The Accidental Environmentalist

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T08:12:00.001-05:00

Oh God. Please, no.

Aw crap, I forgot to do my new year's post about resolutions and such! Okay, here's my short list of eco resolutions for 2012:

Not let my compost rot in my kitchen and then in my carport (I was being so good and then got lazy again)
Find a composting system that works - like getting something that won't spawn anaerobic gas monsters in my kitchen
Lose more stuff so I have less stuff
Go to the Co-op and Ward's more and shop at Publix less

...and a bunch of other stuff I haven't come up with but will in the coming months.

Did anyone watch Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's? I refuse to acknowledge Ryan Seacrest as the Dick Clark of the New Millennium.

Anyway, thanks for continuing to read and friend and comment and follow this blog - I really do enjoy your input and hope we can continue the great conversation for 2012!

Got the photo of Dick Clark and his nemesis from Shopping Blog.

Clean the World

2011-12-29T19:45:00.000-05:00

When I was at the Florida Democratic Convention this past October we were supposed to have a soap drive for Clean the World, where delegates could bring their leftover soap and shampoo to donate to this organization--which recycles and sanitizes the soap to give to folks in third world countries where personal hygiene is an issue--but I never did find the collection center (I also forgot to bring the leftover shampoo). As you know, I've been washing my hair pretty consistently with apple cider vinegar and baking soda, so have not had need for shampoo. I was also given some expensive Body Shop shampoo by a friend but decided that it didn't do much for my hair so I still have that sitting around.

Anyway, I had kind of forgotten about Clean the World until I was at The Body Shop to use a Groupon (went during a sale and cleaned up!) and while I was talking to the sales clerks I suddenly remembered Clean the World. They were excited and intrigued by the idea and maybe The Body Shop will partner with Clean the World. Hey, maybe I should write them a letter. I am kind of curious about if they would support this type of effort. Who wouldn't? It seems like a great idea; recycling soap and shampoo to help people with basic hygiene to prevent communicable diseases that are possibly fatal. Here's a chart from the website:

Global Health Statistics

Major Causes of Death in Neonates and Children Under Five in the World

Of course, since clean water is also an issue in many third world countries, doesn't this defeat the purpose? I just don't know. I'm going to think on this a little more and might even try to get Gators for a Sustainable Campus on board with doing a drive for these folks. Not sure, because I have lots going on right now with a new job (!) and need to put whatever extra energy and time I have into keeping family ties and concentrating on school.

Survey comment to Maidenform

2011-12-27T14:01:00.001-05:00

Just made another purchase of bras from Maidenform - I've written about this before, in my quest for American-made products; unfortunately this isn't the case with Maidenform, but I took the opportunity to put this quote in a survey they asked me to take after my online purchase was complete:

I really like the fact that I'm buying products that have a long history in the United States, and specifically in the Northeast, where I grew up. However, I would like to see Maidenform bring its manufacturing back to the United States where I can buy worker-friendly (possibly even union-made) bras and undergarments. Thank you.

My general rule is that I don't do surveys for companies unless I get a freebie of some kind, but the payoff here is that I was able to give the beancounters something to think about; if enough people do this every time they buy goods that aren't Made in America but used to be (like Maidenform) there might be some change in manufacturing down the road. Who knows!

Got the old advertisement (for this post and the last one about Maidenform) from Found in Mom's Basement blog.

BOROUGH FURNACE replies!

2011-12-22T10:36:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to quickly update that BOROUGH FURNACE (I feel like I have to bold their name everytime I use it, now, to get rid of the mistake I made the other day calling Borough ______ [I don't want search engines to get this confused!]).

Anyway, very nice exchange with these folks:

I need a cast iron skillet where my eggs won't stick (phooey Lodge) - when can I buy one of your pans?

Sincerely,
Michele

Info Info info@boroughfurnace.com
Dec 19 (2 days ago)
to me

Michele,
we should be up and running early in the new year. If you haven't
already, sign up for the notifications on our contact page. We'll be
letting everyone know as soon as orders open up. We'll get you cooking
eggs ASAP. Happy holidays!

Jason Connelly

Dec 19 (2 days ago)
to Info

Yay! Thanks for getting back in touch! Happy holidays to you and everyone :)

God bless us, everyone!

So this is, I believe, going to be my birthday gift that the fam can get for me - all I want for my birthday are fried eggs that don't stick to the pan! Yahoo!

Borough Forge

2011-12-18T20:24:00.001-05:00

My new skillet. Eventually.

I think it's called Borough Forge - wait, let me check (I actually bookmarked it)...Nope, sorry, it's called BOROUGH FURNACE! Ignore the title (no, I am not changing it I am feeling extra lazy...it is hard enough to lift my fingers from each key in succession). Anyway, even though I should be sleeping off the rest of this cold I am writing about Borough Furnace because they are going to start producing cast iron skillets. I sent them an email minutes ago. I said, "I need a cast iron skillet where my eggs won't stick (phooey Lodge) - when can I buy one of your pans? Sincerely, Michele." Nice and succinct. You know these artisans, though - they'll write back when "they're in the mood," or when "the muse calls," or whatever. I just want a cast iron skillit, demmit! I saw a review of the skillet on Serious Eats - apparently they were doing a Kickstarter campaign and raised 130%, prolly because of the review - and followed the link to the website. The cool thing about Borough Furnace, besides the fact that it is made in America and by craftspeople who hopefully know their stuff, but the pans are made from "upcycled scrap iron." That's pretty awesome.

Swiped the photos of the skillet and the logo from Borough Furnace; the photo of the pan because I figured people wanted to see what my new pan will look like, and the gif logo because it is cool and annoying at the same time.

Year of Living Dangerously Slow

2011-12-10T23:54:00.000-05:00

Haha, I like that title! Anyway, was looking for a recipe for slow cooker black beans (which I found here - yes, I even need a recipe to cook black beans) but while I was lingering on the page I noticed the author put a link to a chart for the energy consumption of different household appliances, and thought it would be a handy thing for the blog.

We've gone for almost a year without a microwave oven. I miss having one (our old one finally broke and after taking it to the hazardous waste dump decided not to get a new one). At first there were good reasons not to have one - we were eating too much convenience food, facilitated by having a microwave, so getting rid of the microwave solved a lot of over-eating and wasteful package consumption. The other reason was maybe not so good - microwave ovens have always seemed kind of creepy to me, so I thought I was somehow being more environmental by not having one. But, after substituting the microwave with a small toaster oven, I'm starting to see that maybe microwaves are more eco-friendly in that they use less energy to heat food, they're convenient for re-heating coffee, and they kill bacteria on scrubbies, giving them a longer use life (I did an Accidentally Environmental Experiment where I boiled the scrubbies and it was a complete mess and really yucky). So, I think we're going to get another microwave oven and I learned a valuable lesson that eco-friendly does not always mean giving up something that is weird like a microwave oven. The end.

GoodGuide's Transparency Toolbar

2011-12-09T07:57:00.006-05:00

Don't know if I'll get around to testing this toolbar (a rigid set of very serious, scientific tests!) but thought I'd do a quick thing about it. The GoodGuide is an online concern that helps people purchase items they use everyday without the guilt of being "greenwashed" - if someone can explain this term to me I would be very appreciative, but apparently some of the common, everyday items you buy everyday can come from pollution factories and shady manufacturing practices. Now, Goodguide has come out with a Transparency Toolbar for all your online shopping; it allows you to place a series of filters based on what you don't want in your products (animal testing, unsafe workplace) and then lets you know if a manufacturer fits within this scope. Here's a link to the video explaining the toolbar on the You Tubes.

I get that people want to carry living ethically to the extremes and try to keep the bad karma away by using things like the Goodguide Toolbar. And I think it is probably a very useful tool, my problem with it is that the alternative is simple yet does not make sense in our very consumer-centric society. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING. That is the alternative. Okay, that's extreme, too. How about only buying what you need and not buying every stick deodorant on the planet? (I don't know if there are people who do this, I'm just using this as an example).

Or buying products second hand - you don't need sterile floor wax, for instance. If you can buy a half-used bottle of it at a garage sale, why is that bad? The same goes with shampoo and conditioner. I regularly get this stuff from friends who end up not liking the hair products they buy, for whatever reason. Instead of chucking it, they pass it along. Of course, I'm still washing my hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar so I've got a bit of a backlog, right now. But I can take this stuff to my workplace and put it all on a table in the break room with a "for free" sign and it would all be gone by the end of the day.

There is no reason why we can't use things like the Goodguide Toolbar to help us make consumption decisions (I seem to remember AdBusters was developing a scanner not too long ago, before there were "apps," to scan barcodes on products and tell you if there were any environmental or ethical flags). The thing is, we've got to break this cycle of using the simplest common denominator to make our decisions. We are, by nature and instinct, hunters and gatherers. We may have to work a little harder to be less consumptive while at the same time being ethical, but working harder to acquire is in our blood. We just have to see the utility in it - if it saves money and does the least amount of harm to others, it is a good thing, right? These are new things to think about!

Okay, I can't wind down from this so I'm going to say that I will bring that second-hand shampoo to work and see if there are any takers.

No Black Friday Post this Year

2011-11-27T10:22:00.000-05:00

Last night I was having trouble falling asleep and to add to this tossing and turning I realized that I had forgotten to do my annual Black Friday post about this awful tradition in America where citizens fight one another for two-dollar waffle irons and pepper spray their fellow Americans (no, I will not link to these items because they are old and everyone's probably read them already, anyway).

So, just thought I'd acknowledge that there was no Black Friday post this year because it seems like there are enough people on the Internet scorning this practice, now, that it makes my contribution seem mundane. Here are some links, though, to my previous screeds.

"Pussy" about biking?

2011-11-10T12:18:00.001-05:00

Instead of writing about the Breakfast on the Plaza event I helped the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board of the City of Gainesville with this morning, I will instead link to this DKos piece posted by A. Siegel who is a dedicated poster about things eco on the Daily Kos site. Here is one of those situations that we have all had happen to us on one side or the other; confronted with cyclists who feel utterly entitled to take up as much road as possible. This is why we have Bike vs. Truck races to show how inefficient cycling is - I believe that it is the best form of transportation especially in the city, but because of jokers who make it slow-going for auto drivers this is the kind of unsupportive backlash the cycling community as a whole has to deal with. We have to share the road, people, and we have to make sure drivers can see us, that's all I'm saying.

Dakova Batey helping a cyclist get the right fit for their helmet at today's Breakfast on the Plaza on Downtown Gainesville's Bo Diddly Plaza. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board, through the City of Gainesville, handed out safety equipment such as helmets and lights to area cyclists. Dakova is the coordinator for this great, great group (of which I was once a member [shameless plug])

Saving water as marketing appeal

2011-10-17T12:10:00.003-04:00

I posted this on Facebook over the weekend, from a recent shopping trip to Walmart; Suave has a new ad campaign for their line of natural shampoo and conditioners and I found it interesting that they use water conservation as a way to market their products. The sign says, "Turn off the tap: Your family can save up to $100 dollars per year by turning off the water when you shampoo and condition." So, it's an appeal to economic rather than ecologic savings, but it's still kind of fascinating to think that this may be a new marketing meme in a really bad economy. Put on your Jimmy Carter cardigan and turn down the thermostat, folks, it's 1977 all over again.

I guess it's a start and I really shouldn't complain, even though I sorely want to. I will say this, however; if people are impressed about saving 100-dollars in a year by turning off the tap in between rinses of your shampoo regimen, think about how you could triple or quadruple those savings by not showering every single day.

Thanks to Osha Gray Davidson for his Forbes digression from electric vehicles to explain the significance of the Jimmy Carter cardigan for the youngs.

Is there an ethical engagement ring?

2011-10-17T08:03:00.000-04:00

I was just reading a Mother Jones Econundrum article by Kate Sheppard entitled, "How Do I Buy an Ethical Engagement Ring?" These types of articles make me a little meshuggeneh because they always gloss over the most obvious fixes for this type of "problem," if you can really call it that; the main solution is to just not buy anything.

Sheppard talks about how buying an engagement ring problematizes her role as a feminist as well as a human rights activist and environmentalist. I'm sure you've seen at least the trailer for Blood Diamond which in its Hollywood way exposes the human cost of mining precious stones in banana republics, or are at least aware of the issues involved in buying precious stones like diamonds, and are also called "conflict diamonds" because they help fund the bloody wars that rage through Africa. Here's a website for Global Witness, one of the first organizations to bring this issue to the fore, and which Ms. Sheppard references in her article. But alternative stones and ethical diamond merchants are not at issue here at all.

Do you need an engagement ring at all? I'm kind of a hypocrite here, because I have a wedding ring but we never got around to the engagement ring, and so maybe I'm just jealous, but there are other options; I should add that Ms. Sheppard points these out towards the end of her article, like finding vintage or antique rings which would be the way I would go and I felt should have been more prominently suggested. This brings me to the biggest reason why I'm making a half-hearted attempt to criticize this article; the utter excess that it continues to perpetrate in the engagement ritual.

Ms. Sheppard herself feels conflicted by the whole thing and rightly so; being a modern, new millenium-woman she should feel this twinge of unease at the prospect of telling her readers that it's okay to have these conflicts but still go ahead and continue an outdated form of ownership identification. And more than just the ritual itself, it's the money spent behind the whole idea that makes it just so excessive and unnecessary. This is a really, really bad economy and to post articles on something that most Americans cannot even think about right now is really a disservice to Mother Jones hippies like myself, and young people who look to lefty rags like MJ to help them make informed decisions about the political world around them.

Kickin' it with the Krishnas at the Kickstand This Wednesday

2011-10-15T18:05:00.000-04:00

You can follow The Kickstand updates here or follow the group on BookFace - I've been doing the updates for TKS for about a month, now, and I'm still feeling my way around the WordPress interface (it's not as lazy as Blogger).

This was the week Occupy Gainesville got rolling but from our vantage point on the edge of the plaza all we could see were people making signs on the bandstand and playing with frisbees and hula hoops. If you've never come down to the Union Street Farmers Market on a Wednesday, it is quite an experience and I'm there with The Kickstand, so there's that.

The Krishnas were in full voice and fine form; last week I my head was so full of "Hare Hare" that I had to cleanse my mental palate with this George Harrison video:

The fact that they are right next to our booth is both fun and annoying at the same time, but I do like the smell of incense in that closet-churchy kind of way.

Alex and Chandler are the two main mechanics who help folks learn how to fix their bikes; at least that's the plan, but sometimes they just leave the bikes and go off somewhere for a little while. Either way, the bikes get fixed and people have greater control over the transportation options in town. Alex is great about teaching bike mechanics, though, so I've been learning a lot about fixing flats and especially about fixing brake cables because that seems to be a problem with a lot of bikes (mine included!). The thing that's most admirable about these two (besides the fact that they schlep out to the farmers market every week) is that they're like the McGuivers of the bicycle repair world; they can fix just about anything from disparate bits of debris lying around. Twice since I've been volunteering there we've managed to not get our tools and bike parts at the farmers market, and these guys have both times done so much with just a few tools - needle nose plyers are key, I've found.

So, anyway, that's my rant about The Kickstand and how much I love volunteering with these people!

Diva Cup is mystery

2011-10-08T18:00:00.002-04:00

This is the kind of stuff I get up to when the Old Man and DJ aren't around - I found out all this terrifying stuff about the Diva Cup. No, it's not a horrible, space-age horror - I still love my Diva Cup after using it for...5 years? I don't know, and I'm too lazy to go back into the blog archives to find out, so I'm just going to say 5 years! Anyway, did you know that you're not supposed to wash your Diva Cup with castile or any other oil-based soap? Yep! Did you also know that you're not supposed to let the holes in the top get clogged with menstrual goo? Yup! Finally, did you know that you should boil your Diva Cup every so often but not until the water burns out of the pan and your Diva Cup is but a cinder? That's right! I learned all of this by clicking a few times and found the Diva Cup FAQ that told me all this important stuff that I've never read before but now I know about. I love the last FAQ that says, "I boiled my Diva Cup for too long and burnt it - should I buy a new one?" What do YOU THINK, you moron?! People actually ask this crap. (haha, I really have no room to talk, just saying).

Okay, I'm done venting. And I did wash the Diva Cup with castile soap and let the holes get all gooed up. BUT, I also just boiled it for 5 minutes - the stuff is hospital-grade silicon, it will probably survive through the environmental holocaust of many tsunamis and hurricanes (oh wait, they're the same thing!).

And that's why I wait until the Old man and DJ are out of the house, so I can do stuff they'll never know about, like boiling my Diva Cup in one of our cooking pots (Hope the Old Man doesn't read this, lol, but he probable will). It's not like he hasn't seen me boiling much worse in probably the same pot.

The Kickstand this Wednesday

2011-10-07T11:58:00.000-04:00

Hi, I'm swamped, as usual, but wanted to post quickly and link to the organization I've been volunteering with for the past month, The Kickstand. They're a great group and I really love working with them! Here are some recent photos, too - the first photo of my new volunteer-mate Chandler, fixing a flat tire (also in the photo, taken by the other great mechanic, Alex, is The Kickstand's fabulous new sign, also done by Alex); the second photo is of my new sustainapeep, Mike, showing off his electricity-generating bike at last Friday's United Downtown in Gainesville.

Stars vs. Sierra Club

2011-09-22T18:08:00.000-04:00

So, anyway, the other day I was finishing up getting every last smidge of flavor from my piece of chewing gum and wanted to get rid of it; so, like I always do, I rustled around in my bag for a piece of paper to wad up with my gum. Too late! I had wadded up my gum in a very important piece of paper! Let me back up.

About a week or two ago I reported on all the sustainable freebies I got from the Sustainable UF tent on the Plaza of the Americas. While I was talking to the nice lady at the counter about the group's efforts, I happened to ask her about another topic which I had reported on a ways back and which was sticking in my craw - why did UF not fill out the survey for Sierra Club's Cool Schools Environmental Campus ranking? What I was told by the nice lady was that UF, along with some other schools, were using a different ranking system, put together by The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), called the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating system (STARS) and they asked the Sierra Club to use that survey data, which Sierra Club said they wouldn't do. Lots of confusing acronyms! So, anyway, this very important piece of paper that was now-wadded with a piece of chewing gum had the web address for the above STARS program.

Just wanted to get that information up - I'll have to come back to investigating this another time because I am swamped work-wise and I am, as you know, very, very lazy.

The Kickstand

2011-09-22T14:53:00.000-04:00

I've reported on this great organization in the past (here and here) - now I'm actually volunteering with them. I'm mostly doing their Facebook and website updates, but now I'm acting as a greeter at the tent they have set up at the Union Street Farmers Market on Wednesdays. It's really fun! And, my favorite bike mechanic, DD, decided to lend a hand, as well, so it was extra fun! Met the wonderful organizer, Raj, and bicycle mechanic Alex, as well as a whole bunch of new people who needed their bikes fixed. And no one gets turned away, even if they can't give us a couple of dollars for the bike mechanic work. And it's kind of scary because The Kickstand needs to make at least 10-dollars a week because that's how much the tent rent is. If you live in town and have some extra parts, tools, or a couple of dollars to spare, please consider visiting the tent - or just come by to say hi!

New Coin Purse

2011-09-22T14:29:00.000-04:00

Got a new coinpurse the other day at Sunflower Health Foods and wanted to show it off. This is the coin purse size of what Blue Q carries, but you'll see they have many, many styles that are all funky/trendy/retro-like. The thing I like best about it? It's made from 95% post-consumer plastic. The worst thing about it? It's made in China.

Sustainable Freebies

2011-09-13T12:48:00.000-04:00

No, I wasn't first in line!

Walked by the Gators for A Sustainable Campus and got some aweseous (DJ's new word, combining "awesome" and "righteous") freebies. I'm giving the green one to DJ and the orange one to the Old Man, and keeping the pen to show off how sustainable I am (the pen is made from recycled materials, although I'm a little dubious of the wooden clip). Thank those bike-using, IKEA-making, Swedes for the Light My Fire multi-ware. Thank you!

This does NOT mean I am a Miami fan!

The Ugh Pan

2011-09-10T10:27:00.001-04:00

Gah!

I've blogged quite recently about my woes concerning beloved babybear cast iron skillet and here I am again to confess my shame because I am a secret eco-masochist (okay, not so secret!). About two weekends ago I made eggs in babybear and this is the result: caked on, burnt egss. I have never, ever, had such a bad response to cooking in this thing! Despondent at this development, I then proceeded to ignore babybear skillet and make bagels and cream cheese for the next two weekends - needless to say, farm-fresh eggs are not so fresh anymore in my fridge and they have been stocking up to the point where I need to make many quiches for neighbors, soon, or else! I don't want to know what the "or else" will be (probably more easter eggs next year - ew.) so this morning I decided to take action.

Cleaned pan after egg mishap

About the same time as I was complaining about my cast iron skillet, I got a comment from Paul Wheaton (tangentially related to Wil Wheaton [I don't know what I just said]) who hipped me to the fact that this is an ongoing point of obsession with many, many people. In fact, this fellow Paul Wheaton wrote a lengthy and thorough rant about using cast iron skillets and, apparently, there is an entire school of thought related to how one cares for their cast iron skillet. It hurt my head to try wrapping it around this mind-blowing revelation, but maybe you can have better luck with it? Anyway, since I am a visual learner, I chose to instead to watch this video that I also found on Richsoil.com, Mr. Wheaton's homesteading website. Caution, it's 9 minutes long which is an unreal amount of time to watch ANYTHING on the internet, but it's really, really worth it! The lady in the video is really cool and if I had a self-cleaning oven (with a purple ceramic top!) I would have a better time of seasoning this thing.

Super Duper Summer Update 2011

2011-09-08T12:13:00.000-04:00

It's a sick day here at the AccidentallyEco-compound - DJ is here, as well, and we're just rolling around the house being sick but thought I'd take this opportunity where we are doing absolutely nothing to post on some of the things I've been doing or re-doing.

Composting - started doing this activity again after about a 6-month hiatus. This time it's going a lot more smoothly as in, I'm not leaving compost containers in the carport to rot after I've left them to rot in the kitchen for too long. I'm actually dumping the kitchen clippings in a timely fashion and being a little more brave in throwing other woody/leafy matter in with it. I'm also over the whole stir-the-compost thing and just letting it layer, occasionally stirring if I have something especially stinky (like onion fragments) that I want to bury immediately. Still haven't made the second compost bin but I think I'm going to drill larger holes in this one so I don't have to drill so many - had in mind originally that I'd make DJ and Trooper (his best friend up the street) do the drilling - power tools and 9 year-old boys? What could go wrong?! But they were all like, 'meh,' so I'm going to do it myself, dang it.

Vinegar and Baking Soda Hairwashing - I've been pretty consistent with this since I restarted back up last summer with only a few instances where I used shampoo - tried a Body Shop brand of shampoo and conditioner that a friend gave me but it did not work for me, so back to bs&v.

And my head feels all fuzzy so that's all I got for now.

Happy Labor Day

2011-09-05T12:00:00.001-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Heard on Wind 95 that Labor Day is the "day we take off from work to celebrate working." I'm not working so much as I'm doing school work today, but I also thought I'd update and apologize for being so slack the past couple of weeks - beginning of DJ's new school year and my own have made me less available for blogging. And so the new school year madness begins.

Been thinking about labor in terms of my recent "made in America" rants; I really wish Americans had more jobs but I wonder if my tactic of bringing manufacturing jobs back to our country is really such a good idea. I would like to refine my dream of bringing American jobs to the US by qualifying that to mean "clean" jobs, jobs that don't create tons of pollution like in the classic industrial model. That may be asking for the moon, but if we focus on green jobs we can make a difference. And Robert Reich (see this video from The Last Word) has been talking about a return to WPA-type jobs (since about 2009) as well as McKibben's idea for a Green Corps (link to a Nation article from 2008) and these are definitely steps in the right direction.

Update: Added link to Nation article and Reich Video from MSNBC's The Last Word

Cast Iron Skillet Woes

2011-08-20T14:56:00.000-04:00

I've posted in the past about cast iron skillets as "nature's teflon" (am I the only one who thinks that's clever? I think that's pretty darn clever) and others have commented on how much they prefer cast iron skillets over non-stick pans. The main criticism about cast iron skillets is that you have to use grease but my belief is that, if you've seasoned your pans well, you don't even need to use any oil or butter in your cooking. Here is a great primer on seasoning your pans from Chowhound (there must be a lot of folks with this problem because Chowhound's post has been googlebomed to #1 in the "reseasoning cast iron skillet" search). The 1870's farm, incidentally, has probably THE BEST seasoned cast iron skillets on the eastern seaboard - nothing, absolutely nothing, sticks to those pans.

My problem, of course, if I've never seasoned my pans well enough. My babybear skillet is the one that I have the most problems with; it's also the one I've had the longest. I'm taking off the patina each time I have to scrub it - part of the problem is that I'm using steel wool to scrub it, which Chowhound says you should do to get rust spots off, but a soapless scrubby to keep it clean. The thing I'm worried about, probably needlessly, is that once I've scratched off some of the seasoning that it creates a sort of cascade of misery where even reseasoning it won't give you a smooth, non-stick surface, because you're reseasoning the old coating along with the new seasoning, creating an uneven cooking surface.

Like I said, I'm probably worrying about nothing, but thought I'd update on my cast iron cookware and see if anyone has any thoughts on this.

Loofah is growing like crazy!

2011-08-18T11:46:00.000-04:00

The photo of the little loofah that I posted a mere four days ago has grown sooo much! Look at this monster! And here is a photo of the kind of beautiful flowers that have been blossoming all over the vines. Will I get another loofah squash? Who knows? Color this late in the summer really makes me happy, though.

Reel Mower (squeaky video)

2011-08-17T18:18:00.001-04:00

Went out to mow the lawn today and wanted to demonstrate in some way the satisfaction of using a reel mower. My mower is squeaky and loud, but I can still listen to my iPod while mowing and look! There is nothing more satisfying than watching blades of grass flip out of the reel as it gets cut. My lawn (what there is of one) is not showplace-grade, but it's short enough so the neighbors don't stare balefully at me as I wave past them. I can also mow the yard wearing my hippie Birkies and don't have to worry about getting a toe taken off.

Wainwright Dairy

2011-08-17T14:43:00.000-04:00

Excuse any dirty kitchen displayed in the photo

My friend Bren just stopped by to deliver two half-gallons of non-homogenized, pasteurized milk from Wainwright Dairy, located in Live Oak. This is part of her buying club and the thing that sold me on this milk was not only the taste, which is delicious, but it's local (65 miles) AND the half-gallons come in glass containers! Glass! When was the last time you saw any milk in a glass bottle? Me? Never.

Sierra Club's Cool Schools 2011: How'd University of Florida do???

2011-08-17T13:58:00.000-04:00

Hey, Sierra Club Magazine's doing their annual Cool Schools, a list of the top ten and "best of the rest" who are on the cutting edge of energy conservation and environmental protection. I reported on this in 2008, because Gainesville's own University of Florida made #7 which is pretty impressive! Reported on it again in 2009 where UF had dropped to #15 - not great, but not bad still being in the top 20 Cool Schools, right?

Well, Sierra Club's Cool Schools kind of dropped off my radar last year, as most things often do when I get bored with them, but how did UF stack up in 2010? Number 84! WOOT! How did they stack up this year?! Don't know! They apparently didn't even return the questionnaire, so the 118 schools who did were ranked accordingly (162 schools apparently replied to the 2010 questionnaire).

Now, as close compadres know, I am a true orange-and-blue patriot of the Gator Nation, but not even making an attempt at a showing for the Sierra Club's annual Cool Schools Survey when UF has a very active Office of Sustainability is kind of ridiculous, even if the numbers are skewed because of number of schools who submit their surveys each year. I fully intend on writing a stern note to director Anna Prizzia of said office and see what she says.

Energy Widget - Holy Cr*p

2011-08-14T22:38:00.000-04:00

Ouch - I feel so second world

Have you checked the energy widget at the bottom of the AE front page? I posted a couple of months ago about how for the first time China has surpassed the US in oil consumption. But China is going nuts! They've totally left the USA in the dust. C'mon, citizen consumers of the US! Start using more oil!!! We must beat China in this foolish race to the bottom!

I'm Good, not Great

2011-08-14T15:16:00.004-04:00

I'm referring to GRU's report card or whatever it is - wait, let me put up the scan I took of a past report from about May or June, right before the dog days of summer started cracking down. Oh, wait a second, got to erase my info, first. Dang, SumoPaint isn't working, so I put this festive USA America flag over my name and address info. Anyway, if you click on the photo to embiggen it you can see that our family's energy usage within a 100-neighbor sample is in between the most efficient and least efficient households. I like how they don't refer to the least efficient as such, but rather "All Neighbors," which is very diplomatic of GRU. So, it breaks down that we used 27% more energy than our efficient neighbors between 5/3/11 and 06/1/11 and 9% more over a 12-month period. I think one of the Home Energy Reports for us was a "Great" once, but it was probably during the winter months when we don't run the heat that much and layer our clothing. Looking forward to seeing how we're doing by the end of the summer because that'll be a hoot.

Loofah!

2011-08-14T10:05:00.002-04:00

Already posted this on Facebook but thought I'd highlight it here, as well. Looking forward to seeing if this plant actually gets big enough to harvest for a new loofah sponge. Haven't used loofahs since I was a kid and Farmer John at Ward's puts loofah plants up for sale each summer. The first small loofah fell off before it could mature (not sure what happened); even if none of the plants end up producing anything, they still have beautiful, green, vining foliage and pretty yellow blossoms. And, yes, as one commenter on FB asked, they are a type of squash.

Ecology for Beginners

2011-08-13T20:09:00.000-04:00

Remember when introductory manuals on a subject were referred to as "for beginners?" The ...For Beginners books were published by Pantheon Books in the late 70's/early 80's (I think it ended with Zen for Beginners, but - oh, here's a Wikipedia link to the series). Now they're all "Dummy" this and "Idiot" that. Where's the love?
/end old lady crank

I have Marx for Beginners and within the past couple of years have found a copy of Ecology for Beginners, by Stephen Croall & William Rankin. After skimming it today, the question that comes up is whether there is anyone left on the earth who does not have some level of ecological awareness by this point? Of course, some will have more eco-consciousness than others, but is there anyone who can say, "I know absolutely nothing about ecology or ecosystems and how they work." I think even the most brazen anti-environmentalist has some understanding, even if they get the facts wrong or misused, like in the argument that CO2 in the atmosphere is not harmful.

It's sweeping in its historical coverage and has a good grounding in the basics of ecology, but the thing I took away from Ecology for Beginners is the section at the end of the book, "Three Radicals to Read." They are Rudolph Bahro, The Alternative: toward a critique of real, existing socialism; Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, The Right to Useful Employment and its Professional Enemies, and Shadow Work; and André Gorz, Ecology as Politics. They have at least one of them in the stacks, so I'll browse for it the next time I'm at Library West (saying "browsing" is a lot less committal than "borrow and read it.")

Accidentally Environmental Thing: Scrappin'

2011-08-10T21:07:00.000-04:00

Junk Art Fish made with...junk

Explanatory plaque for Junk Art Fish

A friend of the family's, DD, has started on a new enterprise, hunting for scrap metal to sell for recycling. So far he has been relatively successful; will have some pictures at some point (but please enjoy this Junk Art Fish from Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in St. Augustine) but we went on a couple of scrap hunting and scrap selling missions, and it's labor intensive, let me tell you. Remember seeing some fellow driving down your street in a pick-up, the truck bed filled to brimming with seemingly useless bits of broken items like bird cages and chicken wire and such? That was most likely a scrapper, looking at your garbage piles for more bits of broken metal items to add to his collection, before taking the whole mess to the recycling center. From the point of view of someone who was tangentially and vaguely aware that this sort of enterprise takes place every day, it's pretty fascinating. I do know that my sweet, elderly neighbor has been collecting aluminum cans before recycling/trash pick-up days since she moved to our street almost 10 years ago. She is retired and besides whatever she spent to buy her house, she is on Social Security and Medicare so collecting cans might help supplement stuff like...food. And so it is with other forms of metal scrapping. It's time-consuming, labor-intensive work but it helps people make extra money and inadvertently helps the environment by moving perfectly good scrap metal to the recycling plant rather than the landfill.

Like I said, I'll have some pictures at some point, but wanted to take some time to talk a little bit about metal scrapping and scrappers.

Note: As it has been pointed out to me, repurposing junk into art objects is not the same as scrappin', though.

First Look: Big Belly Solar Compactor (whatever that is)

2011-08-09T10:37:00.001-04:00

Took pictures of this new, strange contraption across the street from campus, near the corner of 15th Street and University Avenue. Waste Management owns the thing, it looks like a garbage can but it says, "solar compactor." Does this mean it Harnesses the Power of the Sun™ to tamp down garbage thrown into it, eventually spitting out a small, super-compressed cube of burrito wrappers and day-old french fries? Is this Wal-E writ large? So many questions; will have to investigate further.

Oh wait, that's exactly (well, almost exactly) what it does! Look at this video from bigbellysolar.com that talks about this fabulous new tool to leave garbage festering in cans for 5 times longer! But it does it with solar power!

Earth Smart cups at Super 8

2011-08-08T16:03:00.000-04:00

This is from the Super 8 in St. Augustine - they've apparently started using EarthSmart cups for their coffee cups in the rooms. The cups say "Do Not Microwave," and the only indication that they have anything environmentally-related is the recycle triangle of goodness and light. I did find a Wyndham Hotels blog, "B1 with Wyndham Green," that details their sustainability efforts:

Take our Wyndham Hotels and Resorts brand. From the front desk staff's "green" two-piece suits - made from 25 two-litre plastic bottles - to its biodegradable laundry bags, the brand is leading the charge in using recyclable material in innovative ways. Additionally, most of Wyndham Hotel Group's brands, including Super 8, Ramada and Howard Johnson, have implemented a linen re-use program, such as Earth Smart, and are installing energy-efficient lights in their guest rooms. These initiatives save water and energy, and they cut operational costs for hotel owners.

Man, those recycled uniforms must be hotter than Hades in the summer. Anyway, Earth Smart is a linen re-use program. I'm a little suspect about the cups because "green" cups (like those made of recycled paper or cornstarch or bamboo, or whatever) usually have this feature prominently displayed on the outside of the cup, right? This doesn't bother me, just thought I'd comment on it briefly.

Venus Swim Bra: Review

2011-08-03T23:09:00.004-04:00

This is a "romper"

I'm writing about the Venus swim bra I just tried out for the first time because Venus Fashion, Inc. is not only located in Jacksonville (spitting distance from Gainesville) but the company also prides itself on using American manufacturing. For me that's two pluses for this company; not only are they local, they are Made in America.®

It's hard for me to find bathing suits, and I've detailed my swimsuit woes on this blog over the years. Having grown up in the union stronghold of Midtown Manhattan (I like using the phrase "union stronghold." It is like "nitro-burning funny cars" in the pantheon of strong, evocative phrases), I naturally came to Florida with a union-made swimsuit purchased at Macy's. After 16 years, however, the suit was finally too worn out to wear even one more time, so I started my so far fruitless search for a new suit. Forget union-made - I don't think there is a company that still makes swimsuits in the US (do not know this for a fact, and if anyone wants to save a lazy blogger some trouble, let me know if there are any US companies that manufacture their suits in America). I also toyed with the idea of making my own suit and had gotten a modesty suit pattern but have yet to take the plunge and actually make one. At this point in my life, I just want a swimsuit that makes me look like a reasonable woman approaching middle age without looking like a Victorian matron or Haoli Girl (I swear, most suits for women of a certain age and size are black, or they're in the most garish purples, greens and/or floral designs. There is no gray area, here).

Then I stumbled on the Venus website when I decided I was not going to do a bathing suit per se and try just a swim bra (which I could not find in my size at Lands End). Bought one of Venus' blue swim bras and wore it to the pool the other day. It was not a great or by any means perfect fit, but it kept the girls in line while swimming. There is no way that I would wear this thing without a swim shirt over it, though. For one thing, the largest cup size they had was DD and I've realized that right now I am solidly a DDD - I know, TMI but you knew that when you married me. The second problem was the band was a couple of inches too tight; it relaxed a bit after swimming in it for about an hour, though, but I still had a red pinch line along my rib cage after removing it. One more sign that I just need to lose some weight, and I'd rather do that than buy a swim bra at Lands End that is of imported manufacture.

One thing about Venus, though, is that they don't just sell swimsuits, they also sell really tight fitting dresses and CFM shoes, I guess for really fit female bodybuilders? They started out selling body building and fitness clothing, so that's just a guess. The catalogue was a little PG-17 so I had to recycle it. All in all, though, very pleased to find a US-made swim bra that reasonably helps with support.

Bicycle Helmets: When to replace?

2011-07-29T12:48:00.000-04:00

Via FaceBook, bike blogger Jillian sends this link from the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute for when to replace your helmet. It's a lot more detailed, but here's the bullet list:

Did you crash it? Replace immediately.

Did you drop it hard enough to crack the foam? Replace.

Is it from the 1970's? Replace.

Is the outside just foam or cloth instead of plastic? Replace.

Does it lack a CPSC, ASTM or Snell sticker inside? Replace.

Can you not adjust it to fit correctly? Replace!!

I need a new helmet.

Gainesville Sun's Ron Cunningham comments on his blog about Republican bike vs. truck race

2011-07-28T22:47:00.000-04:00

Ron Cunningham is a true-blue green patriot because he is a dedicated Gainesville cyclist and a great advocate for the rather large bicycle culture in town. He weighed in briefly on the recent Alachua County Republican Party-sponsored "race" between a truck and a bicycle:

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad Stafford Jones and Alex Patton don’t ride bicycles. First, they’d almost certainly hurt themselves, and we’d never hear the end of it. And second…Alex, seriously, nobody hauls lumber on a bicycle. That’s dumb as…well…dumb as wood.

THANK YOU, Ron, for validating my point that no dedicated green patriot worth their salt would attempt a lumber carry on a bicycle without the proper equipment! Alex Patton also responded to this post with a nice letter that took offense that Ron was skeptical of Patton's ability to ride a bicycle. I think everyone should be questioning the logic of a cyclist who would carry a 2x4 on their bike without at least a trailer. Very impractical, Alex.

Alachua County Republican Party doesn't like bikes

2011-07-23T14:04:00.001-04:00

You need you some panniers, Alex Patton!

I think that is a pretty good summary of the Gainesville Sun article posted today, where the GOP machine in Alachua County sponsored a cycling event in the 13th Street Home Depot parking lot. The goal? To prove that bicycles are inefficient and impractical for transportation in Gainesville and the rest of the county.

This is hardly about whatever deficiencies riding a bicycle (besides not having the benefit of having about three tons of metal between you and another vehicle) in the city may present to citizens. This is about stopping all efforts to promote more efficient roadways and other city planning projects that would benefit pedestrians and cyclists:

In Alachua County, 90 percent of the money raised from the 5-cent gas tax goes toward paying for roads. The other 10 percent goes toward bicycle paths.
Patton said bicycle usage outside the downtown area doesn’t warrant that level of contribution.

Of course not! What could possibly be the benefit of safer bike pathways on roads outside of the city limits? No one with a "three ton Chevy Avalanche" needs a bike path, and those who do are just poor and so who cares?

Alex Patton, who rode the bicycle against the above-mentioned truck, apparently lost the race because he was attempting to pick up cartons of eggs and ice cream, some dry cleaning, and a 2x4 as part of the errands to accomplish during the race. This is without any sort of carrying component to the bike other than a backpack. A 2x4? Seriously?

I've reported over the years about the various changes we've made to our family's bicycles in order to carry out the day-to-day activities we do with just one car; when DJ was a toddler we had in him a child trailer which eventually became a grocery trailer; a child carrier on the back of the bike; a ride-along bike trailer when DJ was learning how to bicycle; and finally, DJ is now old enough to ride his own bike and I have attached a cargo trailer on our extra beater bike. As any seasoned commuter cyclist who spends a good portion of time riding to and from their destinations knows, you need the right tools to do the right job. Like anyone who owns a big ol' truck, you have tools in case you break down (in fact, my blogger buddy, Jillian, just posted about the tool kit a commuter cyclist needs on the road).

This was obviously an exercise in futility if you require a cyclist to make these kinds of trips with nothing more than a backpack; anyone who only had a bike and needed one 2x4 would ask a friend with a car for help (like asking the driver of the truck, for instance), or making the trip on the bus. It's possible to carry a 2x4 on a bike, but there is little reason for someone to do it when there are other options. I'm sure there's an argument to be made about this if the person in question is poor and cannot afford the bus or has no friends with cars, but it seems like any argument for or against bicycles is going to somehow entail some kind of inconvenience.

Be prepared to hear the "bikes are inefficient" line over and over again anytime the question of taxes for city planning and bike pathways that in any way improve the bike-ability of Gainesville or Alachua County is raised. Critics will most likely even point to this Gainesville Sun article as an example.

Update on bulk soaps at Citizen's Co-op

2011-07-21T20:31:00.001-04:00

So I reported last week that me and DJ took a first shopping trip to our shiny, brand-new cooperative food store, Citizen's Co-op. That trip we concentrated on bulk food items; today I ran in with a couple of containers to get castile soap and Charlie's laundry soap. I was a little disappointed that they did not have a huge bucket of castile soap and instead had gallon jugs of Dr. Bronner's; don't get me wrong, I grew up on Dr. Bronner's almond-scented liquid soap (which I bought today, in fact) but it would have been cheaper to have gotten it in larger bulk. It was still pretty cheap, though; an 8-ounce bottle was $2.80USD (they charge by bottle size). The Charlie's soap came in liquid and powder; I'm used to the powder so that is what I got - it was about 7-dollars for a smallish OxyClean bucket - about 15 scoops. I actually should have been more scientific about it and DANG IT! I threw away the receipt. Why did I do that??? Okay, now I have to go back and get the price breakdown.

Anyway, while I was there, the kind gentleman who helped me get the tare weights the last time helped me do this for my OxyClean container, and I mentioned that I didn't see any unscented castile soap. He said they tried to get the Dr. B's Baby unscented but it didn't come in gallon jugs; I suggested they try to purchase Stephenson's organic castile soap. Last time I bought it, it was around 22-dollars a gallon, and the price breakdown got better the more you got (they also had 5 gallon and 22-gallon barrels). The gentleman said he would check into it; I think it would be a good choice for the store because I'm positive it would be cheaper in the long run to have at least a 5-gallon bucket of unscented than the gallon jugs of the Dr. Bronner's. Also, I like to put my own fragrance in the castile soap, if I am of a mind.

In the end, I'm really glad that Citizen's Co-op has bulk soaps (forgot to mention they also have Charlie's All-Purpose Cleanser which I will have to try next) and that will be my go-to place for laundry and body wash from here on out!

Urban Agriculture and the Alachua County Comp Plan: What You Should Know!

2011-07-18T15:20:00.000-04:00

Diana, the nice lady I buy eggs from on payday, sent this my way via Facebook so thought I'd share it on the blog - It's taking place Wednesday, July 20, from 6:00-7:30pm at the Downtown Public Library. Here's the text:

FREE Public Forum. Join Alachua County Growth Management Planner Holly Banner who will present information on proposed changes to the Alachua County Unified Land Development Code (ULDC) relating to agricultural uses.

The intent is to support and promote a stronger local food system with improved access to healthy, affordable, nutritious food. This will be achieved by expanding the list of allowable uses to include more urban agriculture, such as backyard chicken keeping, community gardens and farmer's markets.

Holly will run through the proposed changes and take your questions. This promises to be a lively evening of sharing! Free and open to the public.

This is part of Grow! Gainesville, a part of Gainesville Farm Fresh, a new site dedicated to connecting area folks with sustainably-grown, local foods. If you follow the link you can connect to them via Facebook, as well :)

Front Yard Gardens

2011-07-17T17:46:00.001-04:00

Clothesline, twine, and tent pegs

Bamboo and twine

My big one right now is actually in the back yard, but wanted to also show a couple of other yards on my street, each with its own, unique system of lattice work for vines. Mine, as you can see, is a makeshift job of clothesline, with twine anchored down with tent pegs. I'm actually quite proud of myself for coming up with that! The second yard is up the street a few houses, and the neighbors rigged up a pretty cool-looking network of bamboo poles and twine. Beautiful sunflowers! The last one is our neighbor Mark's garden, and he has the most unique set up I've ever seen. For the past two years he's used these Rubber Maid bins that are self-contained growing spots for at least a spring and summer garden (I believe he lets them winter over, covered with plastic sheeting. I had been telling friends about this set up and said that he had started with one and now had four, but looking at the picture I realized he is now up to six! And he's growing corn!! I don't want to be a hater so will merely channel the frustration and envy of those who have unsuccessfully tried to grow corn in their garden plots -- KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!111!!!!!

CORN!

The thing I love about Mark's lattice work is that he is totally a dude and went with PVC pipe; I really shouldn't be so sexist! Even if he wasn't a dude, it makes perfect sense to build a frame of PVC pipe to hold up your tomatoes and squash (I think it was actually a cantaloupe I saw a ways back), because you can just disassemble it at the end of the season and let the pipes and joiners rest neatly in your shed until next year.

Native American cucumber

Here's a couple of updated photos of the backyard garden; The vines are crawling up the twine very nicely as you can see. The vine in front is a vegetable plant Hollie from Morningside Nature Center gave me in the Spring; it sprouted one vegetable, and from the photo it looks like a yellow squash, but not so! I finally decided to bring it inside and slice it to find out what it was (I thought Hollie had said it was a watermelon) and while it looked like a squash on the outside it was more cucumber-looking on the inside, and had a nice, tart flavor - if I hadn't eaten it raw right then and there it might have made a nice accompanyment to some pickled vegetables. Spoke with Hollie later and she said it must have been one of the Native American cucumber types she had sprouted. Cool! I saved the seeds so maybe next year I can get some more of these. It's still going strong, though, and actually put out another blossom yesterday - maybe we'll get another cucumber for pickling!

The other vines are loofah sprouts I got from Farmer John's table at Ward's; the bean plants are also from Farmer John's but I can't for the life of me remember what they are, except some kind of bean plant. They could be edible or ornamental, so will have to wait and see.

Citizen's Co-op: First Shopping Trip

2011-07-16T22:48:00.002-04:00

The Citizen's Co-op is finally open! Yay! They apparently opened up earlier in the week with a "soft" opening, but DJ and I went over there on Friday to get some bulk items we needed and have a look around.

Having your own co-op in town is a really nice feeling, and when we first walked in we were greeted cheerily by everyone working and shopping. Yes, being greeted by both counter folk and shoppers might seem strange, but I think everyone is just so excited that the dang store finally opened that the mass greetings were more like, "isn't this freakin' great?!" My next impression was that the store was awfully small, but really, it's maybe a little smaller than the Ward's departments that are all hippy-fied. And it had the immediate accessibility of a corner Korean grocery that were ubiquitous in my previous hometown of Manhattan. Much, much cleaner, however. It had that new store smell.

So, after finding the corner that contained the bulk items - and there was really nothing that I noticed not present among the items I usually buy; today I had to get some flour, sea salt, and sugar. Being all about bringing my own bulk-item containers I had brought some so as not to use the baggies, and vaguely remembered a recent communication from the co-op that said they would put the tare weight on the container so they could deduct it once it was filled and weighed. I stood by the counter with my containers and very shortly a man who wasn't aiding a shopper helped me weigh the containers and put the tare weights on them. Gretchen, the big Kahuna of the Co-op, even came by to thank me for bringing containers; honestly, the first time anyone has thanked me for making more work for store employees. Then I set DJ to work filling them while I perused the store.

Well, I actually didn't really get a good look at everything because I was hovering over DJ to make sure he didn't spill more of the sugar on the floor than in the container. While I'm looking at the first picture, I just noticed that there was indeed bulk castile and Charlie's Soap in the store ("soft" opening operative, Bren, had related as much) and you can see the canisters and bottles in the lower left corner of the photo. So, they took my suggestion or is this just standard for all co-ops? Perhaps I'll never know, but I'll have to go back when we need laundry soap and dish detergent; I know they have one, but need to check on the other. They had some local produce, but I think the season made it difficult to have a lot of stock as we are in the dead summer months; they had some nice looking local peaches, however, but wavered on whether to get some even with the big chance of them rotting in my crisper.

There's a lot convenience and packaged foods - DJ found a lemongrass-flavored ramen he wanted to try - but I'm there for the local produce and bulk items, really. Along the back wall there were various affirmative statements (maybe mission statements?) about food and eating and it was all very artfully done.

The prices were all very reasonable and comparable to Ward's (I don't go to Mother Earth much so I don't know how it stacks up to that store), and that may be one of the main criticisms I have about the place; it might just be replicating other Gainesville efforts at sustainable, healthy eating. Overall, however, I was very happy with the place; lots of natural lighting, pleasant people on both sides of the counter, and a warm, gentle atmosphere made it imminently more appealing than any other food store in town. We'll definitely be going back there, if only so I can look at the dairy and meat sections, which I didn't get a chance to peruse on this visit.

Pictures of Citizen's Coop, 435 S. Main Street Gainesville, Florida 32601 | 352.505.6575 | info@citizensco-op.com

Updated to include link to site, address and phone number

Because You Googled It: More on Cottage Industry Act

2011-07-15T10:45:00.002-04:00

It's funny that I would be begin the AE's new feature, "Because You Googled It" with a summary about the Cottage Industry Act (which is not its real name, as I will get to in a bit); within a day, the Google stats showed about 14 searches for the house bill on this site; the law took effect on July 1st of this year. I was originally going to do the first BYGI on bringing cast iron cookware on a plane, and will probably get around to answering that question at some point.

First of all, it's not actually called the Cottage Industry Act; it's regularly known, in the FL legislature, as House Bill 7209, or the "Consumer Services Functions/DOACS," and was signed into law by Governor Scott on 06/21/2011. It took effect on July 1st of this year, and here is the summary of the part about cottage industries:

The bill creates a regulatory system for Cottage Food Operations, to exempt from permitting by the department a cottage food operation that sells less than $15,000 annually, and provides for labeling requirements of cottage food products.

Pretty straightforward, and basically what we already knew. There are three companion bills, one is still in the system, one failed, and the third one, SB2122, is (like the other two) basically contains deregulatory measures through attrition of resources and personnel and keeps taxes low on grapefruit and other Florida citrus.

That's really all the info I have on it right now.

Cottage Industry Act

2011-07-14T10:53:00.000-04:00

Okay, so what little I could glean (guess I'm going to have go deeper by *gasp* going to the library) it's a new Florida law that lets people who want to sell "safe" foods like jam, cakes, or cookies, have to go through less licensing rigamarole in order to go into business - they cannot make more than 15k/yr with this enterprise, however.

At first I thought this would open up Florida markets to have above-ground dairy and meat producers on a micro-scale, like the Glades Ridge Goat Dairy (I so love their chèvre), who are forced to sell their items for pet food. But, I don't think goat chèvre counts as a low-risk food (children, can you say "listeria?").

On the other hand, this new legislation might end up becoming a trap for these Florida producers of dairy and meats since this law is so specific; this is just an initial thought and I don't have much to base it on, but authorities might use the Cottage Industry Act to distinguish between "legitimate" cottage food businesses, and those businesses they perceive as skirting the law through the pet food loophole. It could be a blow to the Florida small farming community, and especially during these dire economic straits our state finds itself in these days.

Got the photo from Homestead Revival blog post, "Does canning jam really save money?"

First AE Like Prize Derby Commemorative Blingee

2011-07-10T23:47:00.001-04:00

Because the first winner is such a patriot (I don't really know this) I made a Blingee which I love so much! It is a great gift - Build Your Own Patriotic Image! So, I'm hoping the winner contacts me so I can send it to her. Anyway, I'm tired (as evidenced by this stupid Blingee) and must retire. Congratulations to the winner and thanks, once again, to all of the wonderful friends and FB denizens who like the Accidental Environmentalist on FB. Each week I'll have a different random drawing for prizes (sustainably repurposed from my own collection of stuff), so don't forget to "like" my Accidental Environmentalist page on Facebook!

Username on Facebook/Prizes for liking

2011-07-10T16:44:00.000-04:00

Reached 25 likes on FB so I was able to get a username, making it easier for people to find the page: www.facebook.com/the.accidental.environmentalist - thanks to everyone who has liked the FB page and follow the Blog page! You are the song in my heart and the smile on my lips; you keep me blogging!

Just so you know, each week for as long as I find "prizes" around the house I will be having a drawing for each week's FB users who like the page. I hope this will be a lot of fun for people, because I know I'm going to have a lot of fun seeing how much you LOVE the prizes I find!

Operation Sunflower in Fukushima Prefecture

2011-07-10T07:34:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to pass this along via boatsie on DKos:

...a group of scientists launch Operation Sunflowers, an experimental project in three locations in the Fukushima Prefecture. The hope is the sunflowers, fertilized with kalium which has similarities to radioactive cesium, will absorb large quantities from contaminated soils. A visit to the sites early this month revealed the seeds are already sprouting in an atmosphere where radiation one meter above the ground radiation levels range from 7 to 21 microsieverts per hour.

Awhile back, the old man told me about Chinese brake fern and how, when it has absorbed arsenic from the soil, will repel bugs. There is a science that studies and cultivates plants for removing toxins from the soil, called phytoremediation, and two of the scientists researching brake fern are developing it for use in phytoremediation.

So, anyway, I find this all fascinating and it is early on Sunday and I need to get up and make breakfast. Coffee first!

Got the photo above from Deinha1974's page on deviantART.

Are CSAs Worth the Money?

2011-07-09T20:49:00.000-04:00

So, I've been thinking about joining the Swallowtail Farm CSA in the Fall (The Gator Share CSA starts in the beginning of October and runs to the end of April) and am kind of having a hard time swallowing the 480-dollars that you need upfront in order to get a share in the harvest. It's 7 months, or roughly 69-dollars a month, and I'm not sure we eat 69-dollars worth of vegetables a month.

We do eat vegetables, but sometimes we have to rely on frozen veggies for dinner; I realize that that's not such a bad thing, but fresh would be totally better. And thank goodness DJ is one of those kids who likes broccoli and carrots, two of the easiest veggies for us to prepare, so I know he's getting something wholesome in addition to the rest of the crap he eats.

Starting tomorrow, I will be logging how much our family spends on vegetables, frozen or otherwise, and figure out if this is a good option for us. Of course, you have to take into consideration that joining the CSA might be more than what we spend at Ward's or Publix, but the fact that it's local, it's farmers market fresh, and it's sustainably cultivated is worth a few extra dollars.

Here's a link for CSA's in Florida.

Different Summer, Different Sandals

2011-07-09T18:46:00.001-04:00

Last summer I was all about my Okabashis, and my favorite comment was by alert reader, Tammy, who told the best story in the world about looking at Okabashis one day at the drugstore, so I encourage you to read it because it was totally the "ut."

This year, I splurged on a pair of Birkenstocks, because it is the 7th initiation rite in belonging to Gainesville. My son, DJ (short for "Dude Junior"), because he is growing like a sprout, started wearing them when I wasn't looking, and I went for hours in sadness because I did not have my Birkies. Anyhow, I finally broke down and bought him a pair of his own and in retrospect I should have gotten him a pair in my size because he still steals mine. What's it going to be like when he's in high school?!

Here is a link to last year's post about the Okabashis (similar photo!) - I'm waiting for him to realize that wearing the same sandals as your moms is uncool. Maybe it isn't anymore?

Wattmeter

2011-07-09T17:53:00.002-04:00

Just returned the Wattmeter I borrowed from our public library. This is a great new resource and I'd be curious to know if other public libraries in other states have these. It's a device you plug into an outlet and then attach the appliance you want to test to see how much energy it uses and how much it costs to run. It is already set to GRU's Kwh price (.032) so all you have to do is follow the instructions. Because I did this in between other wheel-spinning around my house, I only got to test my laptop and my cordless phone charger. The laptop was surprisingly low, costing about 15 dollars a year to run, while the phone charger was about 30/yr. Now, I may have those numbers wrong and may have to revisit the wattmeter thing again, but it was interesting to try this gadget out; actually, I don't think I'll get a chance to retest these appliances anytime soon, because there is a big ol' waiting list for the thing.

Accidentally Environmental Thing: Zippo Lighters

2011-07-07T20:28:00.000-04:00

Area with circles is where sparks come out.

Son DJ helped with this post, and right now he is all about Zippo lighters after seeing his first one today while at a friend's house. After thinking about it, I realized that Zippos are an Accidentally Environmental Thing!

First of all, every part in the Zippo lighter is replaceable. They come in a whole dang lot of styles going from denim-covered lighters to concealed lighters in pretty eggshells. Zippo lighters have been around since 1933 and are made in the USA. Finally, they are guaranteed for life, like the Jansport backpack - "It works or we fix it for free."

If you are going to buy a Zippo be careful if you have small children because they do not have a safety device because kids can easily pull back the striker because there is no child safety device and even when you do it sparks will fly in different directions. So be careful that you don't get burned.

Citizens Co-op is finally opening!

2011-07-07T12:31:00.000-04:00

Got an email that said so, so I really, truly believe it. They're finally opening!!! They're having a "soft" opening for members that starts on July 12th but then a public grand opening on July 15th. Gee, you know, the thought just occurred to me that I don't have a card or any proof of membership or anything. I hope they have me somewhere on record as being a member. Oh geez, something else to worry about. Oh, I guess I could email them. Let me do that. I wonder if they'll have bulk laundry and dish soap.

Eureka, an (obvious) fix for PSS (Panty Shield Shift)

2011-07-05T04:56:00.000-04:00

NOTE: Males will not find this at all interesting and perhaps a little gross. Women, too. Why am I writing this? I am compulsive.

So, in the past I've made menstrual pads from flannel from a modified pattern from Many Moons that no longer exists, but since getting the Diva cup I've used actual pads-in-the-pads very little. But they make great panty shields on the spotty days - except for the fact that they shift around like mad and actually do not provide much shielding at all. I guess they're not that great. BUT, the other day it occurred to me that if I put another snap on the thing that would pull it tighter, I wouldn't have this problem. I found the snaps, hammered in another one, and lo! Problem solved. That is a combination of "eureka!" and "duh."

Yes, here is a picture of the extra snap, to the left of the original and, yes, I would indeed show my skanky old reusable pad in a blog post to illustrate this solution.

Update on Sierra Club "Go 60 mpg" Campaign

2011-07-04T18:58:00.000-04:00

I need a horse. I've got a concept where I hitch the horse to my car and have some of the 1870's farm folks get in the car (the driver on the roof with the reigns) and that will be my cautionary tale about why we need 60 mpg fuel efficiency standards. So, if you have a horse and live in or near Gainesville, please don't steal my idea but do contact me.

Your Fourth of July Super-Patriotic Thing: Go 60 mpg

2011-07-04T12:31:00.004-04:00

I haven't done an Environmental Patriot post in a few years so thought I would post about a cool project that Sierra Club is doing to petition for a 60 mpg standard for cars in the US. It's a spectacular idea and I would certainly sign it immediately. Sign it, share it on FB and the Twitter Machine, this is important stuff - at least for me. So, if you don't want to sign it for the environment or the little creatures the scamper or swim about, do it for me. I worry.

Oh, SNAP! It's not some regular fail petition, neither! It's a some kind of photo petition where you have to get out your camera or cell phone, use just enough energy to point at something and take a picture. Then you have to email the dang photo and THEN sign the petition:

Snap a photo of the reason why you want 60 mpg. Thumbs down at the pump — because you can't afford to fill up so often. Your fuel efficient car — because you have high standards, and your car should too. You holding a sign with your own reason — because there are so many reasons to Go60 mpg. Email your photo to go60mpg@gmail.com with the subject line: "I want 60 mpg because..." Sign the petition to show your support for strong vehicle fuel efficiency standards - 60 mpg by 2025. Tell your friends!		We will collect the photos and deliver them with your signatures to President Obama and other key decision makers at the EPA and Department of Transportation to show them it's time to set a strong, 60 mpg standard! The images you submit will put a face on this issue - a face that cannot be ignored.

I'm sorry, that's just too much work. What? You think I should do it anyway because I always say I'm a "super-duper patriot?" It's true! I do always say that about myself, but I'm also extremely lazy and short-sighted. Whatever, man, that's my motto. I like to think of it as being more Zen than lazy, actually.

Oh, okay. OK! Geez, stop it, already - I said I'd do it! Will post with an update - if you post about this on your blog, send a link and it will encourage me to actually do an update and post it along with the update.

New look for the blog

2011-07-02T23:14:00.000-04:00

Am trying to do more towards getting the blog live on my server, but in the meantime, thought I would change the template - I really like this one - it seems more roomy.

Japan's Electricity Conservation Posters

2011-07-01T23:46:00.000-04:00

Okay, one more post, because I saw this on Pink Tentacle via gmoke's post earlier today ("Japan Aftermath") on DKos. As I've recounted in a couple few places (+ here and here) I'm a sucker for environmental art propaganda, and here is the latest from Japan, where they are still (and probably for the foreseeable future) dealing with the massive devastation to their country in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that took place in March of this year:

In Tokyo and surrounding areas, signs of electricity conservation are visible everywhere. Rolling blackouts are in effect, train services have been scaled back, stores and businesses are using fewer lights, advertising signs and escalators have been switched off, and even some pachinko parlors have cut their hours of operation. On Twitter, a community of graphic designers has sprung up to create posters encouraging people to save power. Residents of eastern Japan are encouraged to print them out and post them where they live and work.

The summers are pretty dang hot in Florida and while we have yet to deal with catastrophic earthquakes, we deal with catastrophic hurricanes (tsunami's western cousin) on a pretty regular basis. We shouldn't just be making cool, arty posters about the environment when the times are good, we need to use this resource to encourage people especially now in these bad weather and economic times.

Speaking of which, the first set of posters I reported on as part of ReadyMade's "Poster Children" series from 2008 are in danger of being removed because ReadyMade has gone out of business, unfortunately. If you want to save these posters because they are so very artilicious, take the time now to download them and upload them to your flickr or whatever so we will not lose these important reimagining of WPA style poster art from the 40's.

As an aside, I linked to Pinktentacle once before in 2008, reporting on a tip sent by pal Stace about a bra that turns into a tote bag - very sustainable!

Everything I need to know about living sustainably I learned from the United States Postal Service

2011-07-01T23:01:00.000-04:00

Tonight is kind of meh for me so I'm just going to post a pic of the new "forever" stamp collection from USPS of Go Green stamps and call it a night. Remember when green stamps were something you exchanged for a toy cash register at the S&H store? At least my mom's green stamps did. You don't remember? Well, then. I am old.

According to the energy widget we're screwed

2011-06-25T22:18:00.000-04:00

I have this energy widget from Oilprice.com at the bottom of the page that tells you how much energy major countries consume during the year in billion BTUs. I check it once in awhile to get up my self-righteous ire at the fact that the US is the number one consumer of fossil fuels (then, of course, I remember that I contribute to that enormous number) - but not anymore! For the first time since I first put this widget on the blog, China has surpassed the US in energy consumption. I'm not sure what to feel about that - relieved that we're no longer number one? No, that's not it. It's something in the range between discomfort and mild horror.

Google "china surpasses us in energy consumption" and you get stuff like this:

"The BP publication shows that China accounted for 20.3 per cent of consumption, surpassing the US, with a 19 per cent share of the global total.
Consumption growth reached 5.6 per cent last year and demand for all forms of energy grew strongly, said BP, with energy consumption in both mature OECD economies and non-OECD countries growing at above-average rates as the economic recovery gathered pace."

This is a quote from the Financial Times reported on NPR - the basis comes from a report given at the beginning of the month by BP officials. Another story from the Times-Picayune makes the case that US isn't up to the task of meeting natural gas demands as had been originally predicted, and that's not all:

As analysts predict that months-long interruptions in Libyan oil supplies could drive up oil even further, Finley said production has not increased by a significant enough volume to offset the decrease in supplies. He said production needs to increase by about 1 million barrels a day to keep the oil market in balance over the second half of this year.

Saudi Arabia, it's on you, man, so step it up.

Swamp Head Brewery

2011-05-30T09:36:00.001-04:00

Gah, I can't help myself - I have to blog about Swamp Head Brewery before it gets into the Gainesville Sun. There's a scoop to be had!

There have been microbreweries in Gainesville; recently, Land Shark Lager (based in Jacksonville) became a state-wide available beer. But, this is the first locally-brewed beer to be distributed in Gainesville, and that's a big deal.

Haven't tried it, yet, but I know you can get it at Tasty Buddha at Millhopper (this links to the original one on 16th ave.), and I will be sure to look for it at Ward's.

Okay, before anyone corrects me on this, this is great because it is locally brewed, not because it is locally produced - the ingredients still come from a far away (probably Nebraska) state, so for it to be truly locally produced it would have the ingredients grown here, as well. I'm just sayin this for the record; I could almost not completely care about that fact, but it is something to consider when we consider locally produced foods.

Picture swiped from the Swamp Head Brewery website.

National Bike Month Media Ops in Gainesville, May 31st 2011 at noon

2011-05-26T20:40:00.001-04:00

Hey all you local citizens and/or bloggers of Hoggetowne! Mr. Batey, coordinator of the Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Board (BPAP) for the City of Gainesville, sent me a comment on the original post about National Bike Month, so I thought I'd break out of my hermitage to spread the link love:

The City of Gainesville Bicycle/Pedestrian Program announces a media conference to closeout National Bike Month for Gainesville, Florida on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at noon. The event will be held in front of the Alachua County Library Headquarters downtown location.

Also featured will be a ribbon cutting for the Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Board (BPAB) “Bicycle Repair Station” pilot project structure and the results of a bicycle vs. car “Commuter Challenge” race involving Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe as the cyclist and University of Florida Police Officer James Thomas, former bicycle officer, cyclist and recent Alachua County Commission Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Board (BPAB) appointee. Local and state groups will be on hand to provide bicycle related information and updates.

Link to event flyer:
Web Page link
Or visit directly: www.cityofgainesville.org + I WANT TO + Learn About + Bicycle/Pedestrian Program

For more information on "Bike Month" and bicycling information, please visit: www.bikeleague.org, or contact Dekova Batey, Bicycle/Pedestrian Program Coordinator, at 352-393-8493 / bikeped@cityofgainesville.org

Two Week Hiatus From Blogging and Other Internets

2011-05-24T13:36:00.000-04:00

In order to complete my thesis for the final time (this is my second go-around) I am taking the advice of my ADD coach (yes, I have one of those, now, to help me through this wall I've seemingly hit at 40+ years of age) and taking myself off the information autobahn for two weeks.

Eschewing all online activities for two weeks is going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done (and that includes writing a thesis) and of course that means no blogging instead of thesis writing; I've done this in the past with the rationalization that at least I'm writing, even though what I'm doing is feeding my ADD scattered-ness.

Will be back in two weeks or so and am already planning a new feature, "Because You Googled It," where I look at the search terms folks use and research them - it's like having a living, breathing Google to answer your environmental questions!

Speaking of which, please check out the many fabulous links on this blog to access lots of great information about environmental issues and other stuff - What We Need Is Here: Our Local Life is my favorite local blog on the Hoggetowne Links, but they are all wonderful. Another great resource is Ask Umbra on Grist (Grist is also pretty great all-around, btw). At the top of the front page there is a feed to DK GreenRoots posts on Daily Kos - all well-worth your time and effort for in-depth commentary on environmental issues.

Well, that's it. Thanks for your patience and continued readership and look forward to blogging at AE again in about two weeks!

Got this hermity pic from Puerto Vallarta Journal

Bike/Bus Combo in Gainesville, Part 2

2011-05-18T17:26:00.000-04:00

Hello again, I just got back from my bus trip and it was very successful. I really enjoyed riding my bike downtown and catching only one bus to my appointment, so I think that is going to be my technique from now on. I thought about taking my bike on the bus, as I mentioned earlier, but am glad I didn't because there are only two spots for bikes and they were mighty crowded on the way back. I also wanted to show you what the rack looks like but felt uncomfortable taking pictures of buses...so I swiped this from the RTS website instead!

Bicycle Procedure

You can take your bicycle with you anywhere RTS goes! Most RTS buses have bike racks on the front that hold up to two bicycles. If you wish to use the bike rack, signal the driver that you are going to the front of the bus. You will be responsible for loading and unloading your bicycle.
1. Pull up on the release and lower rack.

2. Place bike wheels into the slots labeled "front" and "rear." Pull out bike support and lift it over the front wheel. The spring in the arm will keep your bike secure while the bus is moving.

3. To unload, release support arm and lift bike from the rack. Return rack to the upright position.

I ended up somehow getting an earlier bus downtown so I was able to stop at Fresh Market for some by-the-pound salad before hopping back on the next bus and getting to my destination. This bus, because it carries a lot of students, is probably one of the more frequent buses on the whole schedule so it was definitely nice; I missed my bus coming back but only waited 30 minutes for the next on, versus the hour, hour and a half with other buses on my route.

On the way home I stopped at Publix and got a couple of things (bogo Ben and Jerry's for one thing) and now I'm home.

Bike/Bus Combo in Gainesville

2011-05-18T09:58:00.000-04:00

Pick up this bike? hahaha...

So, I've been taking the bus more often - our family has one car and we've done pretty well for over 5 years this way, but it's getting a little tricky when I have appointments that take me outside the 2-mile Rule zone. We've been doing a combination of things:

I bike, the Old Man drives
I drive and drop everyone off and then pick up
I ride the bus, the Old Man drives

Yes, the onus of finding alternative transpo falls on my shoulders but that's fine; I get the feeling the Old Man is not comfortable biking near traffic in an urban setting; besides it's better for me to not be tied to leaving the house at a certain time to pick everyone up.

Today, I'm trying something different. Gainesville Regional Transit System (RTS) is our public transportation system, and their website is pretty spiffy - it has a route finder that interfaces (does anyone actually use that word anymore?) with Google Maps, so you can get a pre-planned route with schedule and transit times. I won't diss the route finder even though I've never actually found an agreeable route this way.

For instance, I need to go to the NW part of town so I input my address and the termination address and it gave me this cocamamy route that requires me to go in a completely different direction for an hour and then I have to walk for 22 minutes. The walking is fine, I love to walk and have the gait of a metropolitan dweller, but the section of road they're talking about can be walked in 22 minutes if you are an Olympic athlete. Srsly. So I said "forget that noise," and I'm doing something a little bit different today; I'm riding my bike to the main downtown depot, locking it up and then taking the one bus I need that will drop me practically in front of my destination. Because our buses are equipped with bike racks I could alternatively take my bike with me, but this thing is no lightweight, so meh.

I'll try to get a pic of the bus bike racks to show you what I mean.

Mother Earth Mags for Mother's Day

2011-05-10T13:32:00.003-04:00

The Old Man and DJ got me three Mother Earth News magazines for Mother's Day, which is really nice. So far, however, DJ seems to be the only one reading them, but at least one of us will be well-read on organic gardening. The one he was looking at last night was MEN Guide to Growing Your Own Food, and every so often he'd chime in with, "oh, look, it says that you should have a mini pond in your garden area to encourage frogs and lizards..." - he's been bugging us for a garden pond since forever. Then, he showed me this hilarious looking gadget called Nite Guard, saying it would scare the crap out of coyotes and wolves (DJ was polite enough to not actually say the word "crap" but trace his finger over it while reading the advertisement to me). He thought it would be good for scaring racoons and possums, since we don't have wolves and coyotes in our neighborhood, and he's convinced the racoons are to blame for messing with our green pepper plants (why do racoons always get blamed immediately for this stuff? Is it the mask?). So, our conversations of late have been mostly about gardening and that's perfectly fine with me.

KFC killing forests in North Carolina

2011-05-10T10:23:00.001-04:00

Gah, I want this on a t-shirt.

Just finished reading Jess Zimmerman's "Even an adorable child can't make KFC eco-friendly" on Grist, and watched the accompanying video, first posted at Change.org ("Fourth Grader Takes on Fast Food to save Forests" by Margaret Swink). The upshot of it is that Cole and his friends and family drove all the way from North Carolina to Kentucky to give them 6k in letters pleading with the fried chicken magnate to stop using wetland forests along North Carolina's coastline for their snack wrap wrappers, just to be given a couple of 5-dollar KFC gift certificates and a pat on the head (ostensibly they were given the last, since they wouldn't let the folks from Dogwood Alliance come in with their cameras as they filmed the trip for a short documentary). I loved Zimmerman's response from the Grist article when talking about the vouchers which are "probably printed on paper made from North Carolina trees. Thanks, Colonel, you dick." HAHA, the colonel is a dick! But really, the colonel has been dead for a long time (since the 80's; just ask the Old Man, who dormed with a scion of the KFC dynasty).

I'm disposable!

Here's a photo I took at the KFC drivethru when I went with the fams to get some chicken one day in January of this year. They're apparently trying to do some environmental things, like creating reusable plastic containers for their side dishes. We had two of them and immediately lost everything except one of the lids. But, you can also frame this as why the hell are they using plastic that a lot of people will probably just throw away rather than take the trouble to reuse?

Picture of my bike and me in a helmet

2011-05-09T10:18:00.002-04:00

So I was posting on Friday about Angry Black Lady's helpful reminder to "put your damn helmet on" and I made the promise to wear one all the time from now on, not only on her blog but right here at the AE. So here's a picture of what my bike looks like right now - it used to be a fairly nice looking Gary Fisher until I stuck a bunch of stickers on it and added the most voluminous panniers I could find for 5-dollars at a garage sale. But I get about 2 full Publix bags of groceries on my bike with them so for short trips to the market it's a great ride.

I asked the Old Man yesterday to take a picture of me with my helmet on, to prove that I am wearing my helmet and to demonstrate just how dorky it looks. I was on my way to the HQ library to pick up an AR (Accelerated Reader) book for DJ - he's reading constantly on his own, now, just not the stuff he should be reading for school. Oh well.

Publix Bag gift package

2011-05-09T08:04:00.000-04:00

I was at Publix the other day after coming back from campus and just happened to see this neat thing Publix is doing right now, on the first endcap I saw: it was a package that contained a refridge magnet in the shape of a Publix bag, a knob hanger to remind you to Bring Your Bags (I previously reported on that campaign here) and a coupon good for one free Publix bag. All of this was for 99-cents, which is the current cost of a Publix reusable bag, so it is a pretty sweet deal. I think they are excellent as gifts, and got one for my mom-in-law for mother's day and one for a friend and neighbor on the street who was having an open house this past weekend. I of course gifted my own self with one and here are a couple of shots I took at the time.

Amsterdam bike consciousness in San Francisco

2011-05-07T14:39:00.001-04:00

Huh? What's Hulk Hogan doing in SF?

If you don't follow citisven's blog posts on DailyKos, you should, especially if you are environmentally-minded. He is one of the great bloggers behind DK GreenRoots, an effort by the kossack community to promote environmental posts on DailyKos. This post talks about a really groovy-sounding event he attended in SF that included a bike tour with some Dutch folks on Queen's Day. Please look at the post because there are a bunch of really great photos (one of which I swiped for this post).

Hope the weather is nice in your part of the world to go on a bike ride :)

Accidentally Environmental Experiment: Clean Scrubbies w/o Radiation

2011-05-07T10:34:00.001-04:00

Pot filled 1/4 to 1/3 full

Okay, so I posted the other day about why I miss my microwave: It was very handy for killing bacteria on scrubbies if you throw them in for a minute. Now we have smelly scrubbies. Then TheGoodLuckDuck from The Good Luck Duck blog commented and wondered if you could boil the scrubbies to do the same thing. So, this morning, I decided to try it. The first couple of pictures shows one of the Revere copper pots I inherited from my mom - yes, I am using our own cookware for this experiment, just don't tell the Old Man. C'mon! It's stainless steel, nothing can destroy these things.

I don't think this photo truly captures the nasty of these

Anyway, so you in the first two pictures you can see parts of my breakfast in the corner (bagel with salmon spread and coffee) and for this experiment I chose two old scrubbies that we actually use for cleaning surfaces because they've gotten so ratty. I don't think the lighting and the camera flash allows the viewer to truly appreciate the nastiness of these scrubbies, or the nastiness of the water after they were done boiling.

When the pot of water (as you can see in the top picture I filled the pot about a 1/4 to 1/3 with water) got to a roiling boil I put the scrubbies in and let them boil at full-tilt, high heat for 5 minutes. I chose five minutes for the amount of time to thoroughly sanitize them because that is, I believe, the rule of thumb for sanitizing contaminated water.

Roiling boilin pot of water

After the five minutes were up I turned off the heat and fished out the scrubbies with a fork (okay, give me a break, already! Again, it's stainless steel and it does clean well with soap and [clean] water), and set them on the counter to cool; this is reminiscent of when I sterilized them in the microwave because they would come out super hot.

The water was super disgusting after it had stopped foaming; again, I don't think the picture I took in the kitchen does justice to just how disgusting this water was. So, I took the pot out on the back porch to get another picture in natural light without the flash; eh, still pretty disgusting looking but not as obviously gross as IRL.

Five minutes is supposed rule of thumb for sterilization

As I write this the scrubbies have cooled and I did the sniff test after wringing them out under fresh running water for a second. They still smell a little sharp, so I made the Old Man smell them, as well. I said, "Smell these," so he dutifully smelled each of them. Then I asked, "What do you think?" and he replied, "Well, I think they're old and nasty and should be thrown away." "But," I replied, "I just boiled them!" "Oh," said the Old Man, "Well then, they're fine." Such a good man.

Lots of soap left in the old scrubbies, huh?

So, I'm sure they're pretty clean - maybe boiling them for 10 minutes may have made more of a difference? As JerkFace MikeJ who trolled me yesterday from Balloon Juice (and remind me to not post my blog address on BJ in the future during their Reader Blogs feature) observed, microwaves are more efficient because they use less energy and I have to agree (which I do, grudgingly, because of aforementioned jerkishness) but what's a better end for your appliances - having some fellow in a pick-up throw it in the back before trash day to recycle it for its metal, or take to the toxic waste center where its radioactive element will be (ostensibly) disposed of properly? So these are the choices you make when you are relatively conscious of these things and aren't just looking at the bottom line economically.

Nasty water, Take 1

Result: I feel a little bit better using these scrubbies for dishes after boiling them, but not as certain of bacterial death as I was with nuking them in the microwave.

Nasty water in natural light still not as nasty IRL

A reminder from Angry Black Lady: Put your damn helmet on.

2011-05-06T15:57:00.000-04:00

I like to read ABL's blog and there must be some zeitgeist in the air with all the talk about National Bike Month because she just posted about helmet safety:

If my car and your bike meet — even if it’s your fault, even if it’s no one’s fault — I will never sleep again. I will see your blood, your broken face, your weeping children, your shattered parents every day and every night for the rest of my life. Because I was behind the wheel, because my car happened to get all messed up in your search for some kind of freedom in which the needs of no one else (least of all your parents or children) were a factor.

She raises a good if brutal point: people who do not wear helmets are complicit in their own demise. I used to be one of those people. But not anymore! I promised on her blog that I would wear a helmet from now on:

yep, yep, I hear you. And I am one of those helmetless riders of which you speak. It’s pretty dumb and I have actually wiped out all on my own without any help and gotten a concussion once. I would like to take this opportunity to promise right here and now that I will wear my helmet from now on.

It's true! I was coming home late after getting off from work and my foot missed the pedal and before I knew it I was flat on my back under my bicycle and my head had bounced at least once off the pavement. That whole night trying to sleep was like being washed around by ocean tides everytime I rolled over - my brains were scrambled and I am lucky that I woke up the next day. I have another horror story but I'll save that for another rant.

So, I promised on ABL's blog and I am promising on my own: from here on out I will wear my helmet when riding. 'nuf said.

Crap! Everyone knows about Bike Month but me

2011-05-06T15:30:00.000-04:00

As I reported earlier, I was blindsided with the news that May is National Bike Month, which I found out by just happening to see an ad for it on the back of a Winn-Dixie receipt that I was about to throw away. So, of course I was furious at everyone for not telling me that it was National Bike Month even though I should have known this being both a Gainesville hippie and a devout commuter cyclist. So I started roaming around the local internets to see who I could blame for this; The University of Florida Office of Sustainability had a brief mention in their Events Page, but when you click "Read More" it goes to a Google Calendar marker page - so, put this on your Google Calendars, everyone! Helpful but not very prominent! Then, the blog for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board (BPAB), Run Bike Walk (dot) com, had absolutely nothing about this (and someone needs to take this blog over, man, because it's starting to look like it was abandoned, or something). I should note, however, that the main city page for BPAB did have information and links about Bike Month. Then I went to the League of American Bicyclists who, thankfully, have a whole page devoted to Bike Month. Almost every site I went to locally links to the League's site; they have been celebrating this since 1956! Finally, I went to the Gainesville Sun website but they had really nothing about Bike Month, except a brief mention on Ron Cunningham's Under the Sun blog; I had forgotten that he is a big advocate of commuter cycling so I am adding his blog on AE's "Hogtown Links." I suspect the Sun will have their annual piece about the Commuter Challenge the City of Gainesville does each year. Wait, I'm not sure if this is what it's called. I sent the main person at BPAB an email for more info so I'll update if I hear back.

Got the poster for National Bike Month from the Clif Bar Flickr feed

I still miss my microwave

2011-05-06T13:51:00.001-04:00

I just got through saying that I only miss my microwave oven for killing germs on scrubbies, and here I am, suddenly and ferociously hungry, making a mess of oven-baked root crop in the toaster oven and it is taking soooo long. I'm hungry! Planning, see?

Edit 7 May to include link to prior post.

May is National Bike Month, Did You Know?

2011-05-06T13:33:00.000-04:00

Well, don't feel bad because I did not know this, either. Oh, you did know? Don't be a showoff.

You know how I found out? On the back of a Winn-Dixie receipt. How is this the only way word about National Bike Month is being advertised? I do not know. And where is UF's Office of Sustainability on this? I'm going to do some more searching around and get back on this. Geez, and the month is already half-over...

Build It, Grow it, and Assemble It in America

2011-05-06T11:00:00.003-04:00

This is the title of a post I did on Daily Kos at the end of December, about former Congressman John Boccieri's battle cry to Americans in the wake of the revelations at that time about the Chamber of Commerce's complicity in shipping American jobs overseas. The link to his Congressional webpage no longer works, but here's the video I posted along with the piece from the former Countdown with Keith Olbermann show:

While I've been ranting lately about American-made clothing we're slowly losing the manufacturing resources to buy American. The comments on the DK post are especially poignant because others really, really jump on this when the idea of buying American-made clothing and products comes up in conversation.

There is only one thing I miss about not having a microwave

2011-05-06T09:00:00.001-04:00

We got rid of our microwave over 6 months ago - it was an old Goldstar that we had gotten when we were young and still living in sin, from Pic-n-Save when they were still in business. So, I think it was about...18 years old when the plastic door finally disintegrated and we hauled it to the toxic roundup site. In its place I decided to get a cheap toaster oven from Big Lots. It takes a little planning and if you're suddenly really, really hungry and want warm food, it's not great for that; I also have to forgo warmed-up coffee if I let my cup sit for too long.

But the thing I really miss about not having a microwave is not being able to throw scrubbies in for a minute to kill off smelly bacteria; our scrubbies are smelly, now.

Not having a microwave has had a positive effect, however, on our eating habits - we don't buy as much convenience food that has to be microwaved from the freezer.

Natural-dye Easter Eggs

2011-05-05T15:45:00.000-04:00

Natural dye Easter eggs

Something Charlotte brought with her to the farmhouse on Saturday and I thought was totally cool: she and a friend made Easter eggs using natural dyes. The blue one was using red cabbage leaves, the dark purple one was using wine, and the red one was using yellow onion skins. Here's a link to an article on how to do your own!

A post about Farm and Forest Festival 2011

2011-05-05T15:00:00.004-04:00

Blurry spinner and blurry, cute, pioneer girls

Finally getting around to updating on the Farm and Forest Festival at Morningside. Here are some of the photos - auto flash is a pain in the butt because if it doesn't go off you get the beautiful natural lighting the cabin provides but everything is so dang blurry. Anyway, Gus was supposed to be whitewashing a fence for the duration (I think they were charging kids a nickle to paint the fence, get it?) but then he just starting running around and fighting other kids with sticks so I think the people running the booth were probably ready for him to skedaddle as we say in the 1870s. The Old Man, bless his heart, got stuck at the corn booth, where they were boiling corn in the wood stove vat they usually use for the Cane Boil in November. He said afterwards, "if they had just let me chop some wood, it would have been great..." always wanting to keep working on his strength building, you know. He stuck it out and the corn was very, very popular. The secret? You boil the corn in the husk and it comes out super, super sweet!

Merald at the schoolhouse

Charlotte and Junior Naturalists taking a break

Cute Hello Kitty girl using butter paddles

Biscuits! Butter churn! Potatoes!

I was on kitchen duty, mostly washing dishes, but got to eat a lot of the great biscuits they make at the farm, and got to churn butter in an actual churn - some of the little girls who wandered in with their folks got to help churn it so that was fun and then one little girl was brave enough to use the butter paddles to smoosh out the excess buttermilk before putting it in the crock (see the picture).

Maidenform Bras

2011-05-05T13:22:00.003-04:00

Of the things that I feel most powerless about, it's the thought that never, ever, in my life will I consider making my own bras. The technology just seems too unfathomable and I don't really know why. Anyway, so I buy bras as infrequently as humanly possible. I reported a couple of months ago about buying US-made clothing from All American Clothing Co. and how they are comparable to mail order standards like Lands End, and I said at that time my next purchase in this vein would be bras from Justice Clothing. However, they have been in a transition phase for a few months so I sent them an email asking what their retail status is. I'll update when I find out more.

Lately, I've been buying bras online from Maidenform and I was reading their history, I realize that Maidenform has been around for a long time and I guess they revolutionized the modern undergarment industry (although I don't know that for sure). But, the thing that sticks in my craw is that they don't make any of their bras or undergarments domestically, anymore. Here's an article by Will Stape that talks about Maidenform closing up it's Bayonne, NJ offices and moving to Woodbridge, NJ in 2007. It doesn't talk about when the factory production moved overseas, but it does have a little bit of history about the I dreamed... campaign (see the image for this post). As I write this I can see I'm going to have to do some more research that will take longer than I want to wait to post this - maybe an update at some point?

Anyway, before I get to my philosophical viewpoint on all of this mess, I want to say that I like Maidenform bras (in fact, just made another online purchase). I figured out with a measuring tape basically where I am size-wise (and I am ample, it must be stated) and got a couple of different styles and ended up only having to send one back out of the three initial purchases. They were prompt with the refund and it cost very little to return it by USPS. If it was possible to get them to make a line of bras just in the US I would be a happy, happy customer of Maidenform bras. Right now, I am a grudgingly-pleased shopper of Maidenform bras.

The bigger issue for me, however, is framing US-made clothing as being not only domestically profitable for workers by giving them good jobs in manufacturing, but by elevating the conversation to economics and transportation for the company's bottom line; is it more feasible to charge more for domestically made bras when the profits made can factor in less transportation costs, for instance, from third world countries or emerging first world economies (like China)? This is where environmentalists and consumers concerned about maintaining jobs in the US should focus in shifting the paradigm.

Got this weird-ass advertisement from the 50's from Found in Mom's Basement.

More updates soon

2011-05-01T13:54:00.000-04:00

Almost finished with grading and then I'll update on the Farm and Forest Festival where our family volunteered yesterday. The usually tranquil 1870's farmstead takes on a carnival atmosphere and there are lots of activities for the kids and stuff to see and buy - and bisquits, lots and lots of bisquits...

Happy Earth Day!

2011-04-22T13:51:00.000-04:00

Clip from Democracy NOW! from Bill McKibben's appearance at the Power Shift 2011 Conference last week in Washington, D.C. Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org; 350 is the parts per million upper limit of CO2 we need to maintain for a sustainable planet.

Here is a link to the Democracy NOW! clip.

Grist: 10 Radical Environmental Posters

2011-04-09T15:11:00.005-04:00

I'm not sure how "radical" the ideas are but they sure are pretty. I blogged a while back about a similar effort posted at ReadyMade by designers to think about posters as WPA-type propaganda efforts (since at the time of printing we were in the midst of a chronic economic meltdown). This series, hosted by Grist.com has more to do with the environment than the economy, but the heart of thinking about alternatives to our current path is core to these efforts. Pictured are my two favorites: "Let's Ride" by Jason Hardy (#7), and "Detroit as Refrain" by Paul Elliman.

The short author comments on their designs are interesting, but I'm going to call BS on Hardy's claim that he chose the green background because green is eco and green means "go" - he chose the damn color because it's the color of a celeste Bianchi. ADMIT IT, JASON!

I'm also really fond of the last one, "Detroit as Refrain" by Paul Elliman because it takes its cues from an earlier appropriation aesthetic than the other posters, and uses a film commissioned and then suppressed by Chrysler for its theme; this allows the image to be free once again and to expose the hypocrisy of Detroit capitalist and racial politics that has plagued that city for too, too long. Elliman also notes that it "represents the start of a new age in which the Detroit National Park becomes the first city under the aegis of the National Park Service (U.S. Department of the Interior), circa 2025." That's pretty dang cool.

Well, enjoy. Now back to work.

Update on Jeans and Thesis

2011-04-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

My thesis director rues the day she agreed to chair my committee. Why? Because I'm slacking on finishing up my thesis and choosing to blog instead.

Anyway, so the All American Jeans. I posted recently that I made the decision between a pair of jeans from All American Clothing Co. and Pointer Brand (NOTE: do not have your speakers turned up if you click on the pointer link, they have the most annoying dog bark that greets you on the home page), both made in the US. I thought I would do a side-by-side of MOST AMERICAN MADE characteristics each pair possesses, but really it came down to fit. The Pointer pair, while I liked the look of the straight-leg it ran a little too small in the waist and too long in the leg for the size I usually wear and I was afraid that if I washed them they would be impossible to zip up. While I am not fond of a boot-cut leg, the All American Jeans had a good cut and fit well in the waist - they were just a tiny bit long in the leg but I can live with that.

I reported around the holidays about my first buy from All American, when I bought a pair of work pants for the Old Man. It is his favorite pair, and he loves the Wigwam work socks (they are pretty dang cushy), so I'm going to get him another pair of work pants in the khaki color (I still can't get over the snazzy, almost irrelevant, welt pocket in the leg for a cell phone). He works as a public relations sprite for an ag college so the pants are just dressy enough for his day to day. They are comparable to Land's End and if they're American Made I'm supporting US manufacturing.

So, I've got my new pair of jeans for the wardrobe (now it's getting too hot to wear them so they'll sit in the closet until next fall), and the old jeans will be put to use this summer in the construction of Smart Gloves.

Got the super-duper patriotic picture from Dem Chiclet Boyz (thanks, brah).

And the winner is...All American Clothing Company

2011-03-28T07:43:00.000-04:00

I'll have to do another post about how I chose the brand of MOST AMERICAN jeans for my wardrobe in another post, but it mostly came down to fit. Pointer Brands ended up being a little small but overall I like the styling better and they were very, very accommodating when I called about an exchange after the 30 days limit. I'm getting a jeans jacket instead that the Old Man and I can share and sew patches on it and stuff.

Wearing the jeans to campus today so thought I'd mention my decision and promise to follow up!

Organic Farming: The New Big Ag

2011-03-27T08:38:00.000-04:00

That title is a little misleading -- I mean, there are a couple of projects right now that are pushing the idea, reasonably and intuitively, that organic gardening is actually better for the environment and more productive crop-wise than industrial farming. The first example comes from a Grist article by Tom Philpott (a solid journalist who echoes a lot of the issues I like to think about) reporting on new findings from the test plots at Rodale Institute. Here is a pullout from the article:

As the globe warms up, increased droughts are likely to reduce global crop yields. The ag-biotech industry is scrambling to come out with "drought-resistant" GMO crops. But organic ag might already have that covered: "In 4 out of 5 years of moderate drought, the organic systems had significantly higher corn yields (31 percent higher) than the conventional system."

This just makes sense and it's something you learn in environmentalism 101: Plants that aren't protected by chemical pesticides/herbicides are more resistant to bugs, because they are naturally resistant!. They're not going to be completely bullet-proof, but this just comes down our personal ick-factor when it comes to finding bugs in our fruit and vegetables.

Lonely, bruised apple is lonely.

For instance, it's really gross when you find worms when you husk farm-fresh corn, but as my mom-in-law says, "that probably means they didn't use pesticide." So, that's a plus, right?! The hard part is finding the will to get out a big ol' knife and cut those wormy parts of the corn off, and then have the selective amnesia to forget the worms were on that corn after you've cooked and served it to the fams.

Another way of thinking helps out here - one of my first kitchen jobs in a restaurant was a place where the line cooks worked so fast that sometimes a burger went flying to the floor. Two things applied to this situation:

5-second rule - I need say no more.
"It'll cook out" - meaning, if you slap it back on the grill the heat will kill any bacteria that got past the 5-second rule (see above).

Does that make you never want to eat in a restaurant again? Of course not! So, why is cutting off the wormy parts of fresh corn any different? Like I said, it goes to our ick-factor for things we are not familiar with, like produce that does not come cradled in a styrofoam platter and wrapped in plastic.

Anyway, the other thing I wanted to post was on BBC International about Environmental Agriculture in...South America I want to say, but I cannot find a reference to the story anywhere. Folks are playing with old methods of sustainable farming and rediscovering what should be intuitively true to us: organic, non-chemical farming is the just as, if not more, productive than the methods we've come up with in the last 100 years.

Illustration from my personal collection (Good Earth Almanac, by Mark Gregory); I'll spend another post ranting about how formative this book was to my childhood.

Smart Glove (Video)

2011-03-11T10:39:00.000-05:00

Conductive thread on thumb and index fingers

Okay, here is the smart glove, my new work gloves. Got the idea from a book called Switch Craft. You have to use metallic conductive thread which I found on Sparkfun Electronics for 19.95 + shipping. I even made a video to go along with this post, my first, so you can see how it works. Then I planted my two new banana babies that I got in the mail yesterday. They're Ice Cream banana trees, and I'll be planting these two by the air conditioner (my friend Bren told me a long time ago that planting bananas over your air conditioner is a classic Florida way to keep your air conditioner shaded in the summer) - it apparently saves electricity or keeps the air conditioner unit from frying, something like that.

Actually, it's kind of chilly today so I need gloves! Perfect timing. This is probably going to be my big Christmas gift this year since I've got a ton of thread, now. The next pair will probably be some work gloves I make out of my old jeans, the ones that ripped on me 10 minutes before class the other day. But that'll have to wait a bit. My thesis? Oh yeah, I got to finish that today...

Ice Cream banana trees

10-Dollar Compost Bin x2

2011-03-08T08:09:00.000-05:00

So, I reported on my first compost bin a while back (most pertinent posts are here and here) - it cost about 10-bucks at the Walmart because it was a cheap trash can with a locking lid that I drilled a bazillion holes in, cut off the bottom, and stuck it about 6-inches in the ground. Last year we had to move it to make way for a second raised-bed garden plot, and the Old Man was able to find a new place for the compost bin. So, after a respite of about 6-months, I've started composting again.

Now, it's become apparent that you need at least TWO of these 10-dollar compost bins in order to be successful in your composting. Also, some sort of implement to churn the compost in situ would help. But, anyway, so I need another bin. That's my next project - I'm not able to do anything right now but hopefully by this weekend I can get started on a new one.

8th Avenue Bike & Coffee House and Homemade Wallets

2011-02-20T12:39:00.000-05:00

Coffee Bag Wallet Selection

It's getting to the point where I won't have too much quality time with my son for a month or so as I finish my thesis work, so when he asked to go on a bikeride with me this morning I eagerly accepted the invitation. We ended up taking a route around NE park and then on to the new bike trail that runs from 16th avenue to 10th avenue; then we followed an unofficial bike path behind Bread of the Mighty Foodbank that took us to 8th Avenue, and then to the 8th Avenue Bike & Coffee House which is a really neat shop; lots of bike parking, outside/inside seating, cool bikes to look at (or get your own cool bike fixed) and a full-service coffee and baked goods selection with fair trade coffees. Oh, and they also have free Wi-Fi, so what more could you ask for?

Artisan Mary and DJ

While we were getting our order at the counter, DJ noticed a selection of shiny, cool-looking wallets for sale. There was a big selection, and he picked one that had a blue toile-like material covering the shiny metal outside. Inside the wallet it had a place for credit cards, a coin pouch, and a good-sized bill compartment. It was 15-dollars and I quietly went "yikes" while I paid for it, but then said something to the counter person about it "supporting local artisans," and she said, "the artist is right over there," and pointed to a couple sitting by the window facing 8th Avenue. That's Gainesville - you can buy locally-made goods and meet the artist at the same time!

DJ and I ended up having a nice conversation with Mary, the designer/maker of the wallets, which are produced from various repurposed food and coffee bags and other recycled materials. The wallet DJ had had been covered with material from a former Dance Alive costume which made it extra special! Mary said the wallets were very labor-intensive which is why she only makes about 2 or 3 a week, but they were all really cool and really unique. She said that she sold four the day before Valentine's Day, so they obviously make great gifts and I'm already scheming on who I'm going to give them to. She even said she would set up a gift certificate system with the bike shop so I could just buy the gift certificates and let folks come to the shop and pick out their own.

After DJ started getting restless (mostly because Mary and I started chatting about sewing and construction) we finished up and headed back home. I was abandoned midway down our street so DJ could help his buddy haul some paving stones down to where they're building their fort (his buddy's grandmothers home site down the street). At least we got to spend a little time together on a beautiful, spring-like Gainesville morning.

All American Clothing: Jeans

2011-02-17T09:49:00.000-05:00

Swear to all that is holy that I will stop posting after this and get to work. Last night my jeans arrived from All American Clothing. I posted a piece in December about All American Clothing Co. vs. Lands End and decided that AAC was comparable in price, and they guarantee that all of the clothing is made in the USA.

So, prior to my latest purchase from AAC, I had one pair of jeans that I bought at WalMart 10 years ago - I wear these every winter without fail and realize you have to have at least one pair of jeans in your wardrobe, no matter what. Anyway, so I was wearing my jeans one morning when I discovered that they had a huge rip in the seat, to the point where you could definitely tell what color underwear I was wearing that day. This is 10 minutes before I have to teach class, so I wrap my sweater around my waist and hope none of my students notice. This was not the case, and there was a bit of sniggering that day whenever I wrote on the board (they're really nice kids so I can't fault them for something that I found comical, as well).

I decided I needed a new pair of jeans and decided to give AAC a try. They fit really well and will probably shrink a little bit when I wash them so they'll be perfect length-wise. The other thing I thought was kind of cool was the Traceability tag they put on their jeans. It has a number that you can enter on their website, and it will show you the area where the cotton is grown, where the denim is woven, where it is constructed, and where it is finished. All in the US, which I think is pretty neat. The only thing I don't like about the jeans is that they're boot-cut, which gives them a bit of a flair at the bottom; I'm used to straight-leg and think it looks better.

At the same time, I also bought a pair of jeans from Pointer Brand, which is based in Tennessee. This pair is straight-leg so I'm waiting for my order to arrive so I can compare the two brands. I only need one pair of jeans, so I'm going to see which I keep. Of course, I'll also publicly fret about my choice on this blog in terms of which is the MOST AMERICAN of the two pairs.

Okay, back to work!

Thesis woes and Citizens Co-op

2011-02-17T09:11:00.000-05:00

Having your own environmental blog means getting to complain about stuff that has nothing to do with the environment, like thesis-writing. I have to meet with my director today, where she will tell me how disorganized and hard-to-follow my thesis is, and ask why I don't actually have a thesis to tie this blighted subject together. And I will reply, "uh..." because my life is disorganized and hard-to-follow. One sad part to all of this is that I'm writing the thesis because I would like to eventually get it published, but the shape it is in now makes it seem like a fool's errand. The other sad part to this is that I will most likely be continuing my education with a masters in Library Science if or as soon as I graduate with my masters in English (the "if" part is still looming at this point).

Okay, I've gotten that mostly out of my system. The other thing I want to talk about is Citizen's Co-op, this grocery co-op that has been trying to get off the ground for, what, three years now? I go through periods of thinking it will never open, not that I'm actually doing anything to make this happen. I've reported on Citizen's Co-op in the past here and here and, yes, I still want them to get bulk castile, laundry, and dish soap so I can use my own containers.

The reason why I'm thinking about Citizen's Co-op is that I answered a survey they sent out this morning regarding what foods and products we'd like to see at the co-op. I realized that I'm not the picky about food or other groceries (except the aforementioned bulk items). I'd like to get mostly local produce, but I don't seem to mind buying whatever at Publix. Also, the Citizen's Co-op is downtown and Publix and Ward's Supermarket are much closer. I'm beginning to wonder if the co-op might not be somewhat redundant. I actually mapped out the bike route I would have to take and it is just a hair outside of the Two-Mile Rule (the link goes to a piece I did in 2007 talking about the Two-Mile Rule of cycling in your community). But, then again, I used Google Maps for directions and they aren't the most accurate.

This brings up another topic that I've been wanting to write about but haven't organized my thoughts on, yet. It's tied into the whole concept of Accidental Environmentalism (and I cannot believe my entry into the Urban Dictionary got three thumbs down!). It's the idea of doing something environmental only because it is also the least expensive; examples such as driving a Prius not because you want to conserve natural resources and make less of a carbon footprint but because it costs less money overall (I actually don't know how true that is), or buying your clothes second-hand not because it reduces the amount of new clothing that goes into the use stream and also takes the edge off buying from companies with suspect worker policies, but because it's cheaper (my mom is a prime example of that philosophy; I don't think she ever bought anything that wasn't from a Salvation Army or flea market).

I'm thinking about this in relation to using the Citizen's Co-op versus going Publix or Ward's because it's one of those choices that you make based on things like time, money, and circumstances. For me, it's going to take a lot of extra effort to lug myself to the Citizen's Co-op versus going elsewhere, and even my car and here's why: The Citizen's Co-op is kind of out of the way from other places I visit, like the CVS pharmacy and when I'm in my car I usually group two or more errands together to make the trip less of an impact.

Sometimes you have to make choices based on the environment even if you have a choice to do otherwise, and this is where dedication comes in. I wonder how dedicated I will be when the co-op does actually open for business.