its getting up there...

This picture was taken on Saturday at the gas station about 4 miles from my house.  It's getting pretty expensive these days, and all indications are that it is going to get much, much worse.  It makes me really glad that I got my Geo running.  While I was at the gas station, my 13 year old son was asking me when they were going to start issuing gas rationing cards....

 

tipping point?

I was listening to Marketplace on NPR yesterday, and there was a story about rice supplies.  There was one sentence at the end of the interview that made me pay attention. "Global demand for nearly every major commodity has outstripped supply."

 

Whoa.  This is something I have been concerned about for a long time now, and here they are saying it on a mainstream news show.  Things are getting serious.  Now is a good time to be sure that you are ready for a rollercoaster ride, because this is just the beginning. I know some people that read this might think I am crazy, but I think we are fast encroaching a tipping point.

signs of life

Things are looking good in the garden!  I was outside watering last night, and was totally excited to see the peas starting to grow.  I have included a picture of one of the snow peas.  Also, my strawberries are doing great!  They are all growing, even the one the moose stepped on. 

 

Unfortunately, the onion starts I have sitting on my dining room table got walked on by the cat, and three of them got knocked completely over and spilled.  Since they haven't germinated yet, I know I lost those three.

 

Tonight I am planting parsnips, and tomorrow carrots.  Thursday, I have to cut up my potatoes (which are sprouting nicely), so they can harden in time for me to plant Saturday.  Friday, onions and lettuce are going in.  At least, if I get everything done according to plan.

 

So, we drove the geo yesterday.  We got gas right after leaving the house on the way to work, and filled up again as we were getting home, to see how much we used.  In total, we drove about 120 miles, both the commute and the driving around I had to do for work yesterday, and used 3 gallons of gas. I was pleased.

relief

James fixed the Geo this weekend.  It turned out it had burnt valves, which required taking the head off, having it machined, and the valves replaced.  Cost about $400, and now it runs like a champ. It would have cost a lot more if James didn't do everything but the actual work on the head and valves himself. When we fill up the truck or James's work van, it has been costing between $70 and $80 recently, because they both have 20 gallon tanks.  And we would fill up the tank on the van three times a week, since we were commuting in it.  When I filled up the Geo this morning, it only had 1/4 of a tank in it, and it only took 5 and 1/2 gallons to fill it up.  That was very cool.  I am going to keep track of my mileage between fill ups to see how many MPG we really get. Regardless, as long as it keeps running, it will save us a LOT of money.

preschool graduation

My four year old graduated from preschool yesterday.  There is something silly about a graduation ceremony for preschool, as if it is a huge life accomplishment... I somehow don't think that twenty years from now, when applying for a job, he will say, "Oh, and I graduated from preschool" as part of his qualifications.

 

However, for Steven, it IS a big deal.  Not the graduation itself, but in progress made.  See, his preschool is a special education preschool for children with speech problems. Steven has apraxia, which is basically a motor planning issue. The act of speech, while basically effortless for most of us, actually involves a great deal of planning, which then must be implemented in the act of speaking.  Steven has had a very difficult time in this area.  See:  http://www.apraxia-kids.org/.  When he was two, he had maybe 4 or 5 words.  And to make matters worse, there were some words that he had been saying (such as "eat") that he lost and was then unable to say them.  We started teaching him sign language, so that he could communicate with us, and that was a great success.  When he started preschool at age 3, even with over a year of speech therapy, he had 10 words, but about 50 signs. 

 

Now, he can carry on a complete conversation, and his vocabulary is huge.  He rarely uses any signs now, except as an accent to his speech, like most of us wave our hands around when we talk.  There are still some times that we have trouble understanding him, especially when he is tired, but I would say he is about 90% intelligible.  It was amazing yesterday to watch him, and think back on how he was a year and a half ago.

 

He will actually attend preschool through the summer, thanks to extended school year services, but he will start kindergarten in a regular class, with only minor supports and speech therapy twice a week, instead of the four-day-a-week intensive stuff he was getting in preschool.  I am very excited for him. Way to go, Steven!

garden update - and a story about a tree

So, my garden is expanding, little by little.  On Monday, I bought 20 pounds of yukon gold seed potatoes, and they are currently sitting spread out on my kitchen table absorbing sunlight to encourage them to sprout.  They will have to do this for a week or so.

 

I planted 20 more strawberry plants that I purchased from a gardener that lives a few miles down the road from me.  That brings the total to 45 strawberry plants.  :)

 

I planted 3 20' double rows of peas, and a 4' x 16' bed of snow peas.  Snow peas can be grown in intensive beds instead of rows because they don't require the support that regular peas do.

 

In the starter containers my first set of strawberries came in, I started leeks and ailsa craig onions (a storage variety).  I am going to do the same in the containers from my second set of strawberries in the next day or two.

 

I still have a large pile of seed packets that need to be started soon... lettuce, broccoli, parsnips, and carrots among them, as well as some that need to wait til after the last frost date (June 1), like beans.

 

James started work on a tool shed/firewood shelter a couple days ago.  The first step, obviously, is to cut down the trees where it will go.  This is all done, but there was a heart-pounding moment.  All but one of the trees came down where they were supposed to go with no problems.  Ironically, the very last tree was not cooperative.  This particular tree was a largish birch that stood approximately 20 feet away from the north side of our cabin, and as it got taller, it leaned ever so slightly towards the cabin, which made it tricky.  We wanted it to fall north-west, away from the cabin.  James cut a notch out of the trunk on the northwest side, then started to cut into the southeast side of the tree.  What was supposed to happen was that because the notch had been cut out, the tree would lean that way. It didn't want to. So, I stood by James and pushed on the tree, as high up as I could reach.  I about had a heart attack when I felt the tree start to push back.  Luckily, (or maybe because of the way James cut it, at an angle) it only shifted a quarter inch or so, and stopped, leaving the chain saw stuck between the two pieces of tree.  With stern instructions to the children who were watching to stay on the far side of the house and run towards the road (to the south) if I hollered at them, we wrapped a tow strap around the trunk of the tree and lifted it with branches as high on the trunk as we could, and pulled it towards the northwest.  Nothing happened.  We then attached a come-along to a tree that was in the general direction we wanted it to go, and slowly ratcheted it tighter.  Slowly, slowly the tree started moving.  When it got so it was straight up and down, it paused, and we all held our breath to see what it would do.  Finally, slowly at first, then all of a sudden, it was down, with a big thump, right where we needed it to go. I could breathe again, but I could hear my heart pounding.

scary stuff

Although the following article is an opinion piece, not an article, it comes from someone that is well-known in climate change circles.  Basically, his point is that even though we might not notice drastic changes right now, things are getting very bad, very quickly.  And in order to avoid TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It), we have to virtually stop in our tracks, right NOW, and make immediate drastic changes.  As individuals and collectively.

 

I know this sounds impossible, and I totally understand that.  In fact, it feels impossible to me.   I am flying twice and my 13 year old son is flying once in the next month, thousands of miles each trip.   I drive 55 miles to work each way every day, and I can't just stop, because my family depends on my income, and the kids I see every day deserve a chance to be safe. It's a pickle, to be sure. 

 

But there are things that I can do, even if they aren't really enough.  As soon as I can get it back on the road, I will start driving my Geo, which uses much less gas, and has much lower emissions than either my truck or James' work van.  And we are planting a large garden, to try to eat as much as we can off of what we produce.  It's a small step, but at least I am making it.  You may not be able to stop in your tracks, but you can slow down.  And you should.  We all depend on it.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-mckibben11-2008may11,0,2392815.story

first planting of the year!

I planted my 25 strawberry plants last night. This is exciting because strawberries are my favorite fruit. Eventually, we hope to at least quadruple our strawberry patch. Yay! By the way, I took these pictures at about 11:00 last night, with no flash. I love the summer light.

south side of kitchen

And here is the cooking and washing side of the kitchen.  The buckets holding up our impromptu counters are filled with food, rice, flour, oats and sugar.

north side of kitchen and dining room

It appears that I can only add two pictures at a time when posting via email.  So here is the north side of my interim kitchen ... the storage side.  This picture was taken right after we moved in.  It looks a little different now, as I have greatly increased my food storage since then and most of those shelves are completely full with canned goods.  I also have included a photo of my dinner table, which is in a space just to the west of the kitchen.