every day is day one

I am writing this on Under The Blue Roof, not only because I feel this blog has been neglected and could use a post here and there, but also because I feel the need to diverge a bit in my blogs. Although I have gotten personal on Sand Creek Almanac, probably way too personal sometimes, I have re-thought my blogging mission a bit and I think it would be best for me if Sand Creek Almanac, the more public, more widely connected and hopefully more widely read of my blogs, served to showcase my best stuff. Not necessarily the most polished, but I want to stick to themes of nature and insight, with an occasional family story thrown in just for fun.

With that, I want to share that I think I have arrived at a turning point, where I can make some real positive changes in my attitude and my life. I started taking a yoga class last Wednesday, and was amazed at the physical benefits of just one class. I think it affected my psyche a bit too, because I somehow started feeling more balanced. So much that on Saturday I spent about five hours cleaning and rearranging the bedroom a bit, and I can now say I have carved a more peaceful place in this oft-cluttered house. A place where I can practice yoga at home, when I put my mind to it.

I am also feeling more committed to writing, some of which will hopefully be musical. One small change at a time though. Although I am motivated, new habits take a while to sink in.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

How to use leftover pork chops

We just took the plunge and bought half a hog from our new favorite meat market, Superior Meats in Superior, Wisconsin. Just an hour's drive away from our house, across the border in a state that actually sells beer on Sundays, Superior Meats offers freshly butchered meats, specialty sausages, and thick cut bacon that is not so pumped full of preservatives that the meat loses its shape and texture. We're talking real meat, and Wisconsin seems to do it best.

Our first meal consisted of a package of four unbelievably huge pork chops. So huge that for the five of us, we ended up with 1 1/2 chops left over. Of course I could not let that go to waste, and when I have leftover pork I immediately think fried rice.

I could tell my parents always liked fried rice; it was a meal left for special, rare occasions. I guess pork was always more expensive than the staple, ground beef, and my parents were frugal. But once in a while they splurged, or pork was on special at the Country Club Market, and I somehow developed a taste for it.

Fried rice is pretty simple: a mix of sauteed vegetables, meat, cooked rice, seasoning, and sometimes an egg or two. Tonight Russ had brought home a package of Lundberg's rice blend, which is an amazingly dark mixture of whole grain rices including wild rice. I cooked it in chicken broth for about an hour while I prepared everything else.

In a cast iron skillet I sauteed half an onion, a few small carrots, two cloves of garlic, some dried cranberries, chopped almonds, and about a cup of frozen peas. I cut up the leftover pork and added it to the skillet. Then some teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, and finally the rice. I did not add eggs, although it could be done. I think this dish did not need them.

The verdict: delicious. Which means, unfortunately, no leftovers. I served honeydew melon as the only side, which balanced the dish well. A good white wine goes down nicely also. :)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

kale with mushrooms and walnuts

The Hermit asked me this morning if we still had some kale in the garden. I didn't use a lot of kale this summer so I still had about half a row of White Russian kale. He wanted some for breakfast, sauteed with mushrooms and walnuts. I added bacon, onion, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and a little red wine, and the results were delicious. I also cooked fried homegrown potatoes, which I wrote about on this blog a year ago. Simple, satisfying, and largely homegrown. Here's the approximate recipe:

Fry 3-4 strips bacon. Pour off some of the grease, and add about 2 tablespoons butter to the pan (you could substitute olive oil). Chop one small to medium onion and saute in pan until slightly golden brown. Add mushrooms and one large clove of garlic, minced. Saute over low heat; you don't want the garlic to brown. Add about 1/2 cup chopped walnuts to the pan, and pour in about 1/4 cup red wine (it doesn't matter what kind; lately I like cooking with Pinot Noir but today I used Zinfandel because that's what I had). Add kale and cook until wilted. Sprinkle with shredded Parmesan cheese and enjoy!

I'm back!

I went away from the lights of Fourteenth Street
and into my personal haze
But now that I'm back at the lights of Fourteenth Street
Tomorrow will be brighter than the good old days!


-"Hello, Dolly"

This week I have undergone a revelation of sorts. It started the morning after election night, when my US House of Representatives candidate, who had had a comfortable lead when I went to bed with 13% of precincts reporting, was upset by his challenger, whose doctrine is unmistakably Tea Party and religious right. That, with the news that our gubernatorial race is on hold while a recount is conducted, even though "my" candidate is ahead by over eight thousand votes, sent me into a haze of depression and anxiety about the future of our nation and the general ignorance of people. I aired my frustrations on Facebook, and received some comments that lifted me up and may have changed my life. I re-posted them on Sand Creek Almanac.

The gist of the comments was that the government will never make the changes necessary to move our nation where it needs to be. Those changes will have to be made at the local level. In order to overcome diminishing oil supplies, climate change, and a food system that is contributing to diseases of humans and the environment, people need to look at their own lives. Is our lifestyle sustainable economically, environmentally, and socially? Although the economic crisis seems to be over, what can we do to prepare for more instability in the future?

It will take nothing short of a revolution. And I believe that peaceful revolution can take place, one household at a time. And my renewed purpose in life is to make sure my own household is doing what it can to live a joyful life while preparing for a sustainable future. Living simply, acting deliberately, striving towards a practice of domestic permaculture (where have I heard that before?) And I will share that story here on this blog.


One of my excuses for not blogging has been, of course, time. But I've had another revelation over the last six weeks. My daughter and I are in a school/community theater production of "Hello, Dolly". I never thought I'd have the time to rehearse for 3-4 hours, five evenings a week. But I've managed to do it, and I'm having fun meeting some arts-oriented people in the community. So what am I going to do with all that time after November 21st, our last show? I have made a commitment to myself: I am not going to go back into my evening "personal haze". If I have the time and energy to do theater in the evening, I have the time and energy to play music. And write. And learn! It would be a shame to waste that time on trivial things. Life is too precious to waste even a moment, especially when that moment can be the essential one of discovery.

I'm not making any promises as to posting frequency. But my goal is to make this blog into a vital part of the discussion on sustainability. Whether it reaches only a few people, or hundreds, my hope is that my experiences and experiments can encourage people to take the path of living more simply, acting more deliberately. I'll begin tomorrow by sharing a recipe I came up with this morning that incorporates homegrown food, including some November-harvested kale.

no more anonymous comments

Because I'm tired of rejecting anonymous comments that basically say nothing and sometimes backlink to questionable sites. All comments will be moderated.

My two-part cold remedy

Part One: raw garlic. In whatever form and however much you can tolerate, and if your cold is as bad as mine you have probably lost all sense of taste, so that takes care of many issues right there. I had some in a salad this afternoon, and I felt almost instant sinus relief. I had some in my pot roast tonight and I am as decongested as if I had taken one of those commercial cold medicines.

Part Two: Vodka and cranberry juice. However much you are accustomed to drinking. The cranberry juice contains a lot of Vitamin C and other stuff you need, and the vodka takes the edge off the whole cold suffering experience. Okay, I am not sounding very politically correct here, as promoting any use of alcohol, aside from the commercials of major beer distributors, is seen as immoral these days. But humans have a long history with the gift of fermentation, and if it can ease suffering, what can be wrong with that? Why do they put alcohol in NyQuil anyway? Obviously, if you have a bad relationship with the spirits, you should think long and hard about this. But if you're okay with your relationship with alcohol (and I tend to think a lot of us are), having an extra vodka cranberry juice will not hurt anything. You're staying home anyway, right?

School lunch

This year, in order to save money and perhaps exert more autonomy in what the kids eat for lunch, we decided to bring lunches from home. From the standpoint of the kids, this experiment has been a success; they have not complained about anything, and I think they enjoy what is in their lunch versus a precooked school meal.

Of course the perfect school lunch would involve homemade bread for the sandwiches, which would be made from local, sustainably raised sliced meats. Locally produced cheeses would be painstakingly sliced and included. Of course this isn't happening. We buy meat and cheese, and even bread in bulk from a national warehouse food store. We include pre-made granola bars and cheese crackers, even overly packaged juice.

This brings the dilemma of food choices vs. price out in the open. We are a middle class family getting by on 1 1/2 incomes. Of course we would love to be totally self sufficient, but realistically I do not see that happening. It takes a substantial endowment to live the Mother Earth News lifestyle, sad to say. I do not have the answer; just sayin'.

So for now I'm happy saving a few bucks a month packing lunches myself. The most rewarding part is taking an active role in what my kids eat instead of passively paying money for whatever the school has to offer, which in the end probably is not of any greater nutritional value. I do like the feeling I get knowing I am taking a greater role in their lives in lunch matters anyway.