Cheap clothes and consumerism

I ran across this blog post, The History of a Cheap Dress, which (obviously) goes into the history of how clothing became so cheap and how we've become a throwaway society when it comes to our clothes, in addition to pretty much every consumer product.

In the course of discussing it on Facebook, I was turned on to The Brown Dress Project and from there I found about The Uniform Project. Essentially, both projects involved different women who wore the same dress for a year. In the first one (the brown dress) the woman wore the same dress every day and, in the case of the second one (the uniform), the writer wore the same black dress - except she had 7 copies of it made.

The point for both projects really had to do with how we, as a society, are always in search of the new and.... look, shiny! We get rid of things long before they are worn out and, when it comes to clothes and the never-ending quest for the latest fashions, it's even more of a problem.

As stated by Alex, the brown dress woman:

I challenged myself to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are a big part of this image, and the expectation in time, effort, and financial investment is immense.

The Uniform Project had more to do with sustainable fashion and Sheena (the founder of the project) used a lot of different accessories to spice up the dress. The other items she wore were vintage, handmade, reused, or donated pieces. She's got a pattern up on her site for making the dress and a longer-term project (you can buy a couple different styles with proceeds donated to charity) to encourage others to try it out.

I suspect that most of the readers of this blog aren't exactly clotheshorses and are less apt to follow the latest fashions than the next person. But, that said, would you be willing to wear the exact same dress every day for a month or wear a little black dress (or outfit) as a uniform for a month? And, yes, you may be smelling a challenge coming on...

Illustration by Lena Corwin

Flat out

I'm feeling under the weather, hence the dearth of posts. I hope to be back in the saddle here soon...

Preparing your body for pregnancy

A reader sent me an email the other day asking for some help on preparing her body for pregnancy. She's planning on getting pregnant in 5 - 6 months and wanted to know which toxins to avoid and what to get rid of so she's not harboring dangerous toxins that could potentially affect her baby.

I cooked up a quickie list of things that I would do if I could do it all over again and I thought I'd share them with you.

Top 10 Toxin-Free Tips for Getting for Your Body Ready for Baby

1. Don't eat anything remotely containing mercury or arsenic, which means pretty much all fish.
2. Eat as much organic as possible (especially meat and dairy), and strictly avoid the pesticide-laden "Dirty Dozen" and avoid anything with artificial colorings
3. Drink filtered water and install a shower filter to reduce inhaled chlorine exposure
4. Avoid any cosmetics of questionable origin, particularly any nail polishes, even if they don't contain DBP, tuolene and the other well known nasty ingredients - there are still plastics and solvents
5. Avoid any body care product that contains parabens or fragrance or parfum
6. Get rid of anything containing a non-stick coating or PVC in the house, that includes wrinkle-free, stain resistant and water repellent clothes
7. Try to get only organic baby clothes and bedding. I know it's expensive but recent studies showed there are a ton of formaldehydes in the products that don't wash out and that's not even including the required flame retardants in children's sleepwear.
8. If you're planning on painting the baby's room or otherwise remodeling, choose non-toxic paint, flooring, non-vinyl shades, etc. for you and the baby
9. Choose baby furniture made with real wood and not off-gassing pressboard materials
10. Finally, once the baby is here, be vigilant about the baby care products you use - even the "clean and natural" stuff can contain nasty ingredients. Also avoid soft plastic toys - they all invariably contain PVC

A few extra notes - if you are planning on losing weight or doing some sort of food detox program now, just know that these actions will mobilize toxins out of your body tissues (mostly fat) and circulate them where they'll hang around for a while before being excreted or reabsorbed. So, if you do either, give your body enough time to process the extra toxin load in your blood before bombarding a baby with it.

And, yes, that is me, pregnant with Emma back in 2003.

Crazy environmental dreams

If you didn't have a spouse, significant other, roommates, kids and/or nosy parents to impede your crazy environmental dreams, what would you do?

What would you do?


If they aren't listed here, add 'em to the comments!

Growing potatoes in containers

This is a cross post from my blog over on Mother Earth News.

I've been growing potatoes in bins in our backyard for five years now. I started off using large, plastic storage containers that I drilled holes in for drainage and filled with a few inches of compost. As the potato plants grew, I "hilled" them with more soil.

Unfortunately, I have been less than attentive over the years and generally left the potato plants to get a little too tall before hilling them, which just meant that I probably wasn't getting the optimum yield. Last year, I didn't even really bother with getting potato "seeds" from the nursery and just let what was leftover in the bins grow. Needless to say, we hardly got anything from that experiment.

One thing I did notice, however, due to the paltry amount of potatoes, was that the bin got really soggy. The drainage holes I made just weren't doing their job and the potatoes that did grow were squishy and waterlogged.

Using grow bags
Instead of growing the potatoes in the containers again this year (one completely had degraded due to years of weather and sunlight), I decided to try growing potatoes in grow bags. The bags I ended up getting are felt-like and have a porous fabric that allows excess water to drain and the roots to breathe. Quite a difference from their last environment.

Hilling with straw and soil
One additional thing I'm doing differently this year is hilling the potatoes with layers of straw and soil. In previous years I hilled with just soil and it was always a pain digging through all that dirt to get to the goods. Over the years I had read that you can use straw. I didn't fully believe that just straw would work so I decided to use a combination layering technique of straw and soil.

So far, the potatoes are growing like crazy, but they grew like crazy in the old bins as well. I won't know if there's going to be any improvement until I harvest them, but I'm keeping my hopes up.

Do you grow potatoes? If so, do you grow them in bins?

Backyard Bounty book giveaway

I got a review copy of the book, Backyard Bounty: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Organic Gardening in the Pacific Northwest, from my publisher and I have to say, I've been loving it. Even though I've read a ton of books on gardening and gardening in the Pacific Northwest, in particular, I'm still learning a great deal.

The author, Linda Gilkeson, a master gardener, lives in the BC area and the content is certainly catered towards those living in the Pacific Northwest. But I have to say that the vast majority of the book would apply not only to those who live in similar climates but to all gardeners as well.

The book includes:

* Planning your garden and preparing the soil
* Organic fertilizers and simplified composting
* Growing healthy seedlings, transplanting, easy weeding and mulching
* Growing fruit and simple pruning methods
* Greenhouses, tunnels, and containers
* Organic pest management and more

Book giveaway
If you are interested in entering the random drawing for a copy of this book, leave your name in the comments of this post and tell me if you are a new, seasoned or expert gardener!

Bonus entry
If you are a "fan" of my Facebook page, you can get a second entry, just add an extra comment saying you LIKE me, you really LIKE me!

The rules
You have until midnight PST Saturday, May 28th to enter. Good luck and happy gardening!

The Crunchy Chicken Facebook Page

As many of you know, I've been on Facebook a long time and many of you readers are "friends". But, I finally got around to making an "official" Facebook Page for this blog where I will be posting all things related to the blog, environmental links, other musings, far too many rants and the like.

Oftentimes, I run across news articles or ideas that I don't feel like writing a complete blog about and, instead, post it on Facebook including my opinion and asking for yours. And, generally, we get a good conversation going on over there.

So, if you want to make sure you don't miss out on the conversation and info I'm posting on Facebook, come on over and LIKE my page! For those of you not on Facebook, you can still see what I'm up to in the plug-in to the right.

Beekeeping 101 - Part 1

The following is a guest post from Kate Ferry who writes the blog, The Sacred Bee's Blog. Since early 2010, she and her family began focusing on eating organic, supporting local businesses, removing toxic chemicals from their home and bodies and reducing their waste. She has been chronicling her adventures on her blog. This post is Part 1 of 2.

Beekeeping has been a part of my life for almost eight years and is one of my greatest passions. I particularly enjoy talking about bees, helping others get started with the hobby and spreading awareness about the importance of honeybees. This post will introduce you to beginner beekeeping and how to help the honeybee even if you don’t want to keep them.

I first became interested in honeybees while studying anthropology in college. The social structure of the honeybee is unlike any other living organism and the level of organization, community and work ethic is second to none. Inside the hive, they are truly remarkable creatures. Outside the hive, they are both critically beneficial and incredibly fascinating to study.

After graduating from college, I enrolled in a six-week course at a honeybee learning center just outside Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was an intense learning environment and it only fueled my interest and determination to bring honeybees into my life.

That next spring I jumped in headfirst and haven’t turned my back on them since. For the past eight years, I have enjoyed keeping bees at my family’s homestead in northwest Washington. And, through trials and tribulations have managed to keep the honeybee a sacred part of my life and that of my family.

If you can answer yes to the following questions – any or all of them – then beekeeping might just “bee” the thing for you. And, if you aren’t interested in keeping bees, fast forward about halfway through this post because there is info for you, too.

• Are you fascinated by the honeybee?
  
• Do you have access to a bit of land? Anything over about 20 feet by 20 feet will do just fine.
  
• Are you interested in reaping the benefits of a well-pollinated, seasonally rounded garden?
  
• Do you have a spare hour every two weeks or so?
  
• Do you have a sweet tooth for honey?
  
• Can you check off the “no” box on the doctor’s information form that asks “Are you allergic to bees”?

Now on to the details and where to begin...

1. Read up on honeybees. Get familiar with the terms and the level of time involved. Start to understand the basics and what you will be tackling when you make the commitment.

My absolute favorite book on beekeeping goes by a somewhat embarrassing moniker, but it’s loaded with quality information that is presented in an easy-to-follow format – whether you are a complete novice or well-practiced beekeeper.

• Beekeeping For Dummies by Howland Blackiston and Kim Flottum

The second and third books worth taking a peek at are:

• Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture by Ross Conrad & Gary Nabhan; and
  
  
• The Backyard Beekeeper – Revised and Updated: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden by Kim Flottum.

2. Find your local beekeeper’s association and check it out. And, if you are lucky enough to find one or get to a meeting and meet one – try, try, try to hook up with a mentor that you can observe in the field and go to with question after concern after inquiry.

3. Get your ducks, er bees, in a row. Find that plot of land to keep your hives. Order your gear through a local supplier or a number of online retailers including Mann Lake and Glory Bee. Start-up cost for one single hive and all brand-new gear is going to be about $200 to $300. Be on the lookout for used beekeeping gear (hat, suit, smoker, etc...) but, be wary of used equipment (hive boxes, frames, tools). Hive parts can harbor diseases and parasites that may have infected the previous colony and transfer over to your new, healthy bees.

4. Scout out sources for acquiring your bees. A box of bees is going to run you about $80 and a nucleus colony is around $100.

• Order them online through a retailer of choice
  
• Get in with your local beekeeper’s association and join in on their group order
  
• For the brave at heart – capture a swarm (a.k.a. FREE BEES!!)

5. Enroll in a formal course. Check out your nearest university and ask to speak with their agriculture department. Most state universities offer extension courses at the very least, but a number of them have an apiculturist on staff, too!

6. Try to engage children in the hobby. Getting kids involved with beekeeping is a wonderful way to instill an appreciation for the cyclical nature of our world and it is an amazing learning experience.

I have a two-year old who joins me for hive inspections and keeps a safe distance but constantly peppers me with questions as I go about my business. Family friends who homeschool have used an excursion to the bee field as part of their lesson plans. If being surrounded my thousands of flying insects is too spooky, there is always the honey extraction.

Kids (and adults!) love seeing frames dripping wet with fresh honey as the wax coatings are cut with a hot knife, watching the extractor spin and filling up their first jar of the golden nectar. Children can be involved with beekeeping at any age to any level they want depending on safety concerns and their interest.

Part 2 of this article pertains to those interested in welcoming honeybees into the garden and providing a safe haven for an endangered insect. It will be posted next week.

Backyard mini-orchard

This weekend, in addition to harvesting a ton of greens and herbs, I planted some fruit trees and hardened off some plants. I'm doing a long slow hardening off of my tomato plants and need to acquire some more for the bed I built. I also started hardening off the pumpkin plants I started inside a few weeks ago. I think I went a little crazy with the pumpkins because I have something like 24 pumpkins plants going.

As for planting, I planted 6 fruit trees. This is from the batch that I ordered a month or so ago. Two of them didn't come because the nursery deemed they "didn't look good" enough. But, in the end I planted:

1 cherry
1 plum
1 peach
1 nectarine
2 pears

That brings all my fruit trees/bushes/plants to the following:

2 dwarf cherries
2 columnar apples
2 dwarf pears
1 dwarf nectarine
1 dwarf peach
1 dwarf plum
1 Peter's Honey Fig

Plus:
2 blueberries
4 blackberries
30 strawberries
3 grape vines

I also planted some flowers in the front yard. My sunflowers are popping up through the ground and, hopefully, won't get trampled much more by the kids.

Do you have any fruit trees in your yard? What's your favorite?

Salad days and then some

We are well into eating salad every day and I thought I'd share some pictures from around our urban farm that I took this week.

Our first hoop house is going gangbusters. It's growing spinach, two types of lettuce, carrots, broccoli and sugar snap peas:


Our garlic is getting huge. I wish this picture really showed not only how tall they are but how much girth they've got going on:


Our annual herbs are growing nicely. In this shot there's Italian flat leaf parsley, cilantro, dill and oregano (in the background):


Our cherry tree is pretty much done with its blossoms and we have a nice crop of tiny fruit coming along:


The columnar apples are still blossoming:


My potato experiment is going wild. I've already hilled it a couple times. These potatoes (I have two going) are being raised in grow bags and hilled with a mix of soil and straw:


Finally, our strawberry bed is in bloom:



How are things growing in your yard?

Can famine be solved by food scraps?

I was listening to our local NPR station this morning and the guest (Norman Myers) on the show, Population Growth and Environment, made the comment that the famine problem in Africa could be solved by reducing the food wasted in Western countries.

The gist of the comment was that the waste from food manufacturing all the way to our own food waste (food thrown out) could be packaged up and sent to Africa and solve their problems there. He didn't elaborate much more and the host didn't press him on it, but that rang some huge bells in my head.

What do you think based on this statement? Do you think famine could be solved if we just weren't as wasteful with our food?

Midget eggs and other things

This last week has been a hodgepodge of odd things around the house. Yesterday, Roxy, our Plymouth Barred Rock chicken laid an itty bitty egg. It was as if a robin had snuck into the coop and laid a tiny brown egg. I would have taken a picture of it, but Emma (in her excitement) broke it on the way in the house.

Saturday, I planted some seed projects Emma did at school a month or so ago. I'd been keeping the plants under grow lights in the basement and finally planted them outside. Because of spring break, I ended up adopting several student's projects (they left them there over break) and so I had three couplings to plant.

They are really a mystery because:

1. first graders don't exactly report accurately and
2. their teacher didn't remember what they were planting (it was a parent who led the project)

They look to be a combo of sweet peas, corn and beans. Not sure if they are pole or bush, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. I suspect they are pole since I bet they had some sort of three sisters thing going on. Minus the squash.

Otherwise, the weather here has been supremely crappy. I put my tomato plants out on Friday for a few hours to start a long, slow hardening off, only to find them completely sagging over and flaccid. Even after bringing them back inside they hadn't perked up much so I staked them up and put them back under the grow lights. I'll try again in a few more weeks.

Saturday night, we had our second neighborhood get-together that we hosted at our house. About five families showed up so it was a small affair, but nice because we got to talk with those neighbors a lot more than if it was a larger crowd. Next month we are having a homemade pizza party and July will be a root beer float party with homemade ice cream. I'm hoping to also interject some other meet-ups depending on people's interests.

My brother-in-law arrived to stay with us for a few months while he works locally doing some contract work. It's nice sharing the house with family - we have all this extra space and I'm glad we can help out as much as we can. Plus, we all love having him here.

That about wraps it up around here!

Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Twitter Party

I'm going to be participating in tonight's Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Twitter Party.

With the Safe Chemicals Act just introduced in Congress, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families thought it would be a good time to host a Twitter party on the topic of toxic chemicals. What’s a Twitter party, you ask? It’s basically a fast-paced, lively chat forum for educating and sharing ideas – all in 140 characters or less.

At their Twitter party they will be bringing expert panelists together to answer your questions about toxic chemicals, show you how to protect your family and let you know why passage of the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 is so critically important.

Here are the details – we hope you can join us!

Date: Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Time: 9-10 PM Eastern/6-7 PM Pacific

Topic: Protecting Our Families from Toxic Chemicals

Key Questions Covered:

* Why should we be concerned about chemicals in products we use every day?
* What are the worst chemicals to avoid in products?
* What can we do to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals?
* How will the Safe Chemicals Act protect us?

How to join the party:

1. Follow @SaferChemicals and our expert panelists on Twitter.
2. Use the hashtag #saferchemicals on all of your tweets.

For a full list of the folks on the expert panel as well as more info on how to participate, check out this blog post.

Oh, and my book, The Non-Toxic Avenger: What you don't know can hurt you is available for pre-sale at Amazon! Please note that it's not due to come out until November.

Top 5 favorite foods to grow

Since I've been busy getting some vegetable starts in the ground for this summer's bounty, I wanted to list the top 5 things I like to grow, why I grow them and add some of the potential problems with them.

1. Garlic - They are super easy, virtually pest resistant, store well and the resulting enjoyment is high. I just need to remember to put them in the ground before Halloween or all bets are off.

2. Pumpkins - Another easy one that produces far more in the end compared to the effort I put in. This year we're growing a ton of Cinderella pumpkins that we'll process and freeze. The only possible issue is if we leave them out too long and they are subjected to frost and turn into squishy monsters.

3. Lettuce - We eat a lot of it and, if we can keep the slugs and other critters away, it grows well. The heat of summer can cause them to bolt, so they are more of a spring and fall sort of crop unless I get a slo bolt kind.

4. Italian flat leaf parsley - This grows exceedingly well in our area, much more so than any other annual herb. There are no downfalls to this plant except for, maybe, forgetting to plant the damn thing. It can go to seed quickly, but that just means I need to do some succession planting.

5. Strawberries - Even though we don't exactly have the space set up for a huge crop, eating fresh strawberries straight out of the backyard just can't be beat, no matter what.

What are your favorite top 5 foods to grow?

Microplastics in the ocean

I crashed a brown bag seminar at work, a talk from a UW - Tacoma professor about her research on Puget Sound water samples and how much plastic is in it. Her research was going to help extrapolate how much plastic there is in the world's oceans. I'm not going to go into great detail of the results of the research done here but, no surprise, she found plastic in all her samples.

What did surprise me, however, was a few of the things she stated. The first was that she didn't believe there was a giant plastic patch in the Pacific. Her thinking was that, since it's hard to specify where the patch is and its size given its mobility due to currents and a whole host of other variables, it didn't exist. This would have made Beth Terry chafe.

The second statement she made was that there was no evidence that plastics, given their stability, were dangerous as far as leaching chemicals goes. She even jokingly offered up the idea that perhaps eating microbeads would be a good dieting method because it gave the feeling of satiety. She said that seabirds and fish could eat it and it would pass through their systems (if not too large, which is a problem) but it otherwise wouldn't affect them negatively from a chemical standpoint. This chapped my hide because there clearly is a lot of research showing that plastics leach all sorts of chemicals. BPA is an obvious example.

The last comment really burned my britches. When she asked us what we could do to prevent plastic in the oceans, the room was silent for a moment so I offered up the most obvious conclusion: "use less plastic". Her response was that they weren't about to take on the plastic industry. The answer, of course, is properly disposing of plastics but many people in the audience kept trying to bring up alternatives to plastics. The speaker stated that it's a "personal choice" but didn't have any suggestions or knowledge on how to avoid plastics.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this seminar, but I guess it was that the speaker would have a broader view of plastics, its affects and would be an activist for less plastics all-around. Instead, she focused directly on her more immediate research and less on the problem as a whole.

I'm not trying to criticize, it just occurred to me that, even scientists who spend their whole careers specializing in studying plastics in the ocean maybe aren't looking at the other issues involved.

What do you think? Do you think the problem of plastics in the ocean is just a disposal issue or are there other endemic problems with plastics?

Backyard beekeeping

Along with turning our front yard into a giant edible wonderland, we are thinking of getting backyard bees. We have a couple of options: we can host a hive through one of several organizations in the area (Ballard Bee Company or Urban Bee Company) or we can set up our own shop.

Last year I took a class on beekeeping from Seattle Tilth and learned, more or less, the basics. I also received a review copy of Keeping Bees with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Tend Hives, Harvest Honey & More, which I've been dutifully studying.

Unfortunately, all the books and training I've had has been on Langstroth hives. Both companies that do the hosting stuff also use Langstroth hives. But, I've been immensely fascinated by top bar hives which seem easier and more natural in many respects.

The benefits of hosting a hive are that I don't have to do anything besides provide the space. At the end of the deal, we get 10% of the honey. We'll most definitely be going this route for a number of reasons (laziness and fear top the list), but I still am drawn to the top bar hives.

Do any of you keep bees and, if so, what kind of hives do you have?

Sod buster saves the day!

Last fall, when I was doing a giveaway for a laundry drying rack, the company sponsoring the giveaway asked if I was interested in trying out one of their other products from their company, Easy Digging. I really liked the looks of one of their hoes - the Grub Hoe - since I had plans of digging up a lot of sod for making new beds in the spring, and put in my request.

I received the grub hoe and put it in the garage for the winter to rest, since I wasn't about to bust any sod anytime soon. Well, here it is spring now and I wanted to try it out. While I was removing two very tall arborvitae, I managed to snap my shovel in half. Yes, in half. Because I'm OCD, I couldn't let that tree wait half hanging out, so I assembled my grub hoe and went to work slicing and dicing my way through the rest of the root system.

That still left the other tree and, after a short break, I decided to see if the grub hoe would do the job digging it up as well. While it's certainly not meant for this kind of work, it was quite effective at it.

Next up on my massive list of gardening opportunities was digging a trench between my yard and my neighbor's to lay down a weed barrier. Their lawn grows into my raised bed (don't ask - it's a strange arrangement on a slope) that drives me batshit crazy every year. With the trees out of the way, I had more space to do the job and the grub hoe made quick work of digging a 30 foot trench half a foot deep to lay down my barrier. Problem solved.

But, the pièce de résistance was when I went to double dig a new 4' x 4' raised bed in the lawn in my backyard. Last time I did this I used the shovel (the one I just snapped) and it was a long, back-breaking event. I started out with a shovel I had purchased in the interim but quickly switched over to my new best friend.

That grub hoe sliced through the sod like butter. With a little swing and a swivel, the sod popped out like nobody's business and I was able to get that sucker double dug in no time flat. And, I was actually having fun. WTF?

I've got another bed to dig up this weekend and I can honestly say I'm looking forward to sod busting. Call me crazy (well, you already do) but I'm in love with my grub hoe.

Note: I am in no way being compensated for this review aside from the sample grub hoe I received back in the fall.

The not so zen yoga mat

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book, The Non-Toxic Avenger: What you don't know can hurt you, due out Fall 2011 from New Society Publishers. The book follows my attempts to rid everything potentially toxic from my life.

I have, for almost twenty years, been extremely inflexible. I don't know exactly when it began but it was sometime around the time I started running in my early twenties. With the increase in muscle came a decrease in flexibility in spite of all the stretching I felt like I was doing. I've known people who rarely stretch, but yet who are much more flexible than I am and I've never quite been able to figure out why.

My inflexibility causes me a lot of problems, most notably with my knees when I am running (which I don't really do anymore because of some foot issues) and most painfully with my back. My tight calves, hamstrings, hip flexors and a number of other lower body muscles and tendons all end up pulling on my back, causing me a lot of issues with back spasms and strains. If I stay on top of stretching and make sure I do it every day, then I can keep most of my back pain at bay. Even if I skip a day, I'm setting myself up for pain later.

The recent increase in exercise meant I really needed to stretch twice a day and by that I mean a combination of classic running stretches as well as yoga. The problem with yoga is that most yoga mats are made out of or are backed with PVC. We had three yoga mats in the house because the kids were big into imitating my yoga practice for a while. The mats didn’t get a tremendous amount of use, but they were still present, off-gassing dangerous chemicals (like phthalates, lead and cadmium) into our rooms.

If I stretched in the living room, there was enough padding under the rug that I didn't need a mat. However, if I wanted to do anything that required a sticky mat, it was an issue and I slipped on the rug. Fortunately, there are yoga mats that are made out of non-toxic Thermal Plastic Elastomer (TPE), rather than PVC. If I want to take a yoga class, I could bring my own non-PVC mat, but I’d still be in a room full of people using, most likely, PVC mats.

All that deep breathing just meant that I'd be deep breathing in a room full of PVC particulates. I hated to do it, but I donated all three of our yoga mats. Since I still needed at least one mat in the house, I ordered a TPE-based mat. The one really nice thing about the new mat was the fact that it didn't have that "new mat" smell. And, I ended up avoiding yoga studios until the project was over.

Edible front yard

After going to see Novella of Farm City fame last week, my husband announced that he wanted to turn our front lawn into edible landscaping.

Now, it should be no surprise to you that I've wanted to do this to our front yard for years, but didn't think he'd be game for the work that would go in to it. However, he hates grass and our front lawn is not exactly the most beautiful turf in the neighborhood, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise (this picture is from March 2007 and the lawn is much less grass and more other things since then).

Other neighbors have removed their lawns, but I can count on two fingers the number of houses in our community that have any kind of edibles growing in their front yard. Okay, make that 1 finger. So, I've always been loathe to do what I really want out front. Our backyard is another matter, and it's turning more into raised bed central although we still have more grass than beds.

In either case, my husband is really getting into it and ordered a book on the matter. We have a couple great landscaping companies in Seattle than specialize in edibles so we'll probably be consulting them for design decisions otherwise we'll most likely end up with rows of raised beds.

What about you? Do you grow food in your front yard or do you keep it to the "safety" of the backyard?

Billions and billions of people

According to my local NPR station, as of this month, we'll hit 7 billion people on planet Earth. Go team!

In the last century, we've made some pretty astounding increases in population and, while I believe this growth will slow due to limited resources, I do believe that when we hit 9 billion in the next 30 years we well nigh will have worn out our welcome.

So, on this occasion, what do you think? Are humans the greatest thing ever to evolve or are we parasitic and need some sort of control on population?

Urban Farming event tonight

I was hoping to have my interview up with Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, before this event, but she's been a tad bit busy. In any case, my husband and I will be attending an urban farming event tonight in Seattle if any of you locals are interested in going. Here are the details:

Essential Arts presents the 2nd edition of "Art+Agricuture" on Thursday, April 28, 2011, at Washington Hall. The program, on urban farming, will feature author and farmer Novella Carpenter, along with topical songs by musical performer okanomodé.

Following Novella's reading and okanomodé's performance will be a group discussion on urban farming, food justice, and the intersection of creativity and change, led by Eddie Hill of GroundUp, Seattle Tilth, and Creatives 4 Community. Eddie will be joined by numerous farmers and community organizers as well as the featured artists.

The event will also include an "Urban Ag Bazaar" (with various organizations including Seattle Tilth's Gardener Hotline, Central Co-op, Seattle Urban Farm Co-op, Jefferson Park Food Forest, and others), and beer, wine, and healthy treats for sale.

For more information, visit Essential Arts and for ticket info, head on over to Brown Paper Tickets.

Hope to see you there!

Merino blanket - The 10 year project

Since the weather has been getting warmer, we've been waking up way too hot under our down comforter and have since switched over to lighter blankets. During this transition, we oftentimes wake up freezing, so I use a merino throw on my side of the bed that I made a while ago. But it is still a work in progress.

I just realized that I started this blanket when we lived at our old house. I had finished it as a throw when I decided I wished I had made it wider. That was over 7 years ago. Instead of starting something new I concocted a plan to widen it by knitting side panels that I would then "sew" onto the main panel using yarn (see photo below for a close up shot). I finished one of the side panels a few years ago and have been slowly making my way in fits and starts on the second.

Right now (with the main and one side panel done) it covers my side of the bed and then some. When I'm done, it probably still won't be big enough to fit all the way across our queen bed but, then again, my husband would find it too warm anyway. I figure, at this rate, I'll finish it in about 10 years time. But, I don't mind. Like my daughter's hand sewn quilt, I'm glad I took the time to make it, because it will be something that I'll keep forever and torture future generations with.

I'm also glad I spent the money on the yarn I bought because I'd hate to spend all those hours on something not as heavenly. The yarn I'm using is Crystal Palace Merino Frappe. It's 80% extra fine merino wool with 20% nylon that is brushed so it's very light, extremely soft and very warm. Emma loves to curl up in it and so do I.

Do you have a project that you've been working on for years?

Neighborhood meet-up: disaster prep

As you may recall, I sent out an email a little over a month ago querying the neighbors to see if they were interested in getting together to establish groups with common interests. I was nervous about proposing some of the things I did, mostly surrounding urban homesteading living, but the reception was positive and a lot of families were interested.

We had our first meet-up this past Saturday - a two hour affair with people bringing snacks, appetizers and drinks. Because my husband was still recovering from pneumonia, one of our neighbors ended up hosting it and a lot more people showed up than originally RSVPed. All told, about 9 families came to this first event, which was essentially a meet and greet, but we also went over basic disaster preparedness and decided how often we wanted to continue these events.

We socialized for about 50 minutes and then I got the group together to talk about why I sent out the initial email and we discussed how prepared people felt they were in case of a major event, what else they should be doing and what kind of neighborhood contact list we should have and what kind of information we should have on it. Of those who had some stored supplies, they were mostly following the 3-day standard, but I suggested that thinking beyond that would make sense and even having a shared neighborhood resource for water filtration and the like would be of worth.

I proposed creating a Google doc that everyone could access to add information ranging from where to turn off their gas line to what special skills or equipment (see water filter) they had. The City of Seattle also offers signs for residents that say "OK" on one side and "HELP" on the other in case of an emergency that you can put in your window.

Conversation turned more towards establishing relationships for less exciting things than an earthquake and more like heavy traffic or snow tying them up and someone picking up or watching their kids during times of need. In other words, creating more of that neighborhood network that I envisioned.

We decided to meet the first Saturday of every month for an early evening deal, with alternating families hosting, which basically means pulling some chairs together. Fortunately, one of the neighbors has a 15-year-old daughter who babysat the little kids inside while we sat outside chatting, eating and drinking.

Because the group was so large and, I think, because many were there just to socialize, we didn't get too much decided by way of focusing on anything in particular for future meet-ups. I'll propose the next "theme" when I organize the next meeting and hopefully we'll get some more breakdown of particular group interests. I want to do a neighborhood garden tour and see what other people are growing. In the meantime, just getting people more familiar with each other is a good thing as is getting the ball rolling...

Urban homesteader goes crazy

Last week I was home from work for spring break with the kids and we had some great, mild weather. As a result, I worked out in the yard for 2 to 3 hours a day getting stuff built, dug up, planted and planned.

Here's the wrap-up of what I got done. Now, it's back to the daily grind.

Random stuff
Built a new 4' x 4' raised bed (mostly for herbs)
Built two hoop houses to go over 4' x 4' raised beds
Dug out two 7' arborvitae to make space for fruit trees
Dug trench for weed barrier (from our neighbors invasive lawn)
Harvested a ton of dandelions for the chickens
Put corn gluten on the lawn
Pruned back trees
Cleaned out chicken coop
Harvested three gallon bags of kale (made kale chips)

Planted
Broccoli
Lettuce
Spinach
Scallions
Dill
Parsley
Cilantro
Pumpkins
Elderberry
Onions
Cucumbers
Zucchini
Carrots
Radishes

Ordered fruit trees
1 cherry
3 plum trees
1 peach
1 nectarine
2 pear trees

More importantly, my fig tree seems to have survived the winter and has new buds growing on it. I thought for sure it was dead, since it was just a little twig out there, but hopefully it will revive.

After planting all of the above, and assessing what I have growing under lights in the basement, I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't have enough space so I'm still contemplating building another bed to round it out to 6 in the lawn in the back.

I'll let you know what I'm doing with all those fruit trees once I get them in and planted. It's a work in progress.

I've been reading The Backyard Homestead and it's making me want to grown my own small crop of wheat. We have the space for it, but it would have to be in the front yard and I don't think the neighbors would go for that. But, our front lawn is huge and growing grains closer to the house wouldn't be as obvious as near the street. I don't think our covenants say anything about that.

Do any of you grow wheat or grains on your urban or suburban lot? Is it worth it?

The Italian Job

The Italian newspaper, Il Sol 24 Ore, interviewed me for their Earth Day coverage. It's a bit of an amalgam of the interview and other content from my blog.

If you can read Italian (or not) or use a Babelfish, go check it out!

Grazie!

Treehugger's Green Lifestyle Experts

Woohoo! I made Treehugger's Earth Day list featuring "13 Green Lifestyle Experts Tell Us Their Earth Day Plans". (I'm #2 in the slide show). There are some amazing people on the list. I don't know how the hell I ended up on it.


In any case, here's the page with my plans for Earth Day. Go check them all out and see what everyone is up to!

What are you doing for Earth Day?

What's growing in the garden

Here's what currently outdoors and growing in the garden (versus the starts I have growing under lights in the basement). I thought I'd make a catalog of what's going on out there. It never really seems like I have much going on and, this early in the year, only a few things are producing in quantities enough to eat (like winter lettuce, eggs and herbs). It should pick up substantially soon.

I'm thinking of adding another bed to slap a pop-up greenhouse on in an attempt to actually succeed at growing things like peppers and basil this year. We'll see how much gumption I have. In the meantime, here's a picture of how things look in one corner of the yard.

Fruit

• 3 x 1 Cherry tree
  
• Columnar apple trees (2)
  
• Peter's honey fig tree
  
• Arbequina Olive tree
  
• Bluecrop blueberries
  
• Olympia blueberries
  
• Grapes (3 types)
  
• Strawberries
  
• Blackberries (thornless - 4)

Vegetables

• Yellow Finn potatoes
  
• Yukon Gold potatoes
  
• Asparagus
  
• Yellow Rock onions
  
• Romaine
  
• Redleaf lettuce
  
• Broccoli
  
• Sugar snap peas
  
• Spinach
  
• Winter lettuce
  
• Carrots
  
• Radishes
  
• Cauliflower
  
• Red scallions
  
• Garlic

Herbs

• Thyme
  
• Rosemary
  
• Oregano
  
• Italian Flatleaf Parsley
  
• Cilantro
  
• Dill
  
• Chives
  
• Sage
  
• Bay
  
• Apple mint
  
• Lavender

Miscellaneous

• Camellia sinensis (tea plant)
  
• Morel mushrooms
  
• Indoor banana (Cavendish)
  
• Eggs (chicken)

Photo Notes
In the back (left to right): Oregano, rosemary, chives
In the bed (back left): Italian flatleaf parsley, cilantro, dill
In the bed (front left - old kid's sandbox): strawberries
In the bed (back right): Winter lettuce, spinach, broccoli
In the bed (hoop house): Lettuces, spinach, peas, broccoli
In the bed (front right): Garlic, onions, scallions (I like to call this bed "Allium Alley")

Urban farming therapy

I had quite the productive weekend here on the homestead doing some gardening therapy after a very stressful week. Hank's pneumonia is improving with the multitude of antibiotics and he hasn't had any crazy high fevers in a couple days.

I went a little nuts and bought a lot of plant starts so I prepped one of the raised beds and planted two types of lettuces, spinach, broccoli and green onions. Well, they are actually red in color, but you get the idea.

Since I had so many starts I ended up planting them across my three main raised beds. The middle bed, with most of the new starts got a floating row cover to protect them from our chilly nights.

This year I decided to dedicate a new raised bed to annual herbs (with a few other things). My husband is Mr. Herbs so I built and filled a 4'x4' bed and put in dill, cilantro and flat-leaf parsley. There's still space for some more plants so I'll be adding to it later. I dug out the container that formerly held mint (otherwise known as the giant root ball), put in new potting soil and two new mint plants. I think I'm the only person that can't successfully grow mint.

Anyway, I ended up doing a bit of weeding while I waited for our drill to charge to build the new bed and got to inspect up close and personal the blossoms on our columnar apples, cherry tree and blueberry plants. The blackberry bushes are starting to fill out and I found three more morel mushrooms growing in the wood mulch. Our oregano is coming back and filling in nicely as well.

Since I'm off from work for spring break, I'll be doing some more stuff, mostly indoor seed starting and putting up the hoop house over one of the beds. I figured out where to put this year's pumpkin patch. We'll be doing Cinderellas (a French heirloom, Rouge vif D'Etampes) and I'm trying not to go too crazy with them. But we do like them pumpkins and I suppose if we are overrun I can set up a pumpkin stand and sell some to the neighbors.

I'm hoping this year to have more food growing in our yard than in the past and have schemed up a few new ways to add growing space without breaking my back. I started two potato grow bags a few weeks ago but nothing has come up yet. I'm hoping they'll start peeking through the soil soon. I'll cover the other techniques as I get to them.

I'm not sure our dwarf honey fig tree survived over the winter, but if not I'm not going to cry. I can certainly use the space for something else. Maybe a columnar peach or something neat like a plum. And, I dreamed last night that I got an angora rabbit and named her Ms. Hopkins. I've been watching a little too much Regency House Party lately.

Well, that's it from over here.

Top 25 Eco-Friendly Moms

This week has been awfully stressful. As I mentioned earlier, my husband has been sick. Monday we went into his cancer clinic to make sure he still had some white blood cells left, otherwise they were going to admit him to the hospital. His bloodwork came back normal (well, normal for someone with a bone marrow cancer), but he still wasn't faring well by Wednesday.

So, he went in for a chest x-ray. And, after six days of having fevers hovering around 103, they were able to determine he has pneumonia. For most people, this is a problem, but for him, having a new immune system (that is suppressed) and cancer makes it that much more worrisome. At this point, he's on three antibiotics and hopefully things will turn around soon.

Needless to say, my ability to concentrate on anything non-essential has been low. Which is why you're seeing this random post on the Top 25 Eco-Friendly Moms "contest". I can't say I like these personality contests, it kind of reminds me of high school. But, that doesn't mean I'm not one to get sucked up in it all, just like the best of them. And, honestly, I need the diversion.

That said, can you pretty please go vote for me to be in the Top 25 Eco-Friendly Moms? You can vote daily through April 17th.

So go vote for your favorites! And, I guarantee you'll find some new blogs to read.

The Future of Food - Part 2

This post concludes the review of the movie, The Future of Food. To read Part 1, go here.

The second part of this film deals mostly with the risks of GMO food, namely the health risks and other unforeseen risks.

An example of a health risk with GMOs is the allergic reaction to StarLink corn, which contains Cry9C, an insecticidal protein. This protein does not seem to agree with some of the people who ingest it - they go into anaphylactic shock. Unfortunately, the StarLink corn wasn't tested before it was unleashed on the public.

Why, you ask? Because they didn't need to - it wasn't approved for human consumption. But, as we saw in the Part 1 post, cross-contamination of crops is rather prevalent. Or, in this case, many farmers may not have been clearly instructed not to sell the corn for human use, or were told that the unapproved variety would be approved by harvest time.

Part of the problem lies with the fact that the USDA doesn't require any environmental assessments with GMO crops. And the EPA regulates insecticides, but not food. Since insecticides are genetically engineered into all GMO crops and this is considered classical breeding practices, it is not regulated. Yet companies want to patent it without regulations. In other words, GMO falls through the cracks of all the agencies supposed to protect the consumer.

And if this doesn't make your blood boil, none of this fiddling with the food stock requires labeling. Polls show that 80 - 90% of people want GMO foods labeled, yet the manufacturers are still not required to do so in the U.S. The corporations want to make money by using GMOs but they don't want the responsibility when things don't work out.

Yet, biotech offers nothing for consumers. If offers no more nutrition (save for Golden Rice, and even that's debatable). Globally, starvation has nothing to do with quantity of foods. Farming is not a production problem, but an access problem and the U.S. subsidies prevent subsistence farming in other countries.

The U.S. farmers are overproducing crops like corn even when they can't cover production costs. So, we subsidize crops, undercutting the developing countries. For example, in Mexico it's cheaper to buy U.S. corn than the corn grown there (and our GMO corn is cross-contaminating the stock there, too). This system of subsidization has benefited U.S. corporations and not the developing countries.

Something that is also an issue to both U.S. and global farmers is the introduction of what's called terminator technology or the suicide gene. What this means is that farmers can't save the seed from generation to generation because it's sterile. So, they have to buy new seed each year. There are 15 patents on this suicide technology. What will happen if this gene pollutes crops around the world? Promoters say there is no out-crossing that can happen with GMO, but this is not true. And how do you switch off the terminator gene? Well, you need to spray it with a proprietary chemical to get it to germinate.

And last but not least, another issue to consider is the consolidation of food retail: Kraft and Nabisco own a huge market share; 80% of beef is processed by only 4 companies; and the vast majority of seed comes from four clusters of companies. In the next 10 years, all our food supplies will be controlled by a handful of companies, only one being from the U.S. - Walmart. Talk about a biosecurity risk.

So, what do we do about this? Well, you can start by supporting sustainable agriculture and avoiding big box grocery retailers and the national brands. CSAs create relationship with local families and create a connection with the community and provide a wide variety of produce rather than the monoculture of agriculture. Farmers markets also provide the community connection where you can meet the person that grew your food as you are purchasing it. You have the opportunity to discuss with the growers their farming techniques and philosophy. Consumers can't exercise their rights if GMO foods don't need to be labeled, but we can do so with our dollars elsewhere.

In other words, support your local farmers.

Disclaimer: This review is my account of the movie and may be highly fraught with inaccuracies. If you have any comment to add or to help clarify, please feel free.

Evolution, intelligent design and creationism

In spite of oil spills, nuclear catastrophes and whatever else humans throw at it, I still feel that the Earth and animal life on it (not any specific animal life, mind you) would survive whatever we end up doing to it. Since one of my degrees is in human evolution, I am always curious about people's opinions on evolution.

Generally, I usually am surprised at the number of folks who still think that the tenets of creation or intelligent design are true, so I thought I'd devote today's post to getting an idea of what you all thought. It still is, 80 plus years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, a controversial subject and a taboo topic of conversation.

Ultimately, I'm curious whether or not people who are interested in environmental issues tend to agree with the principles of evolution, ID or the belief of creationism? Or does it really matter?

So, what do you think? Does your understanding of how life is formed and evolved affect your environmentalism? Also, do you think that America's wishy-washy approach to teaching evolutionary science in schools has made us lose our edge in the biological sciences?

Backyard wild morels

Back in between the four thornless blackberry bushes and somewhere in the wood mulch, Emma discovered some morel mushrooms growing. Since our yard has a bevy of random mushrooms growing here and there, I initially just figured she found something equally inedible.

A few years back, I found a large shroom growing under the dogwood tree. I never did really figure out what it was, but I wasn't going to take my chances.

This time, however, it was pretty clear what was growing. They fit the classic description and, when I cut them open, the morels were hollow inside. They couldn't have been anything else. I was actually planning on "planting" morel spawn to have our own patch, but I guess I don't need to now, depending on how many more we get, of course. I left a few out there to hopefully propagate (or whatever that type of mushroom does).

In any case, we had a delicious morel, garlic cream sauce on our pasta last night. We're not dead yet so that's a good sign. I have to say, we're pretty damn lucky.

Do you have edible mushroom growing in your yard (on purpose or otherwise)?

Better Off Book Club - Section 1

Welcome to the first post of the Better Off Book Club! I'll be doing three book club summary and discussion posts, covering the three sections of the book, Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, by Eric Brende.

Summary
In Section 1: Planting, the author explains a little of his background, going from MIT graduate student studying the effects of technology on humanity to taking the plunge and deciding to live among an Amish-like group with his new wife for 18 months.

Not satisfied with the loose interpretation taken by many modern Amish, Eric finds a community that is more strict than most Amish groups and even Mennonites. The community they settle on contains a mish-mash of locals as well as "foreigners" looking to live a technology-free life. This was the land of horse-drawn wagons, corn husked by hand, hay loaded by hand and firewood cut with bucksaws. There was no electricity, phones, cars or motors of any sort.

Eric and his wife, Mary, end up leasing the home of a local family (the Millers) who provide them with far more than just housing. Straight out of the gates, the Millers are loaning them not just furnishings for their house, but a kerosene range, a hand crank washing machine and other equipment. To top it off, the many talented and skilled Miller children provide guidance and support to help get their first farming season off the ground by planting their garden before they arrive and helping them with other chores like spreading manure and providing planting tips.

Eric quickly learns that they are ill equipped for the life they have chosen, not having the background and having a whole lot of naivete in spite of how much research they have done. Help from the neighbors is more than welcome and the Miller family also helps them build up their cash crops by loaning them space to grow pumpkins as well as sorghum for making molasses. While on one hand their neighbors were overly helpful and seemed to anticipate their needs before they did, they also came off as distant and hard to read.

The phrase "many hands make light work" was woven quite a bit into this tale and the concept of many people working together made the author forget or, at least, made the back-breaking jobs more bearable and, in some cases, turned it into a tolerable, if not pleasant, job instead.

Gradually, as you applied yourself to your task, the threads of friendship and conversation would grow and connect you to laborers around you. Then everything suddenly became inverted. You'd forget you were working and get caught up in the camaraderie, the sense of lightened effort. This surely must rank among the greatest of labor-savings secrets. Work folded into fun and disappeared. Friendship, conversation, exercise, fresh air, all melded together into a single act of mutual self-forgetting.

As the season wears on, the Millers drop off a milk cow for their use and they are reminded that their beans are getting too far along to be picked, that the weeds are taking over and they need to start collecting firewood for the winter. Keeping track of all the duties they needed to get done was difficult. Having the neighbors offering tips on one hand was extremely helpful but, on the other hand, Eric and his wife were somewhat embarrassed by their needing to have these things pointed out.

When the neighbors offer to provide running water to the house using a device called a "ram" (basically a water mill for pumping water), Eric felt that this mechanization was a little to close to breaking their technology-free rules. In looking at the technologies that the "Minimites" used - air tight combustion wood fired cooking, canning equipment, buggies and cultivators - Eric wondered where the line was drawn and also pondered the immense skills these people had to make up for the lack of technology.

The second to last chapter of this section revolved around the problems they ran into with their lack of refrigeration and the inconvenience of not being able to keep leftovers cool. This was problematic in that they had to make three meals a day from scratch rather than making larger meals for use on multiple days. They solved the problem by storing leftovers in large glass jars and submerging them in cool water from the cistern.

One thing that Eric and Mary discovered was that, without the distractions of modern life and technology, even with the extra work, they had a lot more time on their hands. They learned the difference between "fast time" and "slow time", with fast time referring to the modern convention of daylights savings time and slow time referring to the preservation of the natural markers of dawn, noon and dusk. In other words, "it was the Minimites acknowledgment of an entirely different structure in life, an entirely different pulse."

Discussion Questions
Feel free to answer some or all of the following questions (even if you haven't read the book). Or you can just comment on the first section as a whole.

1. Do you feel that you are knowledgeable enough about how to live technology-free if you had to? In other words, do you feel like you have the skills to do what they did or do you think you would fail at first and need a lot of help?

2. Do you think that using a ram to deliver water to their house is "cheating" or well within the "rules" they have placed on themselves?

3. Did you feel like their neighbors liked being helpful or were resentful for feeling like they had to help Eric and his wife through their ineptitude?

4. Would you be able to live without a refrigerator? Or electricity? Or running water? What would you miss the most?

5. What do you think Eric meant when referring to "slow time" as the concept that "leisure didn't end when work began, but pervaded every moment of the day"?

6. Do you feel rushed in "fast time" with all our distractions, TV, movies, Internet? Do you wish you could follow the rhythm of the sun and enjoy a more leisurely day without the fast paced distractions of set work and school schedules?

Aches and pains of farming

My husband always jokes that we couldn't run our own farm because we are too infirm. Between my husband's bone marrow cancer and stress fractures and my chronic lower and upper back pain and carpal tunnel syndrome, it's unlikely we would be able to get anything done.

This weekend was no different. My carpal tunnels was acting up like crazy, mostly from doing far too much sewing and a little too much vacuuming. I did get my potatoes in, but that require a lot of lifting of bags of compost and gription strength that I don't have. Fortunately, the weather was crappy, so I wasn't tempted to do too much.

But, I did think of all those things I would like to do out in the yard regarding building new beds but where I'm limited due to physical problems. We have a ton of lawn in the front yard that is begging to be turned into something edible, but between my back and wrist, I need to pace myself. I can't really ask my husband because he has more problems than I do. He could help out, but he doesn't really like doing yard work type stuff to begin with and, given his own physical problems, I don't ask.

I have to admit I'm jealous of those of you who can spend hours working in the yard without pain or have a husband who can help out with a lot of the physical stuff or, at least, one who volunteers to do it and/or likes to do it.

In any case, I have limitations that I have to work with. I can do a little bit at a time and I can get it done. I just can't over do it.

Are you dealing with physical limitations that prevent you from doing the kind of yard or farm work you want to do?

Why I'm going to vote for Sarah Palin

I've been more and more disillusioned with President Obama in the last few months. He's not representing any of the things I thought he stood for during the election and his latest stance on environmental issues and energy policy has been egregious. I understand that running a country as complicated as the U.S. is a difficult job, but that's no reason to completely backslide. In the end, you aren't satisfying anyone. No Republican will vote for him in the next election and, at this rate, no Democrat will either.

Which is why I'm going to vote for Sarah Palin in the next election. You know what you are getting when you vote for Sarah. Nobody is going to mistake her for being an intellectual who commiserates with the common man, no matter what she claims.

So, here are my top 5 reasons why I'm voting for Sarah Palin:

1. She knows how to make some cash
Between the books deals, speaking engagements and the reality shows, she (and her family) has shown time and again that she can rake in the money when it counts. I'm hoping she can apply the same sort of monetary skills to lowering the budget and, hell, just plain eliminate the entire deficit in her first term. I'm confident she can do that.

2. She can charm the pants off of anyone
Okay, maybe that anyone has to have an X and a Y chromosome, but with her powers of persuasion and good ole aw' shucks personality, she's sure to bring peace to the middle east, wrap up all those pesky wars and turn the White House into an international Party House.

3. She's self-reliant
Sarah will make Michelle Obama and her lawn garden look like a kindergarten seedling project. Forget raised beds and backyard bees, try some elk, moose and wolf hunting right there on the White House lawn. And let's pop that lawn open and get ourselves a stocked pond for fishing. People would pay out the nose to go hunting and fishing on White House property, especially when their least favorite legislators are visiting. (Refer to point #1 for hunting fees to bring down the deficit.)

4. Science is the real problem
All the world's ailments can be reduced down to one thing: too much science. With Palin in office, we can look forward to a life more simple, more biblical, less messy. While it will be difficult to argue that a woman's place is in the home (er house, I mean White House), life will be so much easier when women are in their place, stem cells are just a mere blip in the history of biology and the human race is again divine and there's no more of this monkey business.

5. She's hot
No self-respecting person likes to admit it, but she's easy on the eyes. Even if there is shit coming out of her mouth. But all those good looks won't be going to waste. In times of fiscal crisis, good looks (and a g-string) can be used at state dinners to collect some extra cash for the coffers. (Again, see point #1.)

All kidding aside, we haven't talked politics much lately, but how are you feeling about our president and his choices these days? Are you glad you voted for (or against) him?