Compost, aka rotting veggies, YUM! [80]

Composting is the process of breaking down organic material into usable fertilizer for soil and plants. Or in our case it's a way to throw stuff away without actually throwing it away. With equal parts "green" (fruit and veggie leftovers, tea bags, grass) and "brown" (dead leaves, twigs, egg shells) items you can create a pile that will be munched on by "heaters" (bacteria and fungi) and "chompers" (worms, beetles, woodlice). Can you tell that part was written for children? There's lots of ways you can compost and many different opinions on how to compost most efficiently, etc etc. The EPA has some good info, if you'd like to check it out. Our composting habits consist of dumping random organic stuff into a little blue bin outside of our kitchen door and then periodically carrying it to our compost pile, which hasn't been turned in forever because we're letting some little pumpkins grow (or were? I don't know where the pumpkins went, the huge stalks and leaves at the front were the only evidence of pumpkin-ness when I went out to take pictures). Pretty basic stuff but our trash can fills up only once a week. Actually, we found out by accident that one bag can last us two weeks because we forgot to take the trash out last week and we're still on the same bag one week later. Success! It's a pretty wonderful system.

An account of my recent adventures with food [79]

 The upside of having my own garden is that every week I have fresh veggies that taste wonderful and were brought to my table by foot (my feet to be exact, and well my hands too, and the rest of my body really...) The downside? I'm drowning in tomatoes! Also, the other day I came home from Stop 'n Shop (all you Midwesterners, think Meijer or Kroger, and all of you WAs think Fred Meyer) with a perfectly ripe peach. And I mean perfect (commence French finger kissing imitation, muah!).




My big food adventure this week though was bread baking. The recipe said to let a flour, water, and yeast starter ferment for 2 days before starting the actual baking. That's where I ran into the first hurdle. The tiny bit of starter I'd made succeeded in quadrupling in size in the first two hours, completely outgrowing its container. So, I moved it to another container but then it stopped growing all together and turned watery and gross-looking to boot. The two days elapsed relatively uneventfully, lack of growing and all, and then I was too tired to actually make the bread on the second day because it was the same day as my graduate school orientation (a couple months of lazing and I already forgot how tiring it can be to sit around and listen to people talk all day). I failed at time management on day 3 so I made the actual dough and formed it into bread shape but then had to stick it in the freezer overnight and hope all of my improv hadn't completely ruined the project. Day number 4 rolled around and I finally baked the bread. I'm proud to say that I was relatively successful, it looks like bread and tastes like bread but I was so paranoid about the possibility of having ruined it that I didn't bake it long enough. Turns out the middle tastes less like bread and more like dough...... (what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?). Next step(s): actually bake the bread all the way through and hunt down local(ish) sources of flour.

We're all insecure [78]

With my extra boredom I've been catching up on some books I've been meaning to read for a while and there's this odd theme that's developed over the last two books (can I say it's a theme already? well too late). One has a girly romantic comedy theme and the other is an account of one man's attempt at becoming completely trash-free, there was a surprising amount of time spent on an individual's insecure assumption that he or she is unworthy in some way. The thing is, neither one was just talking about a single character in their respective stories, whether it was the searching-for-love heroine in "Must Love Dogs" or Colin Beavan himself as he fought conventional trash-creating lifestyles in "No Impact Man." Both of them, in their very different genres and styles was talking about how it's a universal attribute, even if some people are better able to hide or deny it. We all, whether consciously or subconsciously, want to look, act, and be like others and we all deal with that want differently. Some openly defy it (hipsters anyone?), others "rise above it" and become the popular people who define what everyone else wants to be like. I'm following a recent trend of change-the-world enthusiasts who've done their changing over the span of a year (or similarly short period of time). Names that come to mind are Colin Beavan (No Impact Man), Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project- more to come about her soon), and Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love). It may seem so degrading or depressing to think of us all like that, but I like to think of it as leveling the playing field. Personally it's much better than the "imagine them all in their underwear" technique. There's just some people I'd reeeeally not want to see in their underwear. A lot of people actually. Back on topic: basically we're all the same (in this way at least), just another reason why everyone should respect everyone else just a little bit more. Yay for changing the world.

That fun rant was just to provide you with something to puzzle over as you go through your day. But, in other news, I haven't been slacking quite as much on this project as it may seem from the number of posts in the last week (aka 0). First up: trash-collecting, minus the bright orange jumpsuit. I'm still so excited about the "national park"-- as Dan likes to say-- that is my backyard, but what saddens me is the amount of trash that people have dumped back there. Because of all the hiking trails in the area I finally invested in a sturdy pair of hiking boots and the first time I broke them in I went out on a quick trip into the woods behind our house with Bubba. The goal was both to work off some of the excess energy that dog possesses and also to clean up some trash. I took two plastic bags and filled them up in no time. I'm proud that only a tiny bit ended up in the trash. The rest went straight into the recycling bin. This project is far from over, but I already feel better knowing I didn't just take something from the woods, but that I gave back to nature, even in such a teeny-tiny way. Next time I'll take bigger bags and some sturdy gloves because boy can humans be nasty!



(Apologies for this lame-sauce post, bigger and better ones are coming soon, I promise!)

Need I say more? [77]

This video speaks for itself, though you should definitely still go to http://www.empowermentplan.org/ for more info (thanks to Kiana for sharing it on facebook):

To the point of boredom [76]

I've been in Massachusetts for a week now. I'm an East Coast girl once again. This week I've driven 14 hours across the country, unpacked two cars worth of belongings- one into my new home and one into my sister's- I've met way too many new people (but I guess for me 2 people is too many so that's not saying much), I climbed onto a roof for a wonderful view of Boston, I painted wine glasses with one of my best friends, I survived my first solo drive on the Mass Pike (complete with getting out of a parallel parking job that was much too close for comfort), and I drove through my town in several directions without a map and without getting lost. I have a week before my grad school orientation (eek!) with not much to do, but that just means that I have more time to enjoy the big green field, woods, marshy little lake, and waterfall (yes waterfall) in my backyard. Up until yesterday afternoon I was a little worried that this next week was going to drag by in a mess of bored nervousness but then I took my roommate's dog out into the field behind our house to get some exercise and I was met with one of the best views ever. That is not something I've been able to say very often about my backyard. In Germany we had such a small backyard that the snowmen we made were not only miniscule but covered in sticks and dried leaves because we just couldn't get enough snow rolled together. Our yard in Michigan is plenty big but isn't anything special. You know, no waterfalls or anything. And with the chance of sounding pompous, living in Michigan means that I've had friends who've lived directly on one of the many small lakes but they have nothing on my backyard. Most lakes in residential areas are just surrounded by houses. People will practically build on top of each other to get a corner of the lake. Although we don't live out in the boonies, as in we've got neighbors all around, we live on a major road, bla-bla-bla, our backyard is natural, it's green, it's purely wonderful. How about I just let the pictures do the talking... But really, the point of this post was not to bore you to death with a lengthy sonnet about my wonderfully green yard. The point was actually to sing the praises of taking time out of the contemporary stressful life to the point of boredom. No zen talk, I promise. Just that, if you ever get the opportunity to just chill and take life at turtle speed for just a moment, look around you and see what you've been missing. In the course of the week I have been able to get to bed early enough and leisurely enough that I've been waking up before 7 on my own, without the help of an alarm clock. To others that may sound ungodly early but to me it's wonderful. Also, in just the last day I have been given the time to wander through the woods at my own pace- well, as long as I kept up with Bubba- (I didn't realize how much I missed relatively pure nature until I had it back), finally finish the index of the book of recipes I wrote up before leaving Michigan, finish two blog posts (you're welcome!), and start the ridiculously long process of picking pictures for a scrapbook I'm putting together.

 So here's my backyard. It comes complete with an old shrine and street sign:

Then it's the second star to the right and straight on til morning! 

Or... to the left and down the mini hill to:

At the edge of the woods, looking back towards our house

First glimpses of water

The path into the woods looks a little bit like this:

 And this:

 

Also, this:

WHAM! Waterfall

 

Bubba, my trusty adventuring buddy:

I'll just leave you with this image. If you're ever looking for me in... well probably the next year, 

try the dock first xx

Home again, home again, off to the East Coast [75]

This has been the summer of hurry up and wait. One month traveling Europe followed by a couple weeks of sitting around with nothing to do. A week on Lake Michigan with the family, consisting mostly of reading reading reading. And then waiting waiting and some more waiting until last week's wedding extravaganza. Yay for bridesmaid win. Two days at home and now a move across the country. So here's a guide for you on how to change the world while moving 800 miles from the Midwest to the East Coast. (Note: this list is FAR from exhaustive, it just consists of the three things that jumped out at me the most.)

1. Take reusable water bottles on the trip and fill them up every opportunity you get.

2. When you have to buy water bottles try to pick a company that's making a difference, even if that difference is eensy weensy teeny tiny. Case in point: Ethos water has paired up with Starbucks to create the Ethos Water Fund. Every time someone buys an Ethos water bottle from Starbucks, 5 cents is donated to the Fund, which goes towards supporting water, sanitation, and hygiene education programs in water-stressed nations. 5 cents might not sound like a lot but thanks to elementary school math I learned that can sure add up fast, to more than $6 million so far and 420,000 people to be exact.

Photo credit (and to learn more): Ethos Water Fund

3. Stay the night at hotels that are trying to make an effort to be environmentally friendly. The hotel we stayed at had recycling bins everywhere and gives guests the option to reuse towels by hanging them up or leaving them on the floor to be removed and replaced by clean new towels.