Red State Green

I honestly still don’t know who, if anyone, I’m going to vote for.

McCain’s speech (what I heard of it so far) didn’t really excite me. (in the interest of full disclosure, I had a headache, had taken allergy medicine, and fell asleep through part of it; I’m going to find it on YouTube and listen again)  These people seem to have a lot of nice words but no one is saying how they’re going to do all this stuff they want to do. I’m tired of being promised things and nothing happening.

So I decided (while cleaning the kitchen) to do some investigation into these people. Call it Red State Green’s Guide to the Candidates.

So you know who’s doing the searching, I’ll set up the format here, using me in the template:

Name: Red State Green

Stats: 46, married, female, three teenagers

Current job: homemaker, writer

Previous positions: small online business, family physician, then a bunch of stuff way back in college.

Party affiliation: Republican

Details of platform: If I were running for office, I would put my ideas here. The things I’d like to focus on are –

• Economy
• Energy policy
• Environment
• Social issues, such as civil rights, abortion, etc.

Funding: Well, Google Ads owes me 3 bucks from six months ago … um … oh, you mean my REAL funding? My husband works for a defense contractor, doing software support for a major weapons delivery system. So we have a vested interest  in … well, the use of that system. He’s worked there 23 years now, and likes his job. They seem to like him, and he probably wouldn’t get fired/laid off unless the government decided not to fight wars anymore.

Scandals: Red State Green is practically perfect in every way, and has no scandals!

Rumors: Some people see my screen name and think I’m with the Green party. Sorry, I’m not, although I will be looking at them and the other major “minors” later on.

I’ll also do a similar thing for their running mates.

So how does that sound?  At least at the end of this I should be able to decide who to vote for, and maybe you will too.

ETA: I got so discouraged by the campaign that I decided not to do this. Hope you all aren’t too disappointed.

A speech given by Republicans for Environmental Protection President Martha Marks, given to the “Tuesday Group” of Mainstream Republicans at the RNC Convention, St. Paul, Minnesota, September 1, 2008:

[…] Some of you may have laughed, or maybe rolled your eyes a bit, when you saw the title of my talk today: “It’s Easy Being Green—and Republican.” But you really shouldn’t, because that’s a true statement.

And the name of my organization, Republicans for Environmental Protection, shouldn’t be a source of laughter either. It shouldn’t be mocked as an oxymoron, yet it is mocked almost everywhere I go. “That’s an oxymoron!” is often the first thing out of a new acquaintance’s mouth. And frankly, between you and me, that’s a sad statement on the reputation that our party has earned among the American people during the last few decades.

Many people don’t know, or don’t choose to remember, that it was a Republican president—the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln—who was the first president in history to set aside land for conservation and public enjoyment. The land that Lincoln protected from development on June 30, 1864 —at the height of the Civil War—and gave to the State of California ultimately came back to the American people as Yosemite National Park. He was our first Republican president, and he left us one of our greatest natural treasures. […]

Read more here.

I’ve been following a free online video series called The Crash Course, and I wanted to tell you about it:

The Crash Course seeks to provide you with a baseline understanding of the economy so that you can better appreciate the risks that we all face.

And boy, does it!

Now, I took Economics in college, so I figured this would be a little refresher. And I wanted to see what the man’s conclusions were. But I’ve learned more from these little videos than I learned in an Economics course. And he’s not done with the series yet.

So go by and check it out. Each video is very short; you can look at it over a coffee break (if your work allows internet use). So far there’s about 20 videos, mostly simple diagrams. This is completely safe to watch around children (my 13 year old son has watched the first 5 already), but I would recommend sitting down and paying attention, because there are some concepts that might be new to you.

If you are wondering why the economy is like it is, and how the oil and climate situations factor in, you’ll like this series.

AKA using what God gave you.

We throw away wayyyy too much stuff here in America, and the time will come when that isn’t an option anymore, whether through financial tightening, lack of supply, or lack of landfill space. Part of being self-reliant/independent is managing the things you have so you aren’t being wasteful.

I was thinking about this today as I made breakfast for the kids. There was some sliced local lunchmeat ham that was just on the verge of going bad, so I fried it up and made some corn cakes to go with it. It all disappeared; problem solved.

Too many weeds? Cut them down and use them for mulch.  Dehydrate fruit and vegetables that are getting too ripe. Compost your junk mail. Eat your leftovers.

Some of my most successful dinners have been made from leftovers, and this is a chance to get creative. Do not throw away good food!

In the morning, I generally go through my fridge and see what needs using. If we have a variety of things left over from two or three meals, I tell everyone that we’re “foraging” for dinner (meaning you go raid the fridge). If they were younger, I’d heat everything up for them and set it out, but since they’re teenagers they do just fine.

But things like meat pie (leftover meat, veggies, and gravy in a pie crust or with mashed potatoes spread over the top and baked), soup, rice or bulgar pilaf with leftover meat/onion/veggies, stew, and stir-fry are ways to reuse leftover ingredients in a new way.

Lots of vegetables with one soft end? Cut off and compost the soft ends, slice up the good parts and make a veggie tray! (my kids love these)

Leftover meat and/or vegetables are great in sauces over noodles, with a little flour to thicken the inevitable leftover juices to make a gravy. It really does not take that long to do, and it’s one less thing to end up in the back developing new life forms.

How about your food storage? That’s another thing to keep an eye on. Buying things that sit shoved to the back of a shelf and end up going bad is wasted money.

Now, some things are still good after the expiration date. Most canned things are probably just fine. If it’s something that’s been open for a while (Bisquick is a prime example) it might not be good anymore if it’s expired. Proceed with caution; if it tastes, smells, or looks funny, get rid of it.

“When in doubt, throw it out” is a good thing to keep in mind. You can compost anything that’s food, with the caveat that if you honestly think something has botulism in it, do not get rid of it where children, pets, or dumpster-divers can get hold of it.  If there are a lot of dumpster-divers in your area, label it “Suspect botulism, do not open”, or “Poison”, or draw a skull and cross-bones or a “yuck-face” on the jar.

But if you’re buying things you use, this shouldn’t be a problem; the issue then becomes rotating your stock, using the oldest stuff first, checking expiration dates, and making sure things don’t get shoved to the back.

So how’s everyone doing? I’m going to dehydrate more peaches today.

I love dehydrating food.

I had never done anything like this before, but it sounded like a good thing, so I got an Excalibur food dehydrator (which I absolutely adore).

I haven’t had much from the garden this year, so I’ve gotten tomatoes, apples, and peaches from the local food co-op to learn all these things (canning, dehydrating, etc.). It’s nice, since I can get the quantity I want to practice on, before my trees/plants grow up. This way, I don’t have to learn while being overwhelmed by fruit!

The other thing is that I’m certain the dried fruit you get in the store is not organically-grown. I just had some store-bought dried apples, and I could taste the pesticides in them. Ugh!

So far, I’ve dehydrated tomatoes, which is about as easy as it gets. Today I put in a batch of peaches to dry; we’ll see how that goes. The only difference so far is that I put the peach slices in lemon juice first so they wouldn’t turn brown, which you don’t have to do for tomatoes.

The nice thing about dehydrating tomatoes is that the flavor gets concentrated, so even bland ones turn into something tasty. And it’s a great way to save tomatoes that are starting to get too soft to use.

One caveat: this won’t make something spoiled turn into something good. There’s a difference between overripe and just plain yuck. Dehydrating won’t change that.

You have to slice the food evenly, and since the items on the outside edges of each rack tend to dry faster, putting any pieces that you sliced a bit thicker on the outside will help make them all dry at the same time. I found that the times in the booklet are more of a guideline; since it’s humid here I have to use the higher time. If you get to the end of the time and they still aren’t how you like them you can always dry them longer.

It’s good to check near the end and take out pieces that are already dry. I put my dried tomato pieces in a sealed container with some silica gel in the bottom to keep the humidity low.

Here are my peaches drying happily inside the unit (I took the front door of the dehydrator off to show the inside):

Here’s what dried tomatoes are like:

There are all kinds of dehydrators in a big price range, so do some shopping to find out what’s right for you. I’ve heard of people even using their car dashboards as a dehydrator, which is free (just need a hot day), and you get the aroma of whatever you’re drying in the car as an added bonus.

Of all the preserving methods out there, I’d have to say that dehydrating is among the easiest. I’ve used my dried tomatoes in place of paste in sloppy joes, and got good comments from my family. These would work well in any cooked tomato dish instead of using canned tomatoes. Just add water!

Green With A Gun has a fascinating post up on Georgia, Russia and the West.

We went from a major drought to the wettest August on record in a matter of days, and it looks like there’s more rain coming this weekend. The rain knocked out some people’s power in Oklahoma City, and flattened some of the sunflowers out back. Fortunately we don’t get much flooding, but many areas nearby do. Keeping our fingers crossed.

Today we had one of my kids’ favorite dinner items: ‘meat pie’ … diced pork from the roast fresh ham we had last night (some of the very last of the piggie), mixed veggies from the yard, local wheat flour. Very good.

Here’s an Independence Days update …

This has been an uninspired past few weeks: hot, so dry the ground has cracks in it. The only things that seem to like my yard right now are sweet potatoes and sunflowers.

Can you live on those??

Planted: potatoes

Harvested: some greens

Managed: have been making up uses for the last of the pig I got taught to slaughter several months ago. For example, we had pig heart stir-fry (thin sliced and fried with veggies and a nice teriyaki sauce it was very good). Also plucked the bunnies again. I’m going to breed them in a couple of weeks; if anyone is near Oklahoma City and would like an angora rabbit or two around the end of November, let me know.

Preserved: there’s been nothing to preserve

Preps: put an order in for more freeze-dried food. I also started plans for the summer kitchen I want to set up on the back porch, which DH is mildly interested in helping with.

Local: I had put up a notice on my HOA website offering to give away plants several weeks ago and someone answered. I was out of plants by that time but I’m starting some sweet potato slips for her. I also put an order in for the food co-op.

Trash reduction: composting everything I can! I should have a good amount of compost this year. I need to make another bin, as this one is full and I’m using the other one to grow potatoes in.

In other news:

Looks like Shira is giving away seeds! I won’t be taking her up on it but it looks like she wouldn’t mind if you did.

(If you don’t care for rants you can skip this one )

I’m seeing an interesting trend on some of these groups I belong to: people who start on something (like canning or gardening) then at the first sign of anything that might not be picture-perfect, ask if they should “throw it away”. One lady wanted to know if she should “rip up her garden and start over” because her tomato plant wilted. Another didn’t hear her jam jars ‘ping’ (even though she could feel that the jars were sealed), and wanted to throw out the entire batch!

Like jam is going to give someone botulism, or a wilted tomato plant is going to destroy the whole garden.

I don’t get it. If you took the time to read about how to do something, wouldn’t it make sense to have some understanding of what is harmful and what isn’t before you start?

It makes me wonder why these people are doing what they’re doing. If someone is willing to throw fifty dollars of food away because they didn’t hear the jam jars ‘ping’ (even though they felt the tops and they were all sealed), they aren’t canning to save money. If they’re willing to rip up hours of work because a plant wilted, they aren’t gardening for the enjoyment of it.

Is it that scourge of “perfection” that seems to be ravaging American suburbs? It reminds me of the childrens’ book A Wrinkle in Time, where everyone had to do everything exactly the same. Exactly perfect, with no tolerance for deviation of any sort.

Or is it our ‘throw away’ society? Everything gets thrown away, from the useful to the formerly loved, plastic and people. Our lives are disposable, from the diapers we put on the babies’ bottoms to the old folk those babies eventually turn into.

I get the feeling that people are beginning to do these ‘green’ things because they’re another way to be ‘trendy’ … and of course, if you’re doing something ‘trendy’, you have to do it ‘right’.

Excuse me whilst I gag.

They forget that life isn’t picture-perfect, nature could care less if you want things to look a certain way, and throwing away something just means it turns to compost somewhere else.

*deep breath*

I feel much better now.

It rained really hard overnight! I was thrilled to see the barrels full as well as the buckets I use for the overflow. I really need more barrels.

Harvested some lovely greens, which I’m not sure what kind they are or how they got there. I think they’re really large versions of something in my mesclun mix that likes the heat. I think it’s a brassica; it tastes a bit like broccoli. In any case, it went well with the stir-fry I made tonight.

Composted some more bunny litter. I had let it go a few days, and flies had laid eggs in one of the bins. We couldn’t figure out where all the flies were coming from! Goes to show you that you have to keep up with things if you’re going to have animals in the house, I guess.

I’ve been studying what to do as far as breeding the rabbits, setting up the nesting box, etc. It looks like a good time will come for this in two weeks. Thing is, you have to count 28-33 days after you breed them and make sure you’re going to be around, no company, etc, just in case there’s trouble with the birth or right after.

I’m so excited about this. I’ve also been reading up on bunny genetics, trying to figure out what sort of kits (newborn bunnies) we might get.