Natural flooring - no chemicals needed! Part 1

Original carpeting

When I bought my new house in Roslyn, all three bedrooms had carpeting in them. The two downstairs rooms had older carpeting and the bedroom upstairs had relatively newer (2011ish) carpeting. Since the home had been used as a vacation rental for the last 5+ years, the carpeting needed replacing. Even though the carpets had been professionally cleaned after the sale, they still smelled like pet stains. In fact, the whole house had a weird, musty odor to it. Which isn't too surprising for a house built in 1925. But, I wanted to get to the bottom of the stink. And, frankly, I hate carpeting so I wanted them out of there!

Daniel and I decided to pull up the carpeting in the downstairs bedrooms to see what we had to work with. My hope was that there would be some magical hardwood floors down under there. That was the case in my 1956 Seattle home. In that house, it was an easy carpet removal and the underlying floor didn't even need refinishing. This was not the case in my Roslyn home.

Vinyl under carpet pad

Underneath the carpeting and carpet pad in Roslyn was some stylistically challenged linoleum/vinyl floor. It turns out that it was circa 1957. How do I know? Well, because underneath the vinyl flooring was a layer of newspaper, dated from 1957 (the other room had vinyl with newspaper from 1963).

I didn't want to get my hopes up as Daniel sliced through the vinyl to uncover all the newspaper. Fortunately, the vinyl flooring in both bedrooms was not glued down but was just laying directly on top of the newspaper. We weren't so lucky in the hallway leading to the kitchen where the vinyl was glued down directly to what was underneath (more on that later).

1957 newspaper!

We saved quite a bit of the newspaper that we could salvage. We thought it would be fun to frame some of the more bizarre advertisements and articles. And, it turned out the strange, musty smell throughout the house was actually coming from the newspaper in the bedrooms and the hallway. Imagine 60-year-old newspaper that had been annually moist and then dried out again. Removing the newspaper removed the smell!

Douglas Fir!

And, what was underneath the newspaper? Beautiful, glorious Douglas Fir hardwood flooring. The type of flooring commonly used in homes built in that era. They weren't in great condition and the end result of doing any sanding or refinishing would still look rather rustic. But, I felt it would be a criminal act to cover it with new flooring or otherwise replace it. I was determined to try to rehab what was originally there. And do it in a non-toxic way. Of course.

Unfortunately, there were a few spots in one of the bedrooms that needed repair and/or replacement, so that sent us on a hunt looking for reclaimed flooring from a few different reuse stores in Seattle. We ended up not being able to secure anything suitable in time and just got new Douglas Fir panels for the repairs.

After sanding and repairs

After the repairs were done by Daniel, he went about sanding the floors (with a little help from his son). This ended up being a lot more work than we were anticipating, but he got it done.

After the sanding, I vacuumed and cleaned the floors. I had already done a ton of research on what I wanted to do with the floors after they were sanded. I definitely didn't want to use any kind of polyurethane floor varnish or finish, even though it would look really cool. Every decision I made on making updates to this house would be non-toxic. I was determined to not compromise on anything.

After the final coat

I had decided to use a mix of pure tung oil and citrus solvent (an alternative to mineral spirits). Tung oil has zero VOCs and, when mixed with citrus solvent, makes an all-natural finish. The process is rather painstaking, it takes about a month to fully cure and it smells a bit like an orange bomb went off in the house. But, it was fully worth the effort and the lack of chemical horrors that generally comes with refinishing floors.

The floors are still a little oily feeling a month later, but have dulled down to a nice color. I can do a non-toxic coat on top of it to give it more sheen, but my kids really love and prefer the rustic look. So, at this point, I'm just going to leave the floors as they are for now.

The finished floors!

What about the bedroom upstairs? What excitement did we find up there? Well, I'm planning on covering that in Part 2 since this post is already getting too long. Needless to say, I'm thrilled with how the floors turned out. The total cost was fairly minimal (renting the sander, dump fees and the cost of tung oil and citrus solvent was only a couple hundred dollars).

What about the downstairs hallway, you ask? Well, the vinyl was glued directly on the Douglas Fir. We pulled up as much as possible but the hardwood was not salvageable, even with sanding. I'll be covering what we did as a temporary measure on Part 3, which is pretty exciting (to me) as well! I'll give you a hint - it was free and we used 100% reused materials.

It's apple season!

Pic courtesy of 2CookinMamas

I have two huge apple trees on my new property here in Roslyn, WA. One that bears sweet, eating apples and one that bears more tart, baking apples. In spite of cutting the trees down considerably before I moved in (so I could comfortably walk around the yard without whacking my brains out), they are still very prolific producers of apples.

So, what have I been doing with all those apples (besides just eating them) since I moved in at the beginning of October? Not enough to keep up!!

Apples in the dehydrator

1. Dehydrating - The first batch that went into the dehydrator was from the tart tree. I did toss the apple slices with a little sugar and a lot of cinnamon. Those dried apples lasted about a week due to my 17-year-old's voracious appetite, so today I'm doing round two. This time I'm drying a mix of the sweet variety and the tart ones as well. I also threw in some pears while I have it running.

2. Roasting - I've been roasting the tart apples alongside onions, sweet potatoes, carrots and a variety of meats like chicken and beer soaked brats (Oktoberfest!). I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of roasted apples, but I'm sure I'll keep trying. I think next time I'll add them later in the roasting time so they are not as squishy.

3. Canning - Next week I'll be making and canning apple butter in the slow cooker. I haven't done it yet because I haven't yet had the gumption to peel, core and cut 6+ pounds of apples.

4. Baking - In an effort to use up some apples, I embarked on making an apple cake last week. It didn't use up as many apples as I would have liked, but it was very good nonetheless! I'm planning on baking a Dutch Apple Pie this Friday, which I'm looking forward to!

Apples!

5. Squeezing - Okay, I know cider pressing isn't like orange juicing, but we're going to have a big cider pressing party here in the new week or two. We're not big into drinking apple juice or cider, but I am planning on making apple pie moonshine with the results of the cider pressing. I'll be reporting on the success of that project. Word on the street is that it's fairly potent stuff.

6. Finishing of the hogs - My friends (and ex-next-door-neighbors from Seattle) now own a small farm in Ellensburg. Among their many animals are four pigs that they are finishing on apples and other fruits. They've been making a weekly trip to come and grab all the dropped fruit from my yard, my next door neighbor and my boyfriend's apple trees. In exchange, I've been getting eggs from their chickens. There seems to be an imbalance in this deal, but I'm not going to point it out!

What's your favorite way to use apples?

Keeping the old cars kicking

My cars are old. Decrepit even, by today's standards. I'm still driving around in my 2002 Honda CRV that has just a hair under 70,000 miles on it. But, from my standpoint, it's as good as new. Sure, it doesn't have the fancy bluetooth, automatic cellphone pairing, big screen satellite XM radio and other whozywhatsits on it.

But, it does have a functioning air conditioner, radio and CD player!, cruise control and automatic windows and door locks. I've kept the exterior and interior pretty newish looking, so you wouldn't be able to tell that it's 17 years old. It has all wheel drive (AWD), which is worth something or other. This will be more useful the more time I spend crossing Snoqualmie Pass and hanging out in snowier territories than Seattle, which rarely sees snow.

Luigi!

My other car is a 2013 Fiat Pop. It's yellow with black racing stripes and we call him Luigi. Because, that's his name. He has a paltry 15,000 miles on him. I really don't need two vehicles these days, but I figure that some day, one of my kids will want to learn how to drive. And the trade-in value for him is remarkably abysmal. Like, less than a new, full-suspension mountain bike. It's freaking crazy, really. So, it makes no sense to sell him. Plus, he's super easy to drive and park in Seattle - I can squeeze into spots that no other car can, except maybe a Smart Car.

Both my vehicles are 5-speed manual transmission, which is hard to come by these days and were actually difficult to get when I bought them (both were special ordered to get the manual transmission). This fact also makes them seems like relics from the ice age. They are, however, great conversation starters when I drive anyone around who is less than 35. Or European. Or both. Oh! And, more importantly. Both of my cars are paid off.

I took the CRV in to get emissions tested on it the other day. It passed, fortunately. I did find out that the state of Washington will no longer be requiring vehicle emission testing starting in 2020. The reasons for it are actually good:

1. The air is cleaner
2. Fuels are cleaner
3. Newer engines run cleaner

What underlies this good news is possibly some bad news. A 17-year-old car probably doesn't have a newer engine that runs cleaner (although I suppose it does compared to a classic car from the 60s), but then again most people don't keep their cars around for 17 years. Cars these days can run for 200,000 miles or more but the average American replaces their vehicle every 11.6 years.

I was actually surprised to hear this average because my experience with friends and family has been more like them replacing their cars on the 6 - 7 year average. The average has gone up, I think, because the cost of a new car has gone up faster than inflation over the years. I cannot even fathom spending more than $21,000 on a new car. And, even that seems ridiculously high.

How old are your cars (if you have any)? Do you buy new or used when you do replace a vehicle?

Growing hops in high mountain country

Centennial and Nugget
hops

My partner, Daniel, was looking for plants that grow quickly to cover the side of his house in the mountains and he settled on growing hops. Okay, so 2200 feet isn't exactly Mt. Everest but, compared to my house in Seattle (at 200 feet), the growing conditions are very different. Add to the fact that his place is on the east side of the Cascade mountain range, and you have a radically different climate than maritime Puget Sound.

Varietals
I picked out two different types of hops and purchased two plants of each, hoping they'd do well in this area:

1. Nugget Hops - Humulus lupulus 'Nugget', an American bred variety for use in brewing beer. It is a bittering type of hop that is used in all styles of beer.

2. Centennial Hops - Humulus lupulus 'Centennial', an American variety that was also bred for use in brewing beer. It is an aroma variety that is very popular in American craft ales, stouts and porters.

The super grower!

Both types grow 15 - 25 feet per season and are hardy to 30 degrees F. They also die back to the ground each winter (I suspect this is the case for all hops).

One of the Centennial hops plants is totally kicking the other 3 plants' asses and is almost twice as tall as the Nugget hops. It's fascinating to watch them grow - we will literally place a marker where the plant has reached and come back up to the mountains a few days later and it's grown a half a foot or more.

We have the hops set up on a drip timer since half the week they are left to their own devices.

Reuse, reduce, recycle
In order to support the four plants, Daniel built a trellis system out of leftover hog wire and wood from one of his construction sites. And, some of the drip lines are also leftovers from a landscaping job or two. The upgrades he's making to this house is being done predominantly with found or leftover building materials. I'll be showing you more of what he's doing over the next few months!

What about the beer?!
Well, ultimately, I'd like to dabble making my own beer. I'm not sure if that's going to happen this year or not, but I have the summer to start fiddling around with small batches before these hops are even ready for harvest. I have so many projects planned for the summer that the brewing might go on the back burner.

But, in the meantime, we'll be drinking a lot of beer as research while we're perfecting our hop growing techniques. Which basically seems to be - plant in ground and watch grow. At the very least I'll be drying this year's hops for future use.

Urban fruit orchard - what I'm growing

Honeycrisp apples

I've lived in my current house for about 13 years now and, over the years, I have planted numerous fruiting trees and bushes. While I love planting annual vegetables, I still can't get over the "free" fruit that comes back year after year with relatively little effort besides trimming back some branches. Well, some things, like grapes and my almond tree are a little more of a pain than not. But, for the most part, it's pretty easy maintenance.

For those of you in the Pacific Northwest, most of the fruiting plants I've purchased are from Raintree Nursery in Western Washington or Swanson's Nursery in Seattle. Both have a great selection!

Anyway, I wanted to give you a snapshot of all the fruit that I've got growing in my little urban fruit orchard:

THE TREES

3 x 1 Cherry. This tree has Rainier, Montmorency and another sour cherry grafted onto one rootstock. The birds generally pick the sour cherries clean off the high canopy, but I'm able to get the Rainier and more than enough sour cherries than we can eat off the more reachable section down below.

Rainier Cherry. I'm not 100% this one is a Rainier, but it looks and tastes like Rainiers. I planted it after lamenting how many sour cherries the above tree produced, but not enough sweet cherries! I keep it super short, maybe 7 feet tall.

Hollywood plum

Hollywood Plum Lovell. I love this plum tree, it produces some of the sweetest plums I have ever eaten. I also keep this one pretty compact at 8 feet tall.

Mini Dwarf Honeycrisp. This poor thing has been struggling to grow, but it produces a good 10 - 15 full-sized apples on it every year. It's our Charlie Brown tree of apples.

2 Columnar Apples - Golden Sentinel and Scarlet Sentinel. One of the columnar trees has stayed columnar, the other one is a huge sprawling crazy thing. I've let it go au natural because it produces way more apples this way. Both are really good eating apples.

Fuzzy little almonds!

Dwarf Almond - Nikita's Pride. This is a relatively new addition that I planted in 2017 and it's got quite a few fuzzy almonds on it this year. Last year it flowered but I didn't get any almonds. I'm hoping to see some production to write about later. It's a cold hardy dwarf tree that grows like wild, so I need to keep it under control more than I like or it will grow into our power lines.

Arbequina Olive. Oh boy, this poor thing. It's been in a pot for years to keep it from taking over the yard. Every year it produces a ton of tiny little olives, but nothing edible. If I plant it in the ground it will get up to 30 feet tall, so I keep it contained. It's more ornamental than anything.

Mini Dwarf Persimmon - Nikita's Gift. I love persimmons! This tree, like the almond tree, was planted in 2017. I finally have some baby fruit on it this year! I'm sooo excited to see what, if anything, I get off the tree this year.

Nikita's Gift persimmon

THE BUSHES

2 Triple Crown Thornless Blackberries. These grow like crazy and produce more blackberries than I can eat, freeze and can. The blackberries are huge (about thumb size) and are pretty seedy if you pick them too early. I whack them down every year and they still come back, guns-a-blazing, every time.

2 Raspberry Shortcake Raspberries. I love these little guys. They are short, thornless, tend to stay contained and are prolific producers. We eat a ton of these every year and I still end up freezing a lot.

Stevens Cranberry. This doesn't produce anything (yet), but one of these days it might. I'll keep you posted!

Quinault strawberry

Quinault Strawberries. I replanted my weird strawberry patch that's in an old sandbox 2 years ago with these everbearing strawberries. They don't produce a ton, but are enough to keep me happy.

Bluecrop Blueberry. This crappy bugger has taken about 10 years to produce anything of note. I love blueberries so I'm letting him keep his spot. I took out the other blueberry years ago out of sheer frustration from it producing only a few blueberries a year.


THE VINES 

Canadice grapes

Grapes - Canadice, Glenora and Catawba. I've had to reorient the first two of these varietals of vines since I replaced the fence they were growing on a few years ago. Last year they were just getting re-established and then struggled with powdery mildew on them, which seems to negatively impact their fruit production.

They were producing like freaking crazy before I moved them to the other fence, so maybe they'll recover and we'll have more grapes than we know what to do with them (like in previous years).

The Catawba vine I've had for over a decade and it has never produced anything useful. Just sad, sad grapes. I keep it around because it looks nice, but I regret it every year because it grows so darn fast.

Note: all of these pictures were taken end of May 2019.

Help! We've got apple maggots!

Looks like an apple!

My new partner, Daniel, owns a property in the Cle Elum area of Kittitas County in Washington (I mentioned the area in my previous post about checking out rural properties). You'll be hearing a lot about the projects we have going on over there, but as spring is upon this mountainous area, we needed to get on top of the fact that the apple tree on his property was severely infested with apple maggots last year.

I looked into a number of different options but went on the recommendations from our local nursery and that was to start with apple maggot traps and lures. Once we have signs of apple maggots, we will spray the trees with what they recommended, Bonide Fruit Tree Spray. However, the fruit tree spray we got isn't exactly the most organic thing I'd want to use, breathe in and, ultimately, eat.

So, we are running into two problems right now:

Quarantine areas of WA

1. Identification: How do you identify apple maggots on the traps versus all the various other little flying bug things that are getting stuck to it? I'm assuming pictures of adult maggots on the web are what I'm matching the trap corpses to?

and

2. Organic Options: When they do show up, what's a good (or several) organic alternative so I don't have to be concerned with what I'm ingesting both fresh and preserved?

What do you use to treat apple maggots (and coddling moths while we're at it)? I've never had apple maggots before, so I need your help!!


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Mastering Grief - Death and the Dogwood

I was seriously considering starting a totally new blog titled "Young Widow Farmer" or some such thing rather than continuing in the vein of the Crunchy Chicken, but I didn't want my marital status defining me any more than my late husband wanted his fight with cancer to define him. He was, first and foremost, a husband, father, brother, friend, co-worker and an all-around exceedingly brilliant, hilarious, kind, humble and generous person. He just also happened to have a terminal illness.

My dogwood in bloom, 2019.

So, this dogwood. It's annual blooming is completely meaningless to anyone else besides me. Sure, it's pretty and everyone who sees it comments on its beauty, but it means so much more to only me. We bought this house with this dogwood tree when it was in full bloom back in May 2006.

I don't know at what point I started doing this, but every year since my late husband's diagnosis in 2007 I'd look at it blooming in late April and early May and think, "is this going to be the last year that this tree blooms and my husband is alive"? Some years we would be out of town when it was blooming and I'd miss most of the pink flowers and get anxious. That somehow that would portend his demise. It's weird how your mind, and your superstitions, work. And, each year he would somehow survive the torture and the treatments.

After a while, I'd kind of laugh at myself because 11 years of cancer survival is a long time. Worrying about the dogwood blooming and the link to my husband's survival seemed more ridiculous. And, honestly, last year I was feeling cocky enough to not go through the machinations of thinking the, "is this the last year this blooms and my husband is alive" routine.

My dogwood started becoming pink this last week. And, shit, it hit me again. The old mental routine. Except, this year, I already knew the answer to the question. You never really master grief - it just changes color, flavor and texture. I know this from my own father's death back it 2011, just as my book was published. Grief is a strange thing and is different every time. But, this time around, I'd actually been grieving my late husband's death since his diagnosis.

I stopped blogging shortly after my Dad died, so it seems somewhat fitting that I'd restart blogging after my husband died. And, as I head into a weekend in my "new life", with a new partner, and the possibilities of a new future and all its adventures, I can't but help also be tethered by the familiarity and routine of the old to ground me and remind me that life is tenuous. The dogwood is just one of the many things that strikes me into remembering. And, because of that, each day I take nothing for granted.

Teen Trauma - The horrors of no wifi

Always with phone in hand.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization released their recommendations for screen time for children under the age of 5. For the first year of life they recommend zero time, rarely any in the second year and no more than an hour a day for ages 2 to 4. Frankly, this seems entirely reasonable, although I might be in the minority here.

My two children didn't watch any television until they were at least 5 and computer time came much later. My 16-year-old son still doesn't have a cell phone (and doesn't want one). It may sound strange coming from two parents who worked in tech, but we weren't TV watching adults, so limiting screen time in the early years came extremely easily.

Fast forward to today and it's a much different story and I know here I'm not in the minority. While my 15 and 16-year-olds don't sit down and watch network television, they watch a lot of shows using Netflix and other entertainment on YouTube. My 15-year-old daughter got her own cell phone in 8th grade after much haranguing and, for her peer group, that's late. Oftentimes, she'll be on her laptop and cell phone at the same time. But, I think that's par for the course for most adults as well.

We've become a modern nation of connectivity with expectations that we have high speed, instantaneous access through our devices to the Internet. This drives most people all day long, every day. Teens and adults. You see them in elevators, in line at the store, waiting for the bus, all staring into their phones. Myself included - I have no pretense to suggest I'm any different.

The main difference is my ability to unplug and put away my devices. A common theme among my teenagers and other teens I know is that, if there isn't access to wifi or cell service, they aren't participating. Sadly, this has been a huge constraint for my family any time we take a trip somewhere. If there isn't high speed wireless Internet available, they aren't going. Which sounds really ridiculous when you put it in writing.

Of course, sometimes you don't have much of a choice - mountainous areas of Washington state just don't have decent coverage to support streaming video. It's not like there's no Internet or cell service, it's just that it's not good enough. Because, predominately, what teens are doing online isn't downloading text to read, articles, news, etc. It's video. And video demands bandwidth. And without that bandwidth, boredom ensues. And then the complaining that's there's nothing to do begins.

One skill that kids seemed to have lost with the advent of constant connectivity is the ability to context switch off the electronic teat, with its incumbent squirts of adrenaline. But, it does happen, with enough time away from their devices. It's just getting through that chunk of time until they realize that they have to come up with something else to do that can be very trying and is, understandably, why parents oftentimes give in.

What about your kids? Are they able to unplug without protest? Do you have issues with your teens refusing to go on vacation because the wifi isn't good enough?


Recommended Reading:
Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction is Highjacking our Kids
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains
Digital Detox: The Ultimate Guide to Beating Technology Addiction

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Log Cabin in the Little Woods - Checking out rural properties

Log Cabin - Cle Elum, WA

Back when I was blogging regularly, one thing I always dreamed about was moving to a more rural area on several acres so that I could garden and raise critters to my heart's content. Several things prevented me from living out that dream, primarily location to work, daily accessibility to the cancer treatment center and willingness of the whole family.

Since I have been working 100% remotely from home for almost the last year (and not working the last 2 months), that first barrier isn't really an issue anymore. I don't need to be within driving distance of downtown Seattle. Both of my high schoolers are homeschooled, so that isn't so much an issue now either and both of them are interested in being on more land.

It dawned on me the other night that, when I was working full-time and in the thick of being the primary caregiver for the whole family as well as the primary stable bread winner, the one thing I wished I could do instead of working in software development was write full-time and try to live the lifestyle that I talked about so often.

Being shell-shocked after my husband died, I wasn't really clearly seeing my options and, after I got laid off from work, my knee-jerk reaction was to jump back into a tech job. But I don't have the same constraints anymore. I don't have to spend 10 hours a week sitting in traffic going to a tech job I don't really have to have anymore. I can do something else. And maybe that something else is the thing I dreamed about for so long.

Last night, on my way to Roslyn with my new man friend, Daniel, (more on that later 😄), I went out and looked at a rural property that just came on the market. Two areas of the state that I had my eye on years ago for where I'd like to live is the Skagit Valley (north of Seattle) and Cle Elum (90 minutes east of Seattle).

This property is in the Cle Elum area. It's a little over 7 acres, has a number of outbuildings on it in addition to the home itself and has a canning shed, for crying out loud. When we drove down the gravel drive, the owner came out to greet us. He was probably wondering what the hell we were doing on his property at 7 pm (there's no way you'd accidentally go down the drive), but most likely figuring he had a live one looking at the property.

The owner offered to give us a grand tour of the house and the rest of the property and really took us in, explaining the history of the land, his wife's family's ownership, who lives where on the original 35 acre property as well as their own history and interest in retiring to Yakima.

It wasn't a property I was interested in pursuing (the house is very small and dark, the acreage is a weirdly unusable strip of land and it is too far from town), but the overt friendliness of the owners was really refreshing. I couldn't help but think their real estate agent would be horrified to learn they are divulging all the property's secrets, but maybe that's just the city girl in me.

At this point, it's just exploratory looking - I have no concrete plans to move out of Seattle immediately. My goal is to have a better idea of what I want to do over the next 6 months to a year and figure out how to get there. But, knowing me, who knows. It might happen sooner than I think!

Earth Day - Blogging Update

Getting Crunchy, 2019.

I can't believe I started this blog a little over 12 years ago. A lot has occurred since then. Most notably, in the last year my husband passed away from cancer. I know a lot of my readers followed the early days of his diagnosis and treatment and provided me with so much emotional support. I can't even relay to you how important and meaningful that was for me to be able to mentally survive such an excruciatingly difficult ordeal for my family.

After 11 years of fighting multiple myeloma, my husband passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by family. I didn't post about it here because, honestly, I found it harder to tell you all than it was to just do a brief post on Facebook months after the fact and then take a long break from social media and figure out what I was going to do next with my life, without making too many big decisions.

In the intervening time since his passing, I was also laid off from work. I've spent the last two months taking a long-needed break, spending time with my kids and trying to regroup and recover from so many years of medical trauma and stress.

It's been such a roller coaster over the last year. I had switched jobs from a very stable government position to a volatile startup. During my first week of work, my husband's health dramatically took a turn for the worse and he never recovered. In the last year I've gone from having two sources of full-time income to none but I am, fortunately, in the position to take my time to discern what the next chapter of my life will look like.

On one hand, my identity is very much associated with my skills in software development. But, my heart truly lies in the realm of sustainability, green living and engaging with the rest of the world on these topics. So, it seems more than fitting to restart up my blog on Earth Day.

My goal over the next 5 months is to get back into blogging and see where that leads me. One of the reasons I stopped blogging before was because I didn't feel like I had anything new to say or contribute. Because of the changes in my life that, too, has changed and I have a lot I'd like to share with you all and can't wait to tell you all the things I am doing and have planned.

Harkening back to my first blog post, not much has changed and I hope to continue the engagement and, hopefully, the entertainment!

"This blog will cover my various wanderings through trying to add sustainable habits to my life. Things that make me feel less like I'm treading all over mother nature and perhaps lessening my footprint, carbon emissions and all that fun stuff.

In the meantime, I'll try to keep things marginally entertaining."

- The Crunchy Chicken, March 2007

Emulsifiers are in everything!

Last weekend, there was an opinion piece in the NY Times regarding how additives in processed foods negatively affect your gut microbiome, in particular mentioning emulsifiers and food thickeners. This isn't news exactly, this has been known for the last several years. But more research has shown what they do to the lining of your gut.

These are your guts on emulsifiers!

I've been having increased issues with food sensitivities over the last ten years and find that I have more and more issues with an increasing number of foods that I've had to eliminate. I can still eat them, but I generally have bad gastrointestinal issues, migraines and skin problems.

As a result of these food sensitivities, I've stopped eating foods that contain:

• gluten
• soy
• nightshades (potatoes, peppers, tomatoes)
• nitrates
• msg
• fermented foods

From the research I've done, I've found that these emulsifiers act as surfactants that break down the protective barrier lining your guts, causing food and bacterial encroachment into your bloodstream which results in an immune response. This is commonly referred to as a leaky gut and more and more scientific studies are showing this is actually a thing (versus pretending it was all in our heads).

The most offensive emulsifiers include:

• carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), otherwise known as cellulose gum
• polysorbate-80 (P80)
• carrageenan
• MDX, maltodextrin, modified starches (corn, wheat, tapioca, etc.)
• lecithin, soy lecithin (the jury is still out on these)

Additional gums that cause problems include:

• guar gum
• locust bean gum
• carob gum
• gellen gum
• cellulose gum
• tara gum
• xanthan gum

Needless to say, after looking at the processed foods (all organic) that I routinely eat, these emulsifiers are in EVERYTHING. From ice cream to salad dressing, sauces, chocolate, tortillas, and gluten-free anything, they are almost impossible to avoid.

Right now I'm on an elimination diet to get it out of my guts for at least 6 weeks and then see if I can challenge eating the foods that were causing me problems.

All this time I thought I had a gluten sensitivity, but I'm starting to think I have a surfactant reaction to these modifiers that's making me sensitive to all these other foods that I used to be able to eat without issue.

I'll be posting some recipes for substitutes to products that I've been eating that contain numerous and, in some cases, up to 5 of the emulsifiers and gums listed above. Just because something is organic or "natural" doesn't mean it doesn't have potentially harmful ingredients in them.

What about you? Are you finding that you are having more food sensitivity issues as you've gotten older?

Articles for your own research:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4615306/

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/02/25/food-additives-inflame-mouse-guts-by-disturbing-microbes/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568997215000245

https://dailyhealthpost.com/beware-of-emulsifiers-like-soy-lecithin-used-in-processed-foods-its-hurting-your-gut-health/

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14232

https://www.forbes.com/sites/fayeflam/2015/02/26/study-suggests-chemical-emulsifiers-in-food-are-disrupting-gut-microbes-and-making-us-fat/#7f6df5825f08

Ash on my apples - harvesting food after a wildfire

Light ash fall - just the beginning!

With all the fires in Western Washington (and in other parts of the country where it's far worse), we are getting some ash fall in Seattle. Nothing like ye olde Mt. St. Helens eruption days, but still. Enough ash to make it look like a light snowfall.

It didn't exactly dawn on me initially, but now I'm wondering what's the best way to rinse the ash off my backyard fruits and vegetables? Some things will be easier to rinse off, like zucchini and tomatoes, but sticky fruits like blackberries and herbs like Italian flat leaf parsley might be more of a challenge.

I can wait for some rain before worrying about harvesting the apples. I guess when it comes down to it, it's not exactly any more harmful than grilling vegetables over a wood fire, but it will add an unwanted grittiness to foods harvested in areas in wildfire country.

For those of you in harder hit areas of the country with lots of ash fall from wildfires - what are you going to do to get the ash off your harvested fruits and vegetables?

Homeschooling - film studies class

Rear Window

Today is the first day back to school for my two homeschoolers!

My daughter is starting 8th grade this year and has been totally loving her secular, literature-based curriculum from Bookshark. This year it's based on science (rather than world history) and includes books like the wonderful, Longitude. The Bookshark curriculum covers all the core courses, but we still search for other courses to round out the school year. Last year, she did a year of American Sign Language and got quite good at it.

This year we are taking a break on the languages and doing PE (mostly running) and a Film Studies course that's based on a two-year high school curriculum by Tim Marklevitz.

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we don't have to wait for high school to cover topics of interest (assuming they were even offered at our local high school). I can adapt the curriculum to her age level as well as the content of the movies, although she already watches movies way above her age range. I would definitely not recommend this movie list to younger children or high schoolers who are uncomfortable with scary movies or adult themes.

Some of the movies we'll be watching are:

• Rear Window (1954) - unit on mise en scene
• Do the Right Thing (1989) - unit on color and light temperature
• Citizen Cane (1951) - unit on cinematography
• The Conversation (1974) - unit on sound
• Psycho (1960) - unit on editing and will be during the week of Halloween
• Run Lola Run (1988) - unit on split screen and parallel editing
• The Wrong Trousers (1993) - unit on stop motion animation

This is Spinal Tap

There are 26 movies covered in the first year of the curriculum. We'll see if there's interest in the second year when she starts high school next year and, assuming she's still homeschooled. She has expressed an interest in one of the local, alternative high schools.

I have seen most of the movies in the list, but it will be fun to rewatch them again with an eye towards cinematography, structure, pacing and the like.

I'm using two texts along the way:

1. The Film Experience - An Introduction (Second Edition - it's cheaper and the content is similar to later editions)
2. Film Studies: An Introduction (Teach Yourself) 

For a full list of the films covered (as well as the topics touched on from each movie), you can view the list on IMDB: Movies for Teaching a High School Film Course.

Warning: There are Amazon affiliate links in this post.

Making outdoor clothes drying easier

Moerman Folding Rack

As you may remember, I've tried a number of different contraptions over the years to facilitate drying our clothes outside. Everything from retractable clotheslines to several kinds of folding drying racks. And, while the folding racks work well, they are not really made to be used outside and they tend to fall over in a stiff breeze, especially when laden with big, heavy laundry.

Why bother line drying your clothes outside, you ask? Well some of the benefits include:

• saving $150 or more per year in energy costs or coins
• reducing your carbon emissions by about a thousand pounds or more
• creating less wear and tear on your clothes
• eliminating static cling
• UV light from the sun can help disinfect clothing
• your clothes and sheets will smell fantastic
• it's a nice form of meditation

Brabantia Lift-O-Matic!

Because of the issues I was having with the folding racks and having to move them inside and back outside to protect them from the elements, we invested in a removable umbrella style rotary dryer clothes line that has 196 feet of drying space which, let me tell you, is more than sufficient. I can easily hang upwards of 4 loads of laundry which, let me also tell you, never happens. It also can comfortably dry sheets and large duvet covers with ease.

My husband had something similar in his yard when he was growing up, although not quite nearly as fancy. He's been wanting to get one of these for a while because he loves the smell of outdoor dried laundry. I've held off getting a more permanent line like this, but since this particular product allows you to pull it out of the ground and store it away so it's not a big eyesore in your yard, it was worth the extra cost.

The Brabantia Lift-O-Matic also comes with a spike cover thingy that keeps the dirt out of the bracket hole in the ground when you put the contraption away, as well as a weather protective cover to keep the crap off of it either while in storage or when it's out in the elements. Like I said, it's kind of pricey, but I love the darn thing.

Hills Panache Laundry Trolley

In order to help me lug all those heavy, wet clothes outside without tweaking out my back, I got a laundry trolley. While I can't say that I consistently use it (it's kind of hard to navigate on stairs, to be honest), it helps get me halfway there. And, it gives me one less excuse for not drying our clothes outside.

My only lamentation is that it's hard to dry clothes outside in Seattle for more than a couple of months out of the year. It's easy to fall out of the habit in the off-season and get used to using the dryer. I then have a hard time getting back into using it each year.

For more hints and tips on line drying clothes, check out the posts from my Laundry Challenge that I hosted a few years ago.

If you much prefer drying your clothes inside, check out my post for Tips for air drying clothes indoors.

What about you? Do you line dry your clothes outside and, if so, what kind of line do you use?

Warning: there be Amazon affiliate links in this here post.

Backyard mini orchard - 2017 update

Hollywood Plums

I think the last time I posted about my backyard mini orchard was back in 2011. So, it's about time that I update y'all with what fruiting things I've got growing these days.


Back in 2011 I had:

• 2 dwarf cherries
• 2 columnar apples
• 1 dwarf plum
• 2 blueberries
• 4 blackberries
• 1 dwarf nectarine
• 1 dwarf peach
• 2 dwarf pears
• 1 Peter's Honey Fig
• 4 blackberries
• 30 strawberries
• 3 grape vines

The fig sadly didn't make it

Over the years, things have changed up a bit. I ended up (due to tree disease) ripping out the nectarine, peach and pear trees. 

I dug up the fig because it was over a side sewer line, removed 2 blackberries because 4 was waaaay too many, removed one grape because they were super seedy (and we replaced our fence that it was growing on), removed 1 blueberry because it just wasn't growing, and most of the strawberries died off over the winter (who knows why).


So, here we are in 2017 and I've got:

• 2 dwarf cherries
• 2 columnar apples
• 1 dwarf plum (Hollywood)
• 1 blueberry
• 2 thornless blackberries
• 3 strawberries
• 3 grape vines

And I've added since 2011:

• 1 super dwarf Honeycrisp apple
• 1 dwarf almond tree
• 1 Sudachi lime tree
• 1 cranberry 
• 1 super dwarf persimmon
• 2 thornless raspberries
• 1 arbequina olive

Fruit Production:

Right now I'm up to my eyeballs in blackberries and I'm pulling off the Hollywood plums since they are just about done for this year. I love this plum - the fruit is fantastic tasting and the tree is self-pollinating. I keep it about 8 feet tall, just so I don't have to reach too high for the fruit. I've also got some residual blueberries on the bush and I'm holding off on harvesting the apples until this weekend. I'm planning on canning some apple pie filling and applesauce.

What kind of fruiting trees/plants are you growing? What just didn't work out in your yard?

A cold hardy lime that I haven't yet killed

I am a notorious citrus tree killer. I admit it. It's not that I'm trying to kill all of them, it just happens. I think I've gone through at least three Meyer Lemon trees and one Kaffir Lime. And possibly a Key Lime. None of them ever flowered or produced any fruit.

Look at them baby limes!

My husband, at this point, is very doubtful of my abilities in citrus. So, last year when I enthusiastically brought home a cold hardy Sudachi Lime that I could plant in the ground and leave outside year round, he was less than excited. He thought I was nuts. I believe there may have been some eye rolling. This was a year ago.

But the lime tree is still alive! And living outside! In the ground! And, lo and behold, it has about 10 baby limes growing on it. He's still doubtful. Granted, the plant is only about two feet tall and they may not survive, but I'm fairly confident this time around that I'll be enjoying some lime based beverage soon. A very small lime based beverage since the fruit only gets about as big as a golf ball. But I'm not picky. I've got limes!

Have you had any success growing citrus - keeping them outdoors in the summer and moving them indoors or just keeping them indoors? Of course, if you live in the south, I'm assuming you have more citrus fruit than you can possibly handle. And, I'm incredibly jealous.