sastyk

I have more to write, but it may get done tomorrow, or maybe after Rosh Hashana, depending.  Right now I'm just recovering from the frantic compulsive worrying and cleaning the preceded my annual home inspection to remain a foster parent. I shouldn't have worried, but I do - our way of life is…

Shockingly (or not so much, if you read here regularly), despite the supposed improvements in the economy, more and more American families are struggling to put meals on the table.  The USDA reports a record 46.7 million American households are on food stamps.  17.9 % of American households (up 700…

Love this weather report - check it out!  Of course it is time to fire up the barbecue! Sharon

There has been a fair amount of hoohah about a Stanford Study that suggests that organic foods are no more nutritious than conventional foods.  This shouldn't be a shock, but many health claims have been waved about over the years that say otherwise.  The Atlantic's Brian Fung rightly points out…

End of summer is a really good time to sit down and look at your preparations and your food storage and take inventory.  What have you put by?  What do you still need more of?  What did you use over the last year?  What did you have too much of?  Whither from here?  September is National Emergency…

M. is back with her view from how the class is going - after an amazingly brief pause to give birth to a new baby!   o my week 4 update was simply labor, labor and more labor. We finally had the baby!  We are home and healthy. And I get to brag that he was born in a bathtub (it was a water birth)!…

I find the ways we define ourselves by what we eat fascinating.  We do this project of self-definition both through what we DO eat and what we refuse to eat.  In Martin Jones' fascinating book _Feast: Why Humans Share Food_, he observes that our taboos about food can be so powerful that they are…

So apparently in my sleep-deprived, brain rotted state, I managed to leave out the start date of my food storage and preservation class - it starts on Thursday, August 23rd, ie, this Thursday.  I still do have spaces, and as it is asynchronous and online, you don't have to be able to drive to my…

It is hard to believe that summer is coming so rapidly to a close, and that the opportunity to put up for winter will pass so fast.  So if you'd like help and guidance in doing so, I'll be running my food storage and preservation class starting Thursday, August  and running for six weeks into…

On my lap, I’ve got a set of school books that date from the 1850s to the 1890s.  They belonged to various of my father’s family – my great-uncle, George Hume, who died long before I was born and studied Eaton’s Common School Arithmetic in Amesbury, MA in the late 19th century,  20 miles from where…

I don't think I really recognized how much stuff I've avoided dealing with by only having boys until I read _Cinderella Ate My Daughter_ by Peggy Orenstein.  You see, despite the fact that I joke about living in the testosterone house, or being the only female in a house of guys (until C. and K.…

Hi Folks - So I had so many  responses to the free book giveaway (between here, facebook, private email and the other site, 149 unique entries) that I decided to  give three signed books away.  The boys had an awesome time picking names from the hat, and the winners are: JRB (entered at www.…

So I somehow forgot to mention when I went on maternity leave and promised to post on Thursdays that I meant I would start this Thursday, since I was on vacation last week.  Sorry 'bout that.  I will shamelessly blame the baby and sleep deprivation again. We spent much of last week visiting family…

I somehow forgot to draw your attention to Kurt Cobb's wonderful essay on the difference between oil and "liquids" - he does a better job than anyone I know in making clear what most Americans simply don't know about our energy - all liquid fuels are not equivalent.  We have been told by…

Let us begin with the clear statement that asking whether you have to believe in climate change in no way alters the fundamental scientific consensus, or the tens of thousands of peer reviewed papers.   I personally think the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is very clear.  But that doesn'…

M. is due with her baby any minute now, so at some point there may be a hiatus, but for now, she's got a lot to say about what her family is thinking about.  You can read her bio here. This week I did some very hard work for this class.  I have to admit, it wasn't anything exactly on the homework,…

Hi Folks - The more I look at my life, the more I think I'm not doing things as well as I could be - too many balls in the air.  Many of the things I care about are paying a price.   The addition of the chronic sleep deprivation that goes with a new baby is pushing me to strip down my life to the…

It is easy to get fixated on the big things that you need to do to have an impact.  You need to build a barn, buy a higher-mileage vehicle, pay down the mortgage, build a three month stash of food.  These are big or biggish projects, and often they depend on you finding time and energy and money in…

Every time my life settles down enough for me to return to regular blogging, crazy stuff happens.  First there was the sudden arrival of newborn baby Z. - we were called at 2:30 pm and by 4:30, Eric was picking him up at the hospital.  Since normally one gets more than umm...two hours to prepare…

M.'s latest update (see the first post for her bio) on what it is like to take the class.  It is funny - I always worry I'm not providing enough reading material for people.   Apparently that may not be a critical issue ;-).   This class is very different from any other I've taken. There are a lot…

There's a fascinating article using Zillow analysis to figure out the value of food gardens to residential housing.  This isn't news to a lot of us, but it is nice to see the numbers quantified:   Minor Kitchen Remodel.  Cost: $14,917   Return on resale:  $14,645   Percentage Return:  -1.8% Major…

Just as I was getting back in the swing of regular blogging again, I got quite a surprise - this afternoon we got called and asked to take an additional foster placement - a 2 day old newborn.  As I write this, I have a tiny, sweet little person asleep in my arms (it turns out that like riding a…

As you probably know the 2012 Farm Bill has food stamps on the block.  I write a lot about food stamps because they are incredibly important - one in seven Americans uses them.  One in four children is on food stamps.  When you subsidize food for this many people, you functionally transform the…

Remember I told you that New Society Publishers, in honor of the forthcoming _Making Home_ would sponsor a spot in my Adapting-in-Place Class, in exchange for someone offering up a weekly blog post about what it is like to take the course.  Well, here's the first installment - it will go up at New…

http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2012/07/06/preserving-our-backyard-bounty-in-jars-cans/   I was on WHYY in Philadelphia the other day talking about canning with _Food in Jars_ author Marisa McClellan.  'Twas awesome!

The most important thing about the power outages in the mid-Atlantic is that no one expected them to be this bad, so no one was ready.  The storms on Friday were stronger than expected, so no one, including the power company, was prepared.  That meant that for 3 million homes, the loss of…

  In honor of Making Home, my new book on Adapting-In-Place which comes out in August, New Society has offered to sponsor a spot in my Adapting-in-Place class that starts tomorrow.  In exchange for a sponsored spot for a low-income participant who couldn't otherwise afford to take the class, New…

A little while back we took our current foster sons to visit the university where Eric teaches physics.  The boys had never visited a university before, and were curious about who goes there and what they do when they are there.   This led to a discussion of the value of a college education, what…

I can't really blame George Monbiot or anyone else for buying the narrative hype.  Right now the overwhelming narrative is that we have no energy constraints at all.  Folks wonder aloud whether the US should join OPEC.  Increasingly ridiculous projections are made about the potential of shale oil…

There's this Onion Column - I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want a bunch of dirt covered farming hicks being able to get their tetanus shots.  I shoulda thought of that! The only reason this is even being considered is because a majority of voters want it. Well, of course they do—they don't have it!…