Dang it!

My idea for a reusable utensil pack was totally snaked:

More about clotheslines

In my rush to talk about the book I’m reading for class I totally forgot to tell the story about starting to use a clothesline for our laundry. The point I was going to make by bringing up the book was that it said that electric clothes driers use up a lot of energy which contributes to all the pollution that goes into making said energy.

Reading The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices finally gave me the kick in the butt to do something so yesterday, before picking up DJ from school, I strung up a clothesline between two pine trees in the backyard. After washing the clothes I decided to do something that my mom-in-law does with her clothes, which is putting them in the dryer for 10 minutes to get the wrinkles out from washing. I figured that would be a good way to compromise so I wouldn’t have to use an iron (egads). While the clothes were in the dryer the storm clouds rolled in for an impromptu afternoon shower our part of the country is so famous for, and after it was over I hung up the clothes. Some of the smaller items went on a fold-able drying rack.

Heat and humidity combined, along with more of these spontaneous showers made the drying time a lot longer and was finally able to pull them off the line the next day. The verdict is that it was an overall success, however. The only casualty was one of my button downs – it fell off and got kind of dirty so I ended having to wash that one over again.

I just hung up the second round. It really doesn’t take that long to do this and if I do it every day we can avoid the Sunday afternoon frenzy of clothes washing that occurs every week. If I can keep it up maybe we’ll end up installing another umbrella clothesline.

Clothesline in the rainy-time

So, yesterday I said, "today is the day I start using a clothesline." Right now I'm reading The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices by Michael Brower and Warren Leon for REL4936 and it's a way easier read than Confronting Consumption. And where Confronting Consumption was frustrating in that it laid out all of these environmental woes brought on by wanton consumption, it wasn't a citizen action guide, either. The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices is still not a citizen's action get-involved-in-your-community-to-act-globally kind of thing because, as you can see from the title, it directs its message to "consumers", but it is still a great guide. I especially like the calm, measured tone of the book -- having been written by The Union of Concerned Scientists it is not hysterical by any means. And it is actually rather reassuring about the things we do and don't do. If you don't recycle that bottle of tomato sauce because it's too gooey or crusty or whatever, and you throw it away--the message from this book seems to be that it's okay, and the energy you would spend cleaning it with hot water might negate the positives of recycling it in the first place. I guess the main message is "don't sweat the small stuff." For example, here's a list they give of "The Most Harmful Consumer Activities" in order of heinousness (p50):

• Cars and light trucks
• Meat and poultry
• Fruit, vegetables, and grains
• Home heating, hot water, and air conditioning
• Household appliances and lighting
• Home construction
• Household water and sewage

Looking at the list your first reaction might be like, "but I need my truck, and my family eating less meat is not in the cards." And you know what? That's okay. It's the way we perform these environmentally damaging activities rather than whether or not we do them at all. Going car-free is something few people can do reasonably, as you've seen from some of my posts on my efforts to use our car less. Practically speaking, I could not give up my car even though it is on the top of the list of most harmfull consumer activities. But when it was time to buy a new car, we chose not to get another world-destroying SUV and got our cute little Honda Fit. It's fuel efficient, low emission, and combined with walking and biking we have (in my opinion) reduced our impact considerably from when we still owned the Explorer (or the "exploder" as our mechanic liked to joke -- ha, ha.).

Ugly Bagel, Anyone?

I went into kind of a cooking frenzy with our purchases after getting back from the bike ride with DJ to Ward's. It started with wanting to make some hummus for the week so I quick cooked some of the dried chick peas and began boiling those. Then I decided to make some bagels with the whole wheat bread flour using the Outrageously Easy Big Bread recipe from Vegweb.com. The dough didn't come out as perfectly as it always does -- I think it was a combination of using boiling water instead of merely hot and too much flour (the recipe calls for 6 cups all told but I could easily have gotten away with 5). And then I didn't follow the bagel recipe I have and let the dough go through one rise before shaping them.

Yep, they're pretty darn ugly but they taste great (I'm eating half of one with a little margarine) and they'll easily last the week. This way I can bring my own bagels to campus, not spend money, and not have to worry about packaging, period!

After making the hummus and cutting up some squash, zucchini, and onions I decided to use up the mashed potatoes from the chicken dinner last week and used a recipe for Mashed Potato Pancakes from Mr. Breakfast using some of the cut up veggies, some sad looking scallions from the bottom of the crisper, and some equally wilty spinach in the other crisper. They were awesome!!!

Bike Caravan!

I really don't know if this was safe for myself or my child, but I got a bug up my butt to apply the 2-mile rule to Sunday shopping. With the old man out and about, I gave DJ the choice of going to the store by car or by bike, and he said bike. Hooray! It took a little bit of set up and then we were off to the grocery store with canvas totes and reusable bulk food baggies. I am cringing at how truly green-nerdy that sounds as I write this. Anyway, as we were biking up our street I wondered to myself, "gee, I wonder if two wash n' dries are going to be enough," which shows you the level of planning I put into it. I just kind of decided I wasn't going to make a big deal out of this trip and magically things would work in our favor and all the things I should have been thinking about before going out (flat tires, tipping over going over uneven pavement, bandaids after crashing, insurance cards) are kind of occurring to me now. But everything went perfectly. It was all fine and we got some exercise and got at least half of the things we need for the week (I'll go to the other store for the rest of it after Sunday dinner with the parents-in-law). I thought the bike trailer would be a bad add-on but it worked pretty great, actually.

Need-a-Bag? Project

Okay, so DG and I got together on Thursday eve to try our hand at making "T-totes." I was informed by Ms. G that "T-bag" is slang for some sex act, so I think we're calling them "T-totes," now (that's not a sex act, is it? Geez). Anyway, she brought over all these fabulous tanks from various thrift shops and we spent about a half hour sewing the bottoms up (it would have taken less time except the thread kept breaking on my machine [I really have to get it cleaned]). But when they were done they were stretchy, seemed strong and would be able to hold various produce items found at a farmer's market or neighborhood grocery store. So, I think we're going to go to the farmer's market next Saturday and hand the "T-totes" out, along with the other totes we picked up at the thrift stores around town.