Holiday travel poll

What are you doing for the holiday this weekend? Visiting friends, traveling with family, staying home? From what I've been reading, airplane travel in the U.S. for this holiday weekend is up 6% over last year. High gas prices don't seem to be affecting the amount of car travel over last year, at least in our area.



Did the environmental impact of travel via air or otherwise influence your plans this year at all?

Add local foods, save some miles

Many of you have pledged to eat local this Thanksgiving, with approximately 116 plates worth of food coming from local sources rather than shipped in products from afar.

An estimated 255 pounds of CO₂ has been saved just from these pledges alone. Just to put that in perspective, this is the equivalent of driving 313 less miles in your car.

Although that may not seem like a lot, if the 15,000 unique visitors that visited my blog in the last month replaced one plate worth of food at their Thanksgiving table with local products, that would be like taking the average vehicle off the road for 40,500 miles. I think that's a number that really makes a difference. A huge difference that just you Crunchy Chickens out there can make without much effort or extra cost.

So, even though many of you may not have pledged to do so, it's not too late to add local produce to your table.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Winter window treatments

Since so many people have asked about insulating blinds, window treatments, window quilts and the rest, I wanted to point you to an article that covers it all instead of me trying to do the same.

Please visit this recent article in Mother Earth Living, Save Energy with Winter Window Treatments. It covers window basics, commercial window dressings, homemade quilts and other do-it-yerself options such as bubble wrap, acrylic storm windows and other such stuffs.

Now, get started and make your windows all cozy for the winter.

Planning my Thanksgiving attack

We'll see if I have the time and/or energy to do all of this, but since we'll have so many relatives in the house helping manage the kids, this may actually be the easiest year ever.

Here's the menu, including how I'm making it local:

Herb Butter Roasted Turkey and Gravy - using the organic turkey I won and herbs from the backyard

Parmesan Mashed Potatoes - made with local dairy

Roasted Glazed Orange Carrots - using the orange marmalade I canned over the summer

Plum Port Cranberry Sauce - made with the organic Plum Port preserves I canned over the summer and local cranberries

Pumpkin-Praline Pie - using the pumpkins I grew in my backyard (I already made the puree a while ago)

Apple Pie - made using the apple pie filling I made and froze from the apples from my friend's orchard in Central Washington and served with local ice cream

I'll also be serving bread made from a local bakery, local wine and possibly a few other things if I get around to it.

I wanted to use local potatoes and carrots, but the stores I went to didn't carry them and I didn't have time to go to a farmer's market. Sigh.

Super energy savings

Since we use oil heat (actually BioHeat, a mix of biodiesel and regular heating oil) to heat our house, this doesn't totally pertain to the Freeze Yer Buns Challenge, at least for us, but I just had to share.

I got my electric bill today. I haven't exactly been paying too close attention lately, but this one really got my attention. Ever since Low Impact Week back in June, I've been instituting some energy saving changes around here. Although I must admit I haven't been line drying our clothes since Sir Crunch-A-Lot got sick. Since clothes drying is fairly energy intensive I am even more amazed at how much we cut back.

For the same period last year, we used 2024 kWh. This year? Drum roll please.... 931 kWh. Now I know that if I had been not using the dryer it would have been even lower. This works out to an average of $.78 per day.

Unfortunately, I can't really calculate out how much heating oil we're using this winter until maybe the spring since our readings are irregular (based on temperatures). So, I won't know what kind of savings we'll have for a while. But since we are lowering our daytime house temperature by about 7 degrees and our nighttime temperatures by about 8 degrees, it has to be a somewhat significant to the amount of oil we used.

What have we changed to reduce our electricity usage?

1. Well, for one, I'm more attentive to the lights in the house. We used to light the house up like crazy, but now if I know no one will be in a room, I make sure to go around and turn off all those lights. It's hard with little kids and their fixation with light switches, but it's a start.

2. Next off, our hot water heater usage has gone down since we started bathing the kids less. A lot less. We used to bathe both of them every day, but since I'm the only one at it these days, they get baths twice a week each. And, it really doesn't seem to matter much.

3. Our washing machine is being used less since I'm wearing bulky clothing items more than once (like jeans and sweaters). And since my husband is home-bound his clothing needs are minimal at best.

4. We no longer use the Heat Dry option on our dishwasher. We always run it on Air Dry now. We do one load a day and it's always full.

5. Finally, I suspect that since our oil heater runs on electricity and it's running a whole lot less, it's probably sucking down less energy.

The only thing offsetting all of this is our new chest freezer that is hosting a myriad of frozen fruits, vegetables, sauces, breads and pizza doughs that I made in the last few months. But, having these around saves us additional money and time too!

I just can't believe our electric bill is less than $25 a month! We'll see how we do next time around.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book discussion (chapters 10 - 12)

What's this you say? Already another book discussion? Well, since I've been a wee bit behind on the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book club, I thought I'd do another one while I was at it! So here goes...

Chapter 10. Eating Neighborly - I totally love the idea of restaurants serving food from nearby farms. Not only does that ensure produce and meats at the peak of production, but also gives back to the community and helps support the local agricultural economy. I can think of quite a few restaurants in the Seattle area that have a close relationship with the farms here. There is even an organization to ensure this relationship exists, called the Farmer Chef Connection. Do you have many restaurants in your area that support this sort of connection and, if so, do you go out of your way to frequent those establishments?

Chapter 11. Slow Food Nations - We've talked about this before, the idea of really sitting down and enjoying where your food comes from rather than hurrying through another meal to get to another activity in your life, whether that be a kid's soccer practice or your own busy lives. It seems like a complete lost art, that of sitting down with friends, family and neighbors and enjoying a long leisurely meal. I guess for most people it's reserved to the major holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Even Super Bowl Sunday is the closest some people come to sharing a meal with others, even if it is whilst watching football.

Parade Magazine ran an article over the weekend regarding eating locally and it looked like 78% of families eat together at least once a week, including eating out at restaurants. I'm pretty sure the high percentage leans closer to the once a week rather than seven times a week and, if so, I think this is pretty pathetic. Will you be trying to institute more family meals at home after reading this chapter?

Chapter 12. Zucchini Larceny - I'm still awfully bitter about my failed zucchini plant this last summer. I mean, who has a zucchini plant that produces nothing? I mean, nada. Zilch. I guess the cool summer probably had something to do with it, but I was hoping for a summer of overwhelming zucchinis wherein I'd be freezing volumes of zucchini and baking loaves for months. Sigh. Anyway, I digress. Did you grow zucchinis this summer? Were you overwhelmed with them. What did you do with the excess? I love that passing on extra zucchini has almost become an act of terrorism. If only it were that simple :)

Turka-lurkey

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I'm sure we're all starting our plans for dinner. If you are not hosting, it's a different story, but for the rest of us, it's a lot of planning, enjoyment and work.

Although I wasn't able to acquire a local turkey (there aren't enough processing facilities in Washington state to support many local turkeys), I did win a free turkey from the grocery store I shop at most. I was able to get a $40 organic turkey (frozen, alas) for free from Organic Prairie. Since they are part of a coop, it's possible it's local, but I doubt it.

Bun warmin' bed warmers

As temperatures start to dip, I thought I would start sharing some of my hints and tips to keep warm at night.

First off, I can't sleep if my feet are cold. It's almost painful - I think that's what keeps me awake. So, lately I've been quite bundled up in lots of layers in addition to adding an extra blanket.

We haven't busted out the down comforter yet and probably won't need to if we keep the heat at the new adjusted temp of 62 at night. But Mr. Crunchy has been sleeping back in bed again instead of upright so I may start sneaking it down lower when nobody's looking.

We don't do space heaters or electric blankets, although I do see their merit in allowing the overall house temperature to drop, without you truly freezing yer buns off. Since we don't own either and I'm not inclined to buy them, we use alternative methods instead.

So, do you want to know my secret weapon? I thought you'd never ask.

It's a bed warmer. Last year I researched like the dickens what the best bed warmer for me would be. You see, normally, my husband sleeps really hot so he can't stand extra blankets. I end up putting them on just my side of the bed. Plus he doesn't like flannel sheets very much. So, climbing into a cold bed with cold, cotton sheets isn't exactly comfy.

I thought about a hot water bottle and they come in all fancy sorts of varieties with fuzzy, plushy characters, but I was afraid that it would pop and then I'd be left with water soaking my bed. I know this probably isn't a reasonable fear, but I think a wet bed is worse than a cold bed. Plus, once the water cools down, now you have a cold water bottle. No thanks.

And then there are the microwaveable bed warmers. No, I'm not talking about those gel packs. I'm talking about those kinds that are filled with rice or some sort of other material that holds heat for a little while and conforms to whatever shape you want. Also, another woman has recommended using deer corn as the best filler. But the thought of having to microwave the bejeesus out of the corn to kill off mold spores, eggs and critters wasn't what I was looking for.

Somehow I managed to stumble upon cherry pit bed warmers, which are like the rice ones but filled with, well, cherry pits. Not too surprisingly, it was from Mother Earth News. They have been used for ages to help heat up a bed and, traditionally, have been heated using a warming oven, but they can be put in your oven's warming drawer, or popped into the microwave. Now, why would I choose cherry pits over rice or another filler? Well, they hold heat for a lot longer - upwards of 2+ hours in my experience. And, it smells like cherry pie when you heat it. I must admit it is a bit noisy, but well worth it.

When I was in the market for one, I wanted to make my own, but didn't have a sewing machine or the skills, so I bought one (see fancy leopard print one above). However, it's incredibly easy to make your own. Since I'm sure you don't have several pounds of cherry pits lying about, you can buy sanitized pits in bulk from The Cherry Pit Store.

To make a heating pad, just sew a natural fabric bag into whatever size you want and fill halfway up with cherry pits. Sew it shut and heat in the microwave no more than 2-3 minutes until hot. You can make a cover for it or you can just hand wash it by sliding the pits to one side, washing the cover and the sliding them to the other side and washing that side. You can also put it in the washing machine (but don't do this with corn or rice bags!).

The only caveat is that the cherry pits are expensive. So, if cost is an issue, then use rice or cleaned deer corn.

And, if you want to read more than you ever wanted about making your own microwaveable bed warmer, check out the deer corn lady's site.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book discussion (chapters 7 - 9)

Here are the discussion questions for the latest installment of the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book club!

Chapter 7. Gratitude - I love the idea of giving out tomato plants as gifts on Mother's Day. If you grow your own from seed and put them in a container, it's relatively inexpensive and even those recipients without a lot of yard can benefit from the bounty. Have you ever given food-bearing plants as a gift? Would you consider doing so now?

Chapter 8. Growing Trust - "Grocery money is an odd sticking point for U.S. citizens, who on average spend a lower proportion of our income on food than people in any other country, or any heretofore in history." I always find it amazing that for such a rich country we spend such a pittance for our food. Now, I'm sure a lot of that has to do with farm subsidies and the taxpayer money paid to produce all those High Fructose Corn Syrup based products that are so dirt cheap. But, even for fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and the rest, it seems a crime that we don't pay for what it's worth. Again, I'm sure the prices are reflected by the huge economies of scale that you see in conventional farming and CAFO's. But all of this is at a cost. What's the thing that bothers you the most about cheap food and how it came to you? Unfair labor wages? Costs to the environment?

Chapter 9. Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast - One of the points Kingsolver makes early in this chapter is the idea of actually sitting down to enjoy your food instead of rushing through it. Many people spend little time eating their meals (as they are usually on the run) or don't spend mealtimes with their family. I'm sure you've heard about the Slow Food movement (she covers it in Chapter 11), or the concept of bringing back mealtime as a way of enjoying family, friends and food. How often do you have dinner together with your family? How often do you partake in fast food, take-out or eating on the run?

A while back I bought the book she describes in Chapter 9 regarding cheese making as I was interested in making my own mozzarella, among other things, but I never got around to ordering the required additives. Have any of you made your own cheese? What did you think about it?

The process of making your own food, whether that be from growing your own vegetables and grains, to milking your own animals to making something from scratch like bread and cheese, elicits not only a sense of accomplishment and pride in what you've done. For me, it also creates an almost a zen-like calm. I don't mind the extra labor because I get so much satisfaction out of doing it. How does it make you feel?

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As usual, add your comments to this post and feel free to add your own questions for the chapters covered since I only touch on a few points in each chapter.

Freeze Yer Buns surprise giveaway!

I know I'm supposed to be posting a book club discussion today, but this momentous occasion just couldn't wait until tomorrow.

Congratulations to Eikenberrymom, from Our Learning Journey, for being the 100th person to sign up for the Freeze Yer Buns Challenge!

As such, you are the lucky surprise winner of a $40 REI gift card to purchase yerself some super cozy socks, crazy looking Croc slippers or a pair of down booties to help stave off those chilly days and nights in Michigan. And, since we're being environmental and all, it's an e-card, so minimal waste is involved.

So, congratulations again to Eikenberrymom. Please email me your contact info at crunchychickenblog@gmail.com and I'll hook you up so you can get toasty before those sub-freezing nighttime temperatures start taking their toll on your tootsies.

Eat Local for Thanksgiving

It's not too late to start thinking about your Thanksgiving meal and how to make it as sustainable as possible. The most effective thing to do is to focus on providing foods that are in season, local and organic.

You've already heard me blathering on (and on) about the reasons for eating locally, but here's a reminder: On average, for each plate of food obtained locally, 2.2 pounds of CO₂ emissions are prevented. (This is from a University of WA study, so I'm not sure how it extrapolates out to other areas of the country.)

So, in another effort to encourage you to do more, you can pledge to Eat Local for Thanksgiving by adding a comment to this post. In your pledge you can state what you are planning to do, whether that be acquiring a local turkey to getting all your vegetables at a farmer's market, etc. It's totally up to you. The point is to think about where each food source comes from and buy it locally or don't serve it if it's out of season or has to travel miles to get to your plate.

Now, we all have our family favorites, and I'm sure Aunt Agnes might be upset when she doesn't see her favorite green bean casserole because the season is over in your neck of the woods and you neglected to can or freeze any. So, for those of you who want to take the opportunity during your Thanksgiving meal to discuss the issues surrounding food and where it comes from, the Puget Sound Fresh website has some printable discussion cards for your Thanksgiving table that may help you explain why certain things are missing.

Between now and Thanksgiving, I'll keep a running counter in the sidebar for the amount of CO₂ emissions prevented based on the number of people pledging to eat local.*

Now go forth and choose local for Thanksgiving!

*This won't be extremely scientific, but I'll just assume one plate worth of savings for each pledge, unless you specify otherwise. In other words, if you know you'll be serving all local food to 10 people, I'll count that as 10 plates worth.

How do you heat?

A lot of us are lowering our ambient air temperatures in the house this winter with the
Freeze Yer Buns Challenge to save energy (and, ultimately, money).

With energy costs proposed to be a lot higher this winter, particularly for heating oil, it will be interesting to see how much we can save by keeping the thermostat low. So, along with all of this, I was curious to find out how you heat your home?

Freeze Yer Buns kickoff!

Welcome to the first day of the Freeze Yer Buns Challenge! Are you guys ready for five months of energy and money savings? You must be, because I know a lot of you have already started.

First off, I have to admit that we needed to change our temperature ranges a tad. My husband's chemo is making it hard for him to sleep so he's been spending nights in the living room and I don't actually want to freeze his buns. So, we're doing 65 during the day and 62 at night for now.

One thing I wanted to clarify is that I think some people feel that, in order to participate, you need to get down to truly frosty temperatures. That's not the point at all, it's really to get you to drop at least one degree. Now, if you want to push it as low as you can, then that's great - extra savings all around! But if you're used to 72 during the day and 68 at night, there's no shame in pledging for 71 day and 67 night. In fact, for each degree set below 68 degrees, energy consumption decreases by about 6 to 8 percent.

The other thing that people seem to get stuck on is the thermostat business. Even if you don't have a thermostat, you can still lower your room temperatures by not turning on the baseboard heaters, radiators, etc. Also, the same deal goes with wood heating stoves. The idea is to save electricity, gas, oil and wood. Even if you rely on a more renewable resource doesn't mean you have to use it if you can get used to a few degrees lower temperature. So, while you may not be able to pledge a specific temperature range (unless you buy a cheapo home thermometer), you can still pledge to freeze yer buns off. Or maybe just a light frost.

Also, if you want to have a day off on occasion day for visitors or just to enjoy more comfy temperatures, that's fine, too. We won't tell. Of course, the challenge is to stick to your pledge as much as possible, but if it makes it easier to do so when you can look forward to a weekend splurge, then do it.

Greenin' your Halloweenin'

I keep hearing a tremendous amount of press about "Greening your Halloween", but it seems like the take home message from the news has been "No Candy - Cheap Plastic Crappy Toys Instead". At least this is how it has been reported to me from people reading these news pieces. How green is that message?

Now, I know this isn't the actual message organizations like The Nature Conservancy are promoting, but it's what people who hear about it seem to bring away from it.

On the other hand, suggested food alternatives are either expensive (and not realistic if you get upwards of 100 kids like we do), seemingly dangerous (open packaging like raisins that parents will throw away thinking their kids will get poisoned or worse), or, frankly, inedible (tea?). What child is going to be gleeful at a bag of fruit leathers, raisins and organic fruit drink boxes? Throw in a sandwich and call it school lunch.

Unless every house hands out these kinds of everyday "treats", these well meaning handouts will be ignored or, even worse, thrown in the trash. So much for green.

As for the toy alternatives, the same problem arises. Most eco-friendly toys are expensive and unaffordable for most households. The affordable toys are cheap plastic that are "Hecho en China" and aren't exactly green. Even if you could afford a boatload of recycled pencils, shells (are these sustainable?) and hand-hewn wooden trinkets, are these toys that kids want?

Again, will they end up ignored and eventually thrown in the trash? Most kids are too polite to look at your selection and refuse to take anything, whether they want it or not. So, while I totally applaud the intent behind all this, I really don't see this as a real, green solution.

Here's my take on it - maybe mixing in some of the "greener" items with standard ole candy and let the kids decide. I ended up putting in some alternatives last year, mostly because I was running out of candy and went through the cabinets looking for additional treats. I was quite amazed at how a couple of kids chose the 100% fruit juice gummies and some PediaSure nutrition bars my mom bought (yes, I was desperate) over the remaining candy.

Obviously, there are the exceptions. This year I'll huck in some Halloween pencils for sport and see what happens. It would be fun to do a more statistically useful study, but my sample would only represent my neighborhood and probably wouldn't tell anyone much of anything. I suspect the non-candy choosers would be in the minority.

I remember being a kid and mentally planning, even while I was still out trick-or-treating, to toss all the mealy apples, popcorn balls and other things I didn't like. I don't want to inflict the same waste on a new generation of kids.

What are the rest of you guys doing about Halloween? Do you have any suggestions? And, I'm not looking for the "turn off the lights and hope your house doesn't get egged" alternatives.

Putting up corn

My son and I bought a bunch of corn on Friday that had been picked from the farm that morning. I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to try to freeze corn for the winter while it was at the peak of season. It seemed the easiest and fastest method of preserving the corn kernels and I had read an article in Grit about doing it.

So, Saturday I started with blanching the ears in boiling water for 5 minutes followed by 5 minutes in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. I then cut the kernels off the corn and froze them in 2 cup quantities in Ziploc freezer bags, removing as much air as I could with a straw. I couldn't get over how amazing fresh picked corn tasted and I wished I had bought way more than I did.

Even though the corn from the farm was more expensive than what I've seen in the grocery store, the fact that it was fresh justifies the cost and, when you compare it to frozen corn from someone like Cascadian Farms or other local suppliers, it's a steal.

I must admit, we already busted into one bag last night. I hope to run across more before it's too late. Does anyone in the Seattle area know which of the farmer's markets carry fresh picked corn?

Hard apple cider

In the latest of my hair-brained ideas, I have decided to try my hand at making hard apple cider this year. Now, I have to wholeheartedly blame Mother Earth News for this one, where a lot of my crazy ideas come from.

Perhaps I wasn't thinking too clearly when I was reading this at the hospital a few weeks ago, but I can't seem to get this project idea out of my head.

I plan on visiting Craven Farm at the end of the month with my son to pick up 5 gallons of fresh apple cider. Good lord, what am I getting myself into now?

Have any of you ever tried making hard cider? Any hints or tips?

I think my blog has turned into my begging for hints or recipes on my various shenanigans.

Naughty indulgence

Here's a short poll for you. We all have some secret indulgence that we partake in that we know is not environmentally friendly. What's yours?



If you picked the last one, email me if you need a personal intervention!

Sweet sweater deals

With the ambient air temperatures getting a little chilly around here, I've been wishing I had a few more sweaters to be wearing about the house. On the other hand, I don't want to invest a ton of money on brand new sweaters since half the time they don't fit me right anyway (because I am a giant) and buying Tall sizes gets pretty expensive.

So, what did I do? I went for a stroll through Value Village, which is a used clothing store similar to Goodwill or whatever you have in your neck of the woods.

I managed to find two name brand sweaters (one was a Tall size), both of which fit me quite well and each of them were $6.99. You really can't beat that. Well, except for free.

Saucy apples

I spent some time last night using up the rest of the apples given to us from a neighbor's tree, supplemented by the super low priced local apples that I got at the store.

With these apples I decided to make applesauce, even though I generally don't like it and only Emma will sometimes eat it.

[Emma, by the way, is not a chicken and I have no intentions of eating her.]

I'm sorry to say that I have never eaten homemade applesauce and Oh. My. God. is it a totally different animal from the store-bought kind. Even the organic store-brand applesauce isn't very good. They all have some weird metallicy flavor to them I can't stand.

The homemade applesauce, on the other hand, is in an entirely different food group. I did leave it a tad chunky so it's more reminiscent of apple pie rather than pulverized, rotting downed apples. Did I mention that I don't like store-bought applesauce?

Anyway, if you have a hankering for making it yourself, I recommend this recipe from Julia Child that was recently featured in our local paper, along with their recommendations for the types of apples that go well in applesauce.

Seattleites - get your goat

Did you know that it is now legal to own dwarf or pygmy goats in the city of Seattle? Recent legislation now treats smaller goats as a pet, just like cats, dogs and potbelly pigs.

One of the council members that voted for the measure stated: "There are arguments to be made that could achieve greater heights of urban sustainability by bringing farms back into the city and farm animals."

Seattle already allows its residents to own up to three chickens (or "domestic fowl") per standard lot, with an additional 1 bird allowed per additional 1,000 sq. ft.

I think it's pretty exciting that, within the city limits, one can grow enough vegetables, fruits and animal byproducts to live a fairly sustainable life (along with help from farmer's markets). It's getting to the point where you don't have to move out to a rural area to achieve self-sufficiency.

So, let's see:

Fruit and nut trees

Raised beds for veggies and herbs

Goats for milk and wool

Chickens for eggs and meat

Rabbits for meat and fur

You can have a veritable farm here in the city! What do you all think of that? Does this change your attitude about how and where you live?

Oh yeah, and Happy 4th birthday to Emma, my crazy little chicken!