Monday shared stuff

I've been trying to incorporate Google Reader into my repertoire of Internet tools. but apparently it doesn't get along too well with my work computer. So until I get that figured out, I hope to periodically post a few items of interest here on Sand Creek Almanac.

The Farmer as Natural Resource Professional

As a fish and/or wildlife manager, one of the first things one learns is that most of one's efforts to protect and maintain habitat and fish and wildlife populations are at the mercy of private land owners--farmers, forest product companies, developers, lake shore owners. Of these, farmers have influence over approximately 58 percent of the total land area in Minnesota. When I was in graduate school, we often saw examples of "farmer as bad guy" in land and watershed management: stream banks eroded by cattle, land tilled right up to the roadside, with no fencelines or other wildlife corridors, ditches washing topsoil and fertilizers into rivers. However, there always have been farmers who practice good land stewardship, and an increasing number are making the connection betweeen the health of the land, sustainable productivity, and wildlife habitat. The above link is about one such farmer, Kent Solberg. Solberg had a somewhat nontraditional route to farming; he grew up in the city, got a degree in wildlife management, and spent years working with various state and federal agencies as a wildlife manager. Now he and his wife raise dairy cattle, pork and eggs on carefully managed pasture on their farm in north central Minnesota. Listen to the linked podcast if you have time; it's about ten minutes long but very informative.

There is also a personal connection, which is why I was happy to find this story this morning. Solberg and The Hermit were buddies in graduate school, he was best man at our wedding, and I worked at the same office with him for several years. We haven't been in touch for a while, but I would like to visit their farm some day.

Choosing to live with less

In these tough economic times, there are a few people who are not feeling the pinch, since they have chosen to get by with what some would call poverty-level income. However, the lives they are living seem to be rich and fulfilling. I was inspired by these stories. And there's another personal connection; the barn dance I played at last week was called by Terrence Smith, who is featured in the article. His passion for music and dancing is contagious.

"Glocavore"...now there's something to ponder!

Penelopedia has posted about an issue I have spent some time considering...local eating. Now, I'm all for procuring local foods, IF they can be sustainably produced within a reasonable distance. But, as the article quoted by Penelopedia suggests (although a bit "in-your-face-edly"), sometimes we just CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT WE WANT locally. I mean, here in northern Minnesota the Ojibwe lived off venison and wild rice and blueberries and a few other plants we modern civilizationalists would not care to make into food. The influx of European immigrants brought a few other food choices. But, admit it, we are not exactly a food basket here, are we?

But the "Glocavore" movement (if it is one) suggests that we support certain products that simply cannot be produced locally. So we can't grow olives here in Minnesota. Fine, we'll support growers in California who can. Ditto for almonds, rice, etc. I can agree with that. Specialty farmers get decent prices for their crops, we get olive oil in Minnesota, it's a win-win deal. I hate to say it, but I almost can't grow tomatoes here, although I keep trying. :)

I admit it, the "locavore" thing has always been problematic for me as a blogger. I support it, I have a freezer full of local (<20 miles) grass fed beef, but to me it isn't the answer. There are some foods that cannot be grown locally, but could provide significant income to someone who could. I'm not talking about shipping lettuce to Minnesota in June when we could supply our own very well. I'm talking about almonds, oranges, artichokes, lemons, grapes...anything that cannot be grown in a specific climate, but would be missed in our cuisine. Especially anything that makes a statement against processed foods.

I always feel like, among the blogging community, locavorism is a status thing. A "feel good" thing. A "hooray for me" thing. And that has kept me from expressing my doubts about it, in the past. I was afraid of alienating any blogging "friends" who did not share my views. But now I don't care. I've grown older, and wiser!

More reasons to eat organic

This article, just posted online by Environmental Health Perspectives, describes a study in which levels of certain commonly used organophosphate pesticides dropped significantly in urine samples from children who switched to a mostly organic diet for just five days.

Of course, the big chemical companies will counter with "but those children were perfectly healthy even when they ate a pesticide-laden diet, weren't they?"

I'm not so sure. With all the immune-related illnesses these days, and the hundreds of thousands of chemicals we are bombarded with which make it virtually impossible to prove cause-and-effect, I'll err on the side of caution. Last night it was broccoli and potatoes from the garden.

Low tech

We celebrated Nina's birthday on Sunday by having my mom, dad, brother and his family, grandma, aunt and uncle up for a picnic. It had been two years since any of them had seen the place and we were anxious to show them the progress on the new house. We even enlisted the muscles of my dad, brother, sister in law, and uncle in lifting one of the glue-lam beams that supports part of the second floor.

While I love having my family up for a visit, I always get the feeling that they don't fully understand why I'm doing this, why I'm working towards this homesteading lifestyle. My grandma and my mother certainly lived some of it, but are content in not having to do all of the hard work anymore. I think they admire me for doing it, and creating such a great environment for the kids to grow up in, but at the same time are a bit perplexed by some choices. Like the composting toilet.

"Why are you going with a composting toilet instead of a regular one?" my dad asked me. I paused, reaching for the right words. The composting toilet is such an integral symbol of our philosophy of living here; conserving valuable resources, making do with less, and participating more fully in the cycle of life. How do I distill all of that into an answer that won't take the rest of the afternoon? I didn't have a copy of The Humanure Handbook available to show him, although that may have been a bit too much information for a Sunday afternoon.

"It's low tech." I heard myself say. It's low tech. Exactly. You can't get any more low tech than a bucket of sawdust. It's simple and elegant, and it won't get plugged up and overflow at inopportune times. But yet, the process of composting is probably more complicated and technical than anything humans could come up with, so in a sense it's not low tech. But for our purposes, at an organism/ecosystem level, it's low tech.

I went on to explain how a septic system would cost thousands of dollars to install, would require intervention by professionals and inspectors, and even then would have no guarantee of working properly. Mound systems have a way of freezing up during winters with little snow, and functioning questionably the rest of the time. My aunt and uncle, who live on a lake, are aware of this. They will eventually need to replace their system, but will probably go with a holding tank instead of a mound. As a biologist I agreed that was the better option for them and for the lake, which suffers from nutrient overload. I should have preached the benefits of the composting idea, but perhaps that will wait for another day, not a family birthday celebration.

The economic argument probably made more sense than the low tech one. I don't know. My extended family probably still thinks I'm a bit strange. Oh well, at least we didn't go with my husband's idea of greeting them with a hatchet and telling them to go down to the chicken tractor and choose their dinner.

My "new" washing machine

We went to my aunt and uncle's lake place on Saturday, and we picked up three very useful items, all for free, because they were no longer being used by their owners. I like the idea of being able to reuse items that are well built, even if they may seem a bit anachronistic. One was a hand-crank meat grinder, which will come in handy if we buy a hog, shoot a deer, or even find a good price on chuck roast. Another was a wood stove, which we have no immediate use for but may eventually end up in a garage. The third, and the best deal of all, was a 1958 Maytag wringer washer.

Laundry has been a problem ever since we moved here. Once a week my husband or I have had to drive fifteen miles into town and spend up to $20 at the laundromat. This process took up the greater part of a day by the time everything was sorted and folded, and left me with frazzled nerves. Laundromats are generally dreary places to hang out, especially with three young children. In some urban college areas I imagine there are laundromats that make the experience bearable by serving alcoholic beverages or having Internet access available, and the people that frequent these places might even be interesting. But around here the only entertainment is a few old Good Housekeeping magazines, Christian tracts, and the bulletin board. It's an unwritten rule that people don't talk to each other except to complain about the dryer on the end that doesn't work, or the person who brought in fifteen loads and shoved five comforters in the super size machine, then went to the bar and left everything sitting for two hours. I have tried to bring in reading material, but I only get a few sentences read before I have to keep Joey from climbing into a dryer or tossing unknown objects into other peoples' washers.

The environmental impact of washing laundry this way leaves something to be desired as well. There is the gallon or more of gasoline consumed to bring the laundry to town, the energy and water consumption by the washers and dryers, the treatment of wastewater and leaching of chlorine and other chemicals from detergents and fabric softeners. And doing such quantities at a time means I have little time to pay individual attention to clothing items that may require special care. Stains don't get pretreated, buttons get lost, and the lifetime of the garments is perhaps shortened.

By contrast, the wringer washer is an incredibly simple technology that consumes relatively small amounts of electricity and water. It is quiet, and the gentle agitation is easy on clothing. My grandma always said the wringing process takes more water out of the clothes than the spin cycle of an automatic washer, so the drying time is less. And the drying is the best part; free solar energy, and the clean smell of clothes dried outside, no artificial fragrances necessary.

Yesterday we set the machine up outside, next to the shower, and gave it a trial run. Except for the electrical plug, which needed replacing, everything worked perfectly. I selected a load of the kids' clothes, presoaked them in a metal washtub, transferred them to the machine, and agitated them for about fifteen minutes. I drained the wash water, ran some rinse water, then started wringing. What fun--the whole family was there in an assembly line: Joe and Vincent handed me clothes, I put them through the wringer (avoiding the proverbial "tit in the wringer"), and Nina and Russ hung them on a wooden drying rack and a makeshift clothesline.

I often think our modern "timesaving" appliances create a disjunction that prevents one from any involvement or pleasure with the task. The assumption is that washing dishes by hand, or doing anything with laundry except for putting it in and out of machines, is a waste of valuable leisure time, and the appliances supposedly spare one from this drudgery. However, when we remove ourselves from the tasks necessary to live the way we do, we lose the possibility of finding enjoyment in the task itself. I enjoy reconnecting to the task, getting my hands wet, understanding that this is not drudgery but a vital activity in our family's life, an act of beauty, art, and prayer in its execution.