Pure Evil?

It snowed a bit last night. So much so that we were hoping for a school snow day. This morning it was time to shovel out the driveway and front walk. This summer we were given an old snow blower from G's brother. I told G this morning that I would rather shovel than blow. I got rid our gas lawn mower for an push mower this summer, why would I start using a snow blower after 9 years of shoveling? Not to mention, you reek of exhaust after using one of those things.
So I shoveled and G blew snow with the fumey blower. We both smelled like fumes and G decided the blower was a pain in the ass and put it at the curb where it was briskly snatched up and taken away.

I saw two different neighbors walk by as we blew/shoveled snow and I wondered if they were thinking: Aren't those folks the eat local people? Why the hell are they using a snow blower?
Clearly, I've got insecurity issues! :)

That thought came from a conversation I had with my midwifery partner just yesterday. We were talking about how she was judged for having 3 cars by a well-intentioned friend who couldn't believe two adults w/o kids would have 3 vehicles. Two of them are older, but gets-you-where-you-need-to-go cars, and one of them is so un-road worthy, that they use it as farm equipment-- essentially using it to haul heavy stuff all over their rural property when needed.
We live in the city and have 3 cars. We've had 3 cars for at least the last 5 years, if not longer. I would LOVE it if we didn't need to depend on cars so much. But G's job is 30 minutes away via car. He could bike to work, but the roads to work have no shoulder for cars, let alone bikes. And yes I know, Share The Roads and all that biz, but honestly, the thought of him biking at 4am on a 50mph road that generally has a lot of gravel trucks and pick ups flying down it, with NO shoulder, makes me incredibly nervous.

As for me, well I am on call. Some of our clients live 60-70 miles away. I can't be out on a bus somewhere when a client suddenly needs me. Not to mention, I've got two big luggage pieces and an oxygen tank to haul around. I've been trying to figure out how to safely carry birth gear on my motorcycle for years, but I just can't wrap my head around it!

So why 3 cars? We call it our "Fleet". All 3 cars are 20+ years old and they run fab most of the time. However, it's not uncommon to have only 2 of the 3 running at any one time. I keep hearing arguments about what's cheaper in the long-run: getting a new Hybrid for $28,000 or taking care of the old car you have. (One Volvo has 300K miles, the other 150K and we have a VW Rabbit that's older than Adam and gets 28 mpg.)

So yes, 3 cars for both of us. Believe me, if you need your midwife to come right away, you want her to have a car handy!

Goals for 2009

Christmas hasn't even passed and I'm already getting twitchy for the seed catalogs to start arriving in the mail so that I can start my planning for 2009's garden(s).

I've been very inspired by beautiful coffee table books showing gorgeous French country gardens that are a mix of slate flagstones, lovely flowers and lots of vegetables. I want the whole back yard to be crazy paths, growing food and herbs dotted with a mix of flowers. Orderly disorder, you know?

So that's one goal.

Secondly, I really need to wrap my head around small wheat production for single family use. There's one book on it out there that's this 1970s Rodale Press book that is out of print and very expensive (~$100) to get used. Honestly, you'd think there'd be more updated books on this topic. I've definitely noticed the surge of DIY green living and sustainability books over the past year. Our library always seems to have least 3 new ones every time I visit. If anyone has any tips on back yard wheat, send it my way!

And lastly, one goal I have for 2009 is to become less dependent on condiments. El over at Fast Grow the Weeds recently posted about this. I certainly noticed all the store-bought bottles of condiments in the door of the fridge all this local year. I didn't buy anything new (my mother gave us a bohemoth container of ketchup from Sam's Club at the beginning of summer and I bought some Bragg's), but you know how those bottles of various sauces seem to last forever.
As a start, I found this great book, 100 Great Dressings at the library.
However, I can't help but to think of that line from National Lampoon's Vacation (which I've seen well over 100 times, I'm sure), where the Griswald's are visiting yahoo Cousin Eddie, and Clark asks as he slops a jar of red ooze on the picnic table, "Real tomato ketchup, Eddie?"
"Nuttin' but the best, Clark!"

Will that be me next summer? Am I shootin' for Cousin Eddie status? Does real tomato ketchup taste like shite? Time will tell. Will have to wait for next summer's tomatoes!

Snow, cold weather and enjoying dates on preserved foods

We got enough snow over the weekend for the kids to actually play in it. S actually got to go sledding on the Big Hill with her friend. Little E had to make do with sledding in the back yard with S. Seeing as we have no actual hills in the back yard, they made do with sledding on the compost pile in one of the gardens! Lovely. They screamed me outside to watch them as they giggled and flipped down the pile of leaves, eggshells, coffee grounds and other yummy composting items. These poor city kids find ways to make do, I suppose. :)

The little darlings also made Deck Angels in the snow. So nice!

Sunday was very cold. We had a decent day in after going to church. Made a roast chicken dinner with adzuki beans, onions and collards, and a side of green beans. It's so nice to pull a jar upstairs, or something out of the freezer and see that summertime date written on it. It brings me back to the hot day that I picked and processed whatever I'm about to cook. The green beans were processed on a very hot summer's evening when G and the kids were away. I watched a fairly steamy 3 hour long BBC Victorian drama while snapping green beans on the kitchen floor. Ahh...how nice to remember when it's dark at 4:30pm and 18 degrees outside.
Tasty too!

The Best Husband on Thanksgiving Award

goes to.....
MY husband! Honestly, he saved the day, folks! As I mentioned in another post, I had ordered rolls and pies from the local bakery to for T-Day, to be picked up on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. After doing a lot of various errands that I can't even remember now (only that the day was incredibly busy), I got called to a birth at 6pm on Wednesday. It was a primip (first baby mama) in labor. Primips generally have a bit longer labor than a woman who has had a baby before, but I had a good feeling about this particular woman and felt like I'd be home in bed by 6am. Enough time to catch a nap and then start cooking the feast.
Well, it didn't quite turn out like that. I won't go into birth details here, but I didn't get home until 4:30pm on Thanksgiving, after staying up the entire night and day without any sleep. I had a few text messages and short phone calls with G, with instructions about dinner. Thankfully, I was able to get the turkey into a brine on Wednesday. I was going to take pictures of all this cooking business and didn't get asingle pic!
At any rate, I got home just after my dad arrived, and just before my mom came down and my mother-in-law arrived. G managed not only to cook everything we had intended, but he even got the timing right, which can be really hard when cooking so much, alone.

The brined turkey tasted incredibly good. It was really moist and lovely. I can't tell if it was the brining or that we ate a turkey that we raised from a chick that made it taste so nice. But it was the first time I ate turkey and really enjoyed it without having to shovel other things on it to make it more palatable.
We also had sweet potatoes au gratin (with local cheeses), local garlic and mashed potatoes, corn (not local, my dad's contribution and utterly tasteless- not to be a bitch, but compared to the sweet corn we've frozen the Bird's Eye corn was nasty stuff), my mom made her famous egg fried rice veggie dish, cranberry-raspberry relish, the rolls and pies, and possibly more. It seems like there was more butI just can't remember now.
That's probably because I ate my dinner in a smiling haze of daffy sleep deprivation before drinking a cup of decaf, helping with dishes, showering and going to bed by 7pm. Woo-hoo! I am the party girl!

Maybe I'll be able to post pics for the Christmas dinner. We have a few huge local hams to chose from for that meal. Let's hope the babies cooperate!