awards for my book, The Non-Toxic Avenger, What You Don't Know Can Hurt You, by New Society Publisher!

Not only do I get a medal and certificate and medal stickers for putting on my book, but there's also an awards ceremony on June 4th, during BookExpo America, in New York City.

Can I get a Woohoo?

Top 5 benefits of climate change

Diane, of the blog, Big Green Purse, is hosting this month's Green Mom's Carnival on the impacts of climate change. I know all the other participants in the carnival are going to be covering the negative impacts of climate change so I thought, what the hell! Let's cover the positive points and how it benefits me, personally. Which is really what it's all about, no?

1. Carnival Cruises from Seattle to Paris going over the arctic. No pesky arctic sea summer ice to impede the non-stop fun of cruise ship style rock climbing, cabaret and the 24/7 buffet gorge. Plus, no Titanic-like surprises! I can just roll out of bed onto a ship and be in Paris tout suite! Bonjour Cap'n Stubing!

2. Beach front property. Right now our house is situated close to Puget Sound with no view. With a few meters rise in ocean levels, we're going to be sitting on a gold mine of beach front property. That, coupled with housing pressure from immigrants from the more dessicated areas of the country (I'm talking about you southwest. And southeast. And midwest.), can only mean an amazing increase in property value. Win-win!

3. Tropical weather without the vacation prices. No change of latitude will be needed for this change in attitude. Forget the crappy 10 months of dreary, wet, cold, depressing Seattle weather. All we need is a little climate change to shoot sunny skies our way. Better weather + beach front property = margarita time! Now. Who wants to party? Since all the other tropical areas will be underwater, Seattle will become the next beach vacation spot.

4. Less animals, more people. Animals suck. They use all our resources and don't contribute to the economy. They poop on our cars, wake us up with their confounded singing and other noises and make doing fun things dangerous. Like hiking and swimming. The worst thing is these dirty creatures carry diseases that make humans sick. And that's just wrong. So, less animals + more humans = better planet!

5. More zombies. Who doesn't love zombies? Zombies are loads of fun, easy to outrun and mercifully stupid. If lying out in the sun, hiking in the animal-free forest-deserts and hanging out on my beachfront property gets boring, shooting zombies will provide hours of free entertainment. Let the games begin!

Anyone want to rent a room?

Do women genetically own the bitchslap face?

A male friend of mine asked me the other day my thoughts on something he had been mulling over. He had experienced many times over the years what he described as a physical facial reaction by women that bordered on intense distaste over some really minor things.

You know it, it's the look of disgust/exasperation/worthlessness shot your way by the fairer of the species when she doesn't like something. It's the kind of look you'd expect if you just told her you ate her baby. But, in reality, you just did something like put an item in the wrong recycling bin. Or took the last spoon in the lunchroom.

Now, before you get your collective panties in a bunch, not all women do this. Just certain ones. I've known them myself and I don't quite understand how they think they can socially get away with it. I have too much respect for others to willy-nilly pull out the primate look of mean. It just doesn't communicate any message I want to send across.

We were trying to figure out why (some) women do this, yet men don't. I've never seen a man use a similar facial expression, no matter the circumstances. It reminded me of the primate facial expression charts from Ye Olde Anthropology classes I took.

I suspect women do this as a throwback to their, historically speaking, limited physical and social power. Letting you know, straight out, that she's upset about something without verbally, or physically, having to do anything beyond "the look". As in, do not even think about taking advantage of me in those bushes. Or, in modern terms, do not even think about putting that plastic in the food waste bin.

More interestingly, humans seem to share a number of similar expressions with chimpanzees and other apes, but I wonder if female chimps own the look of disgust/exasperation as well. In any case, have you experienced this yourself? Do you know men that facially react in a similar way? Or are you the queen of the bitchslap face?

Oh, and for those of you who doubt the similarities in primate behavior, I present you this:

The life of your DivaCup

Warning: Graphic Pictures Ahead

I've been using the DivaCup for almost 5 years now. For those of you not in the know, the DivaCup is a silicone reusable menstrual cup. You slap it in, cup side upside, and empty it twice a day. And, yes, I've been using the exact same cup. Month after month. Year after bloody year.

When I first started using it, the manufacturer advertised that it would last 20+ years. Or something like that. Then they retracted that and said to replace it every year. Some legal, government standards, CYA move or other. I still think that's ridiculous. Mostly because it's perfectly usable for far longer than one year. Clearly, I've been rocking the same one for 5.

However, I have to say, maybe they have a point. You see, I've kind of lost the sheer delight of stuffing a relatively uncomfortably stiff, golf-ball sized hunk of plastic up my tender goodies. And not just for the unpleasure part. But because it, well, looks revolting. Years of being exposed to, how shall we say, menstrual bits, have stained it. So, rather than looking like a pristine, new clear-white cup like below:

it looks more like this:

Ah, I'm just kidding. This is an image of the remains of a DivaCup that went up in flames. I really couldn't bring myself to photograph my nasty old cup. I'm not that gross.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of you have the same problem as me. Dark red stained cups. Bordering on brown. Any trick to restoring its original luster? If not, I'm going to replace mine just because I'm sick of being disgusted five days a month.

Where am I?

I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since I last posted something. Well, actually I can. Y'all may be wondering what the heck is going on (of the few people still checking in) and without going into gory details, let's just say I've been up the proverbial creek with nary a stick, let alone a paddle.

My husband was in the hospital a few times, I got burned out from book stuff and I'm doing physical therapy after 7 weeks of hell. As such, I won't be doing any gardening anytime soon. Or anything that requires bending, or lifting for that matter. Which eliminates a great deal about what I write. Which is why I haven't been blogging.

Anyway, after blogging for 5 years, I feel (yet again) that I've kind of hit the end of what I can say. There are newer, more energetic bloggers out there that have readily filled in the gap so I don't exactly feel missed just yet. But, if you want to keep up on what I'm doing, you can follow me on Facebook. I post there regularly.

NTA Book Club: Part 1 - Laying It All Out

Welcome to the first book club post for my book, The Non-Toxic Avenger: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You! This is the first of seven posts and will cover Part 1 of the book, Laying It all Out. The format will be the same for each Monday's postings: review followed by discussion questions. If you have questions from the section outside what I'm mentioning here, feel free to ask! I'm splitting the book up into small chunks to make the book club an easy breeze rather than feel like a midterm exam. So, expect them to be short and fun!

Part 1: Laying It All Out - Review
In this section, I describe why I started looking into environmental toxins in the first place. The most compelling reasons were linked to the fact that my son was diagnosed with developmental problems on the autistic spectrum and, more alarmingly, my husband was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a form of blood cancer with a relatively dire prognosis.

After wondering why two of my family members were stricken with such debilitating diseases, I wondered what environmental factors beyond genetic predisposition triggered these conditions. As I did more and more research on the potential for toxins such as pesticides, solvents and other chemicals to contribute to autism and cancers, I became curious to find out what my own body burden level of toxins were.

I also started looking at my own health problems and wondering what environmental impacts could be triggering those issues. I started looking at the true risks of many of the chemicals exposures we subject ourselves to on a daily basis and looked into whether or not those exposures meant anything significant.

Ultimately, I lined up a number of chemical body burden tests to determine how I ranked in comparison to the average American. Was my body more or less exposed to toxins and, did my aversion to chemical-based products by choosing organic and "natural" products really amount to anything?

Discussion Questions
1. How concerned are you of the long-term health consequences of the chemicals you knowingly (via consumer products) and unknowingly (via background exposure) are exposed to? Do you think they amount to anything or is it just a load of paranoia?

2. All the chemicals mentioned in the book are deemed "safe" by the FDA, do you think they are safe or do you think we need far more testing done on them?

3. Do you feel like you have more and more friends and family members being stricken by diseases like cancers and autism? Do you think these are on the rise or is it just a matter of better diagnosis and reporting?

4. Do you think that organic and "natural" consumer products are safer than conventional ones?

5. Would you undergo toxin body burden testing if you had access to it and it were paid for?

Feel free to answer the discussion questions in the comments of this post, or via Facebook if you are following along from the fan page. And, if you haven't yet read the book, you are welcome to participate as well!

How to make maple brown sugar cured bacon

Tuesday night I prepared the pork belly that we got as part of our pig share using a maple brown sugar cure as described in The Urban Farmer Handbook.

It went as such:

1. Rinse and pat dry pork belly
2. Mix equal parts coarse kosher salt, dark brown sugar and maple syrup (in this case I had 8.3 pounds of pork belly so I used 1/2 cup of each ingredient)
3. Rub mix all over pork belly
4. Place into gallon Ziploc bags
5. Store in fridge for 7 days
6. Flip bags every other day to distribute cure

While I hate the idea of using plastic bags, I hate trichinosis even more. So, in spite of my apprehension, given the amount of belly I had to work with, I used 3 one-gallon bags. After the cure is complete, I'll be smoking the bacon. More posts to come to finish the job...

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the process to whet your appetite:

The Pork Belly:

The Cure:

The Meat Side:

The Skin Side:

The Finished "Product" - three gallon Ziploc bags of curing belly:

Have you ever made your own bacon from pork belly?

Going in on a pig share

Monday night our pig farmer was kind enough to pick up our half of a pig share from the butcher and deliver it to our front door. I ended up sharing a whole hog with Annette Cottrell from Sustainable Eats and the author of The Urban Farm Handbook after she hooked me up with Luke Conyac of Conyac Brothers' Farmstead.

I had gone up to visit their farm a few weeks earlier to watch the hog slaughter that was masterfully done by two gentlemen from Silvana Meats who came to the farm to process the pigs.

The Conyac brothers raise a mix of Herefords, Gloucestershire Old Spots and what we got, something that is called a Bluebutt, which is a cross between a Hampshire and a Yorkshire. I had the delight of seeing all of their pigs in their natural environment as I hung out for a while post-slaughter. They run a small farm operation of less than 20 hogs, which makes for a cozy farmstead.

They raise their hogs on rotated pastureland and supplement with a local certified organic feed. As you can see in the picture above, they make quick work of the grass and shrubs, which necessitates the need to move them from one section of the farm to the next. This particular pig we got was finished on an organic grain mix of barley, oats and wheat from a nearby supplier in the Skagit Valley.

The Conyac's charge $2.75 per pound live weight and then there's the slaughter, butchering and smoking costs from Silvana Meats. In the case of my pig, the hanging weight was about 88 pounds per half (minus the head, trotters, entrails and other sundry parts).

As a result, we had delivered roughly 70 pounds of meat (which ended up being about $6.50/pound) as follows. Not a bad deal for local, organic, pastured pork raised in an über-sustainable way:

• 1 shoulder roast
• 2 smoked ham roasts
• 1 smoked picnic ham
• 2 ham hocks
• 5 pork loin roasts
• 1 country style ribs
• 1 pork spare ribs
• 1 baby back
• 1 pork tenderloin
• pork belly
• pork sausage

I spent Tuesday evening getting the pork belly prepared for a week long curing in the fridge for making bacon. I'll be doing a separate post on that, but as a teaser, here's a picture of the belly in the maple brown sugar salt cure:

Defending Your Chickens Against the HOA

The following is a guest post from Shannon Boling. Shannon was raised in the country and now lives in the city. An aspiring urban homesteader, she spends her time planning events for teachers across California when she's not gardening, canning, crafting, cooking or chasing her chickens, dog and cats.

Shannon writes at the blog, Where is Shannon? Make sure you check it out! And, thanks to Shannon for this contribution!

Defending Your Flock Against the HOA (aka your neighbor doesn’t like your chickens)

Recently, I had the unfortunate experience of having to defend my dear chickens at my neighborhood Homeowners Association (HOA) Board meeting. After numerous complaints from a single neighbor, my husband and I had to attend a hearing in which the fate of our chickens was in the hands of 3 unknown Board Members. Though I won’t go into about the actual specifics about my case, I did realize I had a new wealth of information to share with other folks who may be up against a similar threat. Here are a few tips to help you navigate through the murky waters of HOA rules.

Tip # 1: Do your research

This may sound pretty obvious, but knowing the rules is the most important part of building a case for your chickens. Read your CCRs carefully. Don’t just pay attention to the rules about animals, think beyond the box. Have some knowledge in your back pocket.

•   What are the proper channels one should take when filing a complaint against a neighbor? In our case, the HOA encourages neighbors to resolve issues on their own. Our neighbor never contacted us with her concerns about the noise our chickens made. Knowing that the HOA encourages neighbors to deal with issues on their own shows that she a) doesn’t know the rules, and b)if she knew them, she didn’t act upon them.

• Find out what the proper dispute resolution sequence is (for my HOA, it was having a hearing, then mediation, then arbitration). It’s good to know what steps you’ll need to take in case they deny your case.
• Are there height/dimension limits to any coops built in your yard? Do they need to be a certain distance from your neighbors’ houses? This is important to know. For example, if our coop was another 2 feet taller, we would have had to get approval from the HOA to build it.
•  How much authority does the Board really have? In our case, the Board had the final say on issues – meaning one cannot get a measure put on a ballot for the neighborhood to vote on. Some HOA’s allow members to gather enough signatures to get something on the ballot (how democratic!) This is worth looking into just in case the Board decides against you – you could still get a petition going and leave the vote to the masses. 
• Get your city and/or county’s municipal code, and be sure to include it with your materials. Many CCR’s defer to the municipal code (be sure you don’t have more chickens than you are allowed!) Thankfully for us, our city doesn’t have a restriction on the number of hens you can keep for non-commercial purposes. 
• If your HOA is run by a management company, get to know the person that works with your Board. If they are friendly, use their knowledge of the CCRs to help build your case. This proved to be a great resource for me - I was told there was a 1987 CCR that prohibited poultry in our neighborhood (which changed in 2007). I never would have known that if I hadn’t *gently* prodded my contact. 

Tip #2: Get the support of your neighbors

I can’t stress this one enough. Thankfully in our neighborhood, everyone loves our chickens. It was really easy to pass a document around for their signature, stating that they did not believe our chickens were loud or a nuisance to the neighborhood. If you do get people to sign a document, be sure to include specific language related to the CCR’s. I used “loud” and “nuisance” because there is a rule against loud animals that are a nuisance. This allowed the Board to compare the CCRs with the support signatures apples for apples. Once you get those signatures, create a graphic that shows your house in relation to all that signed your petition. This is a great way of visually showing those who support you in your neighborhood. Finally, if you’ve got great neighbors like mine, you’ll have them come as your posse to the Board meeting. I had 5 adult neighbors (and 1 child) attend the meeting and speak in support of our chickens. Hearing this from others really showed the good impact our flock was making in the neighborhood. (Note: a carton of eggs is a great way to show your thanks)

Tip #3: What have other Associations done?

Google “HOA and Chickens” or any combination of “chickens”, “HOA”, and “CCRs”. You’ll be amazed at what you find. Backyard Chickens has a few great forums with information from other chicken owners and their experiences with HOAs. I found a few promising articles and presented this information to the Board. I think it’s important to highlight that people all over the country have chickens, and there are many different ways of accommodating them in a HOA (whether that means restricting the number of chickens, or how the decision to allow chickens is made).

Tip #4: Are you willing to compromise?

On a personal note, this was the hardest part for me to come to terms with. If the Board votes no more chickens – are you ready to go to the next level (i.e. court) to keep them? Are you willing to give up a few hens to keep the neighbor(s) happy? After taking everything into consideration, I decided to pair my flock down from 6 to 3. Sure, I miss the extra eggs and the sound of a happy coop. But, because I showed the Board that I was willing to compromise, they agreed to let me keep my remaining girls. In the end – totally worth it.

Go to the meeting with confidence and your head held high – after all, you are a steward of this uncharted urban chicken-raising territory!

Products mentioned in The Non-Toxic Avenger

I've made a new page, that is available from under the banner above by clicking the tab "Products from the NTA Book", where I list many of the products that I mention in my book, The Non-Toxic Avenger: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You. The list includes links to the products.

You can check it out here:

Products Mentioned in The Non-Toxic Avenger.

These are many of the products we have switched over to in order to reduce our exposure to chemicals. We still use all of them today.

If you have a product type that's not listed, let me know and I'll add it.

Hoop Houses and Urban Winter Garden Tour

I was just going to go outside yesterday and take some pictures of the many different vegetables we currently have growing in our hoop houses (as described on The Crunchy Chicken Facebook page), but I decided that I might as well make a video about it.

So, for your viewing pleasure, here's a short video of what's growing in our backyard in late January, 2012. I apologize for the weird camera smudginess at the beginning. I think our camera got some salt water spray on it from our recent trip to San Diego.



To watch the video on YouTube (if you are experiencing technical difficulties), you can see it here.

What do you have growing in your winter garden?

Top 10 Urban Farming books

I wanted to create a list of essential Urban Farming books for those who are just starting out as well as for the more experienced urban farmer. I selected books that don't concentrate on just one topic (like city chickens or vegetable gardening in small spaces), but on a wide variety of topics that range from growing food to raising animals and beyond.

For those of you who live in the city (or the suburbs), I hope this helps!

1. The Urban Farm Handbook, by Annette Cottrell and Joshua McNichols: Here's my review post, this is still one of my favorites.

2. The Essential Urban Farmer, by Novella Carpenter: This one is on my to-read list. I read Novella's previous book, Farm City, and loved it.

3. Urban Homesteading, by Rachel Kaplan: I'll be doing a review/giveaway of this one soon.

4. Your Farm in the City, by Lisa Taylor: This book is put out by my local Seattle Tilth and I can't believe I haven't read it yet! Time to hit the library.

5. The Urban Homestead, by Kelly Coyne and Eric Knutzen: This book covers more than you can possibly imagine and will inspire you to try new things.

6. Urban Farming, by Thomas Fox: From the makers of Urban Farming magazine (Hobby Farms).

7. Urban Agriculture, by David Tracey: I'll be doing a review/giveaway of this one as well in the upcoming weeks.

8. Mini Farming, by Brett Markham: This one is geared towards those who have 1/4 acre to work with.

9. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Urban Homesteading, by Sundari Elizabeth Kraft: This book covers the basics as well as everything from composting to clean energy.

10. The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan: Here's a short review post - this one is geared more towards a larger amount of land than most people have in their urban/suburban backyards, but it's valuable nonetheless.

Consider yourselves warned: There be Amazon affiliate links in this post.

Non-Toxic Avenger: The Book Club!

Now that the blog book tour for my book, The Non-Toxic Avenger, is wrapping up this week, I wanted to announce that I'll be hosting a book club starting in February.

It will be in the same format as most of my other book clubs: each section will start with an overview, followed by discussion questions. The only key difference is that I'm the author on this one!

Here's the tentative schedule for the book club:

2/6		Part 1: Laying It All Out
2/13		Part 2: Getting Started
2/20		Part 3: The Baseline
2/27		Part 4: Adjusting to Non-Toxic Living
3/5		Part 5: Going a Little Bonkers
3/12		Part 6: Figuring It All Out
3/19		Part 7: Wrapping It Up

You don't need to have read the book to participate, although it does help!

I've created a page on Facebook if you'd like to participate in the book club that way as well. Just head on over and "LIKE" it!