Monday Moonday

The Mamas and The Papas sang "Monday, Monday can't trust that day...."

Being self employed, I never have a problem with Monday.  In fact, I'm hard pressed to tell Monday from any other day of the week, since I pretty much work 7 days a week.  (An occupational hazard of the self employed is to learn how to draw those boundary lines between work and personal, which I haven't really figured out yet, but I'm working on it.)

Today was wonderful because I was able to pick up my life again after my marathon sequester last week.  I cleared everything from my calendar in order to make sure that the tax return would get done on time, and hooray! it did.

But not my favorite kind of work.

So today I was able to engage in my favorite kind of work, which is the business of living.  I love taking care of house and home, growing food, raising chickens and seeing clients for energy work.   I love making my own shampoo, deodorant, and toothpaste.  I love it when my skin and hair smell like fresh air and sunshine because I've been outdoors for hours. And I love cooking outdoors, then sitting around the fire afterwards, gazing at the moon and stars to wind down the day.

I'm trying to continue to find time to bind books for Pegana Press too.  Today I think I worked out a schedule where I work on book binding between 8 and 11, and then see clients in my healing practice between Noon and 3 pm.  That way I still have time to fix meals for us all and then I can crash in the afternoon.  I think it's a good Summer schedule, because it allows for working outdoors in the very early morning and the early evening when things are cooler.  I am learning to adapt my schedule to match the ever shifting seasons, especially with the changing weather patterns we are having now...It's the Pacific NW for heaven's sake...We just don't have 87 degree weather in April!

But yes, I guess that is now a possibility.  All potentials exist, and I'm feeling the need to be flexible.  So I have also adopted the practice of Siesta in the hottest time of the day which seems to be late afternoon.  And today I needed it!! And really appreciated it.

It left me feeling energized so I could tackle the super wild part of my yard.  I was just going to build the fence to bypass that area, but I got thinking about it and really, the practical thing to do would just be to clear the blackberry overgrowth and include the old rusty metal storage shed -which I never use- to maybe do something practical with it.

This evening I uncovered a beautiful Hazel (one of my favorite trees) which was being choked out by brambles.  My heart glowed to see it, and I found myself whispering to it, "Do you trust me?", because I wanted it to know I would go carefully and cautiously while I was removing the thorny plants around it.

I also freed up the tall Oregon Grape which was in danger of being covered by long thick blackberry canes.  Now it should be much easier to build the fence in that area, with just a little more work.

I also uncovered some wood and some perfectly good fence posts.  It just goes to show you that treated wood will stand up to the test of time even after laying on the ground, half covered with soil for the past 15 years at least.  I'm going to use the posts to build frames to hang a gate on, so I won't have to contort myself, to avoid getting hung up on primitive wire "gates" to get around my yard.

The fence building project is going slower than I wanted it to.  But I'm trying to keep at it because I'm anxious to plant, and there's just no point planting if I can't protect the garden from my chickens who are talented escape artists.  My goal is to have them moved by the end of this week.  Which will also require some pruning.  I realized that the willow is not only the perfect cover, perfect playground for chickens but also the perfect jumping off point to fly right over the fence.  They might not try it if they are entertained enough with their new environment, but why take the chance?

I'm crossing my fingers that I can plant soon!

This photo shows the full grown Peeps perched on branches 10 to 12 feet in the air.  The fence behind them only reaches 8 feet tall.  In this picture you can see how interested they are in the next tree over, which is outside of their yard, and located just a few feet from my raised beds.  The Peeps began flying when they were still only a week old.  And they're very good at it.

Sticking To The Plan

It's a crazy ol' world.  And you can lay all that craziness at the feet of human beings.

Today I went on a quest to find 8 ft T posts so I could finally build the fence to the new chicken yard and thus make the garden safe from poultry.  You'd think I was trying to build a skyscraper from toothpicks or something equally ludicrous.

Finding fence posts...It shouldn't be hard.

But the world has gotten complicated and me, with my take on what it is to be a responsible consumer, well that just makes it that much more complicated.  I know this, but I am also too stubborn to give in merely for the sake of convenience.

I began my quest by traveling across town to the west side.  There is a Habitat for Humanity store, and I wanted to see if they had fence posts.  Nope.  But they did have my sink.  Not the sink of my dreams, but a pretty incredible one and for a great price.  So I bought it.

Then I went next door to the True Value Hardware store, because on line it said they had 8 ft fence posts, but nope.  They only had 6 ft. posts.  but I did buy a scrub brush, because it was a stiff natural bristle brush set in wood.  And with my stubborn resistance to buying plastic, I snapped it up.

Then I went next door to the Good Will store just in case they might possibly have fence posts, which they didn't.  But they did have really cheap enamel pans and I had been looking for cheap water pans for the chickens...again, not plastic.

Yes, lots of great stuff that has been on my list, but no fence posts so far.

I headed home and said a prayer that Mike wouldn't rain on my parade about the sink.  But on the way I checked out Lowe's.  They also only had 6 ft posts.  Pretty wretched Lowe's.

When I got home, I thought I'd quietly haul the sink via wheel barrow into the back yard.  No easy task, since it took two strong men to load it into my car.  (Double cast iron porcelain sink.)  I eased it into the wheel barrow, and got it as far as the back gate, when Mike came outside and gave me a hand.  He thought it was a good deal and a nice sink.  I think he was relieved that I got it at Habitat instead of at an antique store.

After telling him I'd had no luck finding fence posts, he got on line and announced to me that True Value had them.  I told him I'd been to the one on the west side and they didn't have the size I needed. We decided to try the one down town, so I called them.  Yes, they had 8 ft T posts in stock.

Hooray!  Mike and I drove into town, and he helped a young man load the fence posts into our car, while I was inside paying for them.  When I got out to the car, I noticed that the posts were different, but didn't know why.  When we got them home, I realized that they were made in China.

What's the difference? you may be asking.

Let's just say that for reasons of my own, I specifically sought out posts that were made in the US.  The True Value Website shows that the fence posts they carry are made in the US.  It didn't occur to me to check because I believed their website.  It's the ol' bait and switch.  Maybe not intentionally...but maybe?

I was angry.  You know, the kind of angry when you've been led down the garden path.  Nothing to shout about or anything, but it is typical business as usual in corporate America and it makes me mad every time it happens.

I could just keep them, and get on with my project.  But I knew I would never be happy about it.  I also knew that every time I looked at my fence I would get angry.  I told Mike that I was disappointed, frustrated and getting angrier by the minute.  He double checked the website and saw that I was right.  What probably convinced him was the sticker on the post driver that declared the product to contain toxic chemicals known to cause cancer and birth defects...Translated that means that there is lead in that there red paint.  I also wondered about the paint that was already chipping off the posts.

I told Mike I had to take them back, and he helped me load them back into the car.  He often thinks I'm crazy, but he gets this.

When I got back into town, I suddenly felt happy.  That's when I knew I was doing the right thing.

If you know me at all, you probably know that I work to eliminate plastic from my life, and try to reduce waste, and I am an advocate for organic sustainable local food production.  But that isn't all there is to it for me.  I also take my role as a consumer very seriously.  In my life time I have watched local businesses and even whole economies ruined by multinational corporations and I am not okay with that.  And it has shaped my habits and my strategies as a consumer.  It has been the reason I always choose local first, and often go without certain things for long periods of time and sometimes all together, to keep me from betraying my principles.  It is the reason I shop at antique stores and second hand stores, and the reason why if I have to buy from corporate America (which is everywhere), I want to know where the product was made, because it will be one of the deciding factors whether I buy or not.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not against corporations in general...just their practices and ethics.  There's an old saying that may be familiar to certain movie fans, which goes "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."  That about sums it up.

I had no trouble returning the fence posts, but I did have trouble finding something to replace them.  So today I struck out at seven stores.  Even at the big box stores.  So add totally disgusted to the list of emotions experienced in the quest for the simple domestic 8 ft T post.  It's just fence posts for God's sake, not a rare mineral or secret plans or a living coral reef (since we're mentioning hard to find items here).

I returned home totally defeated, and told Mike that I would have to try Lewis County or Mason County next.  Then I suddenly remembered something..."What's the name of that little farm store on highway 99 out by the airport?"

Mike didn't know, but he found it on line.  Kipperts Korner Feed.  I called and this time I asked all the pertinent questions.  "Do you have 8 ft T posts in stock?" "Yes." "Are they the green and white made in the US posts?" "Yes."  "I need a dozen.  Do you have that many in stock?" "We have 500 of them in stock."  Now that's my idea of a farm store.  In response to my enthusiasm, she said "I love it when I give all the right answers!"  I told her she was a blessed angel and that I would be there in the morning.

And Kipperts is local.  Maybe that's why they carry what people need instead of what they want to force us to buy.

The Kitchen Garden Project part 3

Pictures

Before

This is the quack grass and chicken scratched lawn that was my back yard.   You can see the large Rosemary bush and what is left of the old herb bed on the right side of the photo.  There are little animal trails still evident in the lawn, a remnant from when Ruby was raising her chicks right outside my back door.

Sod overturned in preparation for raised beds

 Looking the landscape over, I realized that the beds would be on a slope.  The ground here originally had a very gradual declivity sloping away from the patio.  Over time, and with the help of a mole infestation the ground sunk even more in this part of the yard, and became over run with weeds and quack grass.

I wanted the raised beds to be level and decided to get the site ready so on "garden building" day there would be no unexpected challenges.  I leveled the beds by placing sod from the higher side of the beds on the lower side, which evened things out nicely.  This photo shows the spot where two raised beds will go, and also the old herb bed in the back ground.

Originally, I thought I might place the third raised bed on the old herb garden site, but I decided on a different location for it.  I've been burying rotten wood and compost in that old herb bed, and hope to coax it back to productivity now that I've removed the invasive alkanet.

Alkanet growing under my Rosemary bush, looking like a harmless ground cover. If allowed to continue, it will overwhelm the entire site. This alkanet can grow to approximately 2' in diameter in all directions with flower stalks even taller.

While digging the sod, I was careful to take the pieces with quack grass and toss them over the fence to the chickens.  They enjoyed scratching through the clumps for bugs and worms, and ate the grass as well.  I've learned not to turn the quack grass in to compost, because the rhizomes continue to grow and invade the garden site  creating a mesh and chocking out all other plants.  The chickens made short work of it, as well as the large dandelion plants I also dug out.

I'm also taking the opportunity to give my back yard a make over, which is why I was so careful when deciding where the raised beds would go.  Now that I've reinforced the chicken fence, and made it taller, it has (at least for now) stopped the chickens from over running my back yard.  I couldn't blame them for wanting to keep coming back, because the chicks began their lives there.  But I have plans for that part of the yard.

Besides growing food there, I want to create an outdoor kitchen and I want to restore the yard back to a place where the cats can enjoy being outdoors.  With the advent of the chickens, the cats have been all but crowded out of their special, safe, fenced in yard.  And Buddy won't even go outside anymore, because he worries about those strange birds in the yard.  He doesn't trust that they will stay on their side of the fence.

And the chickens have attracted the neighborhood cats, making them determined to get into the yard, which they do by climbing a nearby tree outside the fence, and jumping onto our roof.  This is causing stress on my cats and I worry about fights.  My new plan of action includes moving the chickens outside of the cat's yard and into their very own overgrown part of the yard with more cover.  That part of my yard is very wild, so it will require new sturdy fencing and I will have to move the chicken house.  In it's place, I dream of constructing a small green house where I can start garden plants in the winter, but that may be a ways off.

The outdoor kitchen takes precedence because starting this time of year, I almost can't stand to be indoors.  Last summer, the only way I could get my dishes washed was to set up a dish washing station on the patio so I could be outdoors.  I want to have something more permanent and primitive/cute/rustic in design but very functional.  Instead of plastic tubs on the table, I want something more like this...





Preferably with a dual compartment sink.  These are just too cute.  If I had something like this in my yard, I'd love doing dishes.

For now, this is my yard.  Make over on the horizon.

Spring Fever

Cleaning frenzies.  Bouts of Gardening.  And, oh yeah...

This.

The egg on the left is an ordinary chicken egg.  The one on the right is the only egg I found in the hen house yesterday.

So that either means one of the Peeps laid her first egg, or that Tricksy is winding down.  (It was in the box she uses.)

And so I still don't know.

But I do know this.  It suddenly occurred to me that my Peeps might not be egg layers because of their parentage.  Rocky is a barred rock, but Ruby is a sex link (hybrid) and I just don't know.

Researching online yielded no information on the subject.  I searched 'Can hybrid chicken offspring lay eggs?'  There's a lot of info about sex link, but apparently nobody bothers about their offspring because they don't breed true.  I found one article that at least mentioned that none of her sex link chickens ever went broody.

In fact, the people at the egg farm/chicken farm I got my hens from (and my rooster), were pleasantly surprised that we got 5 chicks from Ruby.  And responded to the news with a "whoo hoo!" and then said they weren't altogether sure that the eggs would even result in chicks.

I guess, now I just wait to see if my flock is fertile.  I'm trying to keep a sense of expectant excitement about this, rather than worrying about it.  The fact is, they've given me an amazing experience just by hatching out.  I got to watch Ruby lay a clutch of eggs, hatch them, and raise the chicks.  The Peepers gave me such tremendous joy, and turned my life into a circus for awhile.  It's been a real kick!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the four pullets will be egg layers.  I just can't wait to find out!

The Garden

I've been going through the Growing Guide I got for The Kitchen Garden Project.  My garden will be built on April 7th courtesy of GRuB (Garden Raised Bounty).  Yesterday, I spent some time between downpours cleaning my backyard up a bit in anticipation of this wonderful gift I'm about to receive.

Today I took my little Growing Guide and mapped out the beds.  It's kind of slow going.  I want to grow everything we use.  I know that these 3 beds are a really big deal--96 square feet in all, but I also know that I could easily plant a whole patch of potatoes and strawberries too, beside what I'll be growing in these three beds.

It's hard to be patient.

Reducing: The Trash Report

Today is garbage day in my neighborhood.

Normally, that's not something I would post in a blog or any type of social media, except now it's significant because I've reduced my pick up service with the refuse haulers.

So the first Wednesday of every month, I have to remember to bring my can to the roadside for pick up.

Tiny Trash Recap

At the start of 2016, I decided to downsize my garbage, which was already pretty minimal to begin with, by most household standards.

The plan included composting everything that was biodegradable, and recycling everything I can.  The final piece was to get even more discerning about what I buy at the grocery store, which means taking a good hard look at packaging.  Plastic sneaks it's way into all packaging.  There is no escaping it.  Even things packaged in glass jars will have plastic on the lid in some fashion, if not made entirely of the stuff.  And unless you're harvesting your own fruit or getting it locally, chances are your fruit and other produce has a plastic sticker on it.

Enter Tiny Trash as a way to remind me constantly of my resolve to reduce my non biodegradable waste.  Tiny Trash is a plastic yogurt cup which I covered in decorative scrap paper (from end papers when I bind books for Pegana Press).

Thanks to Tiny Trash I have been diligent about reducing my plastic waste.  And that means it happened quicker than I thought it would.  My goal was to not generate more trash than this little cup could hold, and to empty it once a day.  But within the first week, I had cut that expectation in half, and before the first month was out, it would take about 4 days to fill this little container.

This has allowed me to reduce my trash pick up from weekly to just once a month. 

Here is one month's worth of trash in my can when I took it to the roadside.

It still seems kind of silly to have such a small amount picked up and I'm considering other options.  I estimate that with this approach, it could take me 6 months or longer to fill this can.

For now, it doesn't make sense to do away with pick up altogether.  They won't take recycling unless I have a trash can too, and having one, means I put things into it.  

Until I get to the point where I have minimized my possessions down to where I own nothing that could ever break and be discarded, I might need this can.  Until I stop buying things that come in packaging or with labels, I will need this can.  Until I stop receiving any mail at all, I might need my recycling bin.

glass recycle bin (left), trash can (center) w/Tiny Trash on top, mixed recycle bin (right).

I've changed how I think about waste, so I've been able to reduce what comes into and what goes out of my life.  It's glass pick up today too (every 4 weeks), but I only have one oil bottle in my bin, so there's no point.  I reduced glass, by using the bulk bins when I shop, and by giving excess jars to people I know who use them.  The mixed recycling bin usually takes two to three months to fill because it's so big.  Lately, I'm filling it faster because I'm working on getting rid of old papers, and I've replaced certain items I used to buy in plastic packaging with items that come in paper and cardboard.

The cat litter is one example.  I used to buy a brand called Swheat Scoop, a cat litter made from wheat.  until one day they changed from a paper bag packaging to plastic packaging.  They insisted that it was for the benefit of their customers, when I asked them.  I thought that was pretty funny.

So anyway, I changed brands, and now I use a brand called Ökocat that comes in a cardboard box  and is produced locally at a factory in my state.  I have it shipped directly to my house.  They have several types and I use the kind made from just wood, without anything added.  It works amazing! No smelly cat box at all, plus it clumps, and I can put it in the compost.  I tried the paper version at first, but it made Zöe and I cough, so I wrote to the company and asked about additives.  The woman that replied said that they did add something that was approved by the FDA.  OH, right.  That's the agency that has approved so many chemical food additives and pharmaceuticals that have proven to be unsafe and were later removed from the market.   I replied that I didn't have a lot of confidence in the FDA, and that I would use a different version of their product.

Anyway, the cardboard boxes can be recycled except for a little plastic strap handle fixed to the top of the box.  Not a perfect solution, but far better than a jumbo sized plastic bag.  Eventually, I'll probably come up with a sawdust version of my own, but for now this is working.

What A Difference!

What a difference three weeks can make!

I have been plowing through the work around here.  My Kitchen has never been so clean.  I've lived in this house for 15 years, and I've never had much clear counter space.  It's mostly been covered by dirty dishes, bottles and jars waiting to be washed before going out to the recycling, and various works in progress.  A chaotic jumble about sizes the whole situation up.

But in the first two weeks of 2016, I managed to turn that trend around.  When I came home from the food co-op last week, I actually had a space to set all my groceries, when I brought them in.  The living room and dining room have also been decluttered, as well as The Bindery, which was starting to look a little chaotic.

Three weeks into 2016, and my house is starting to resemble a real home and not just a busy work space.

The Peepers are growing like crazy.  They're 10 weeks old now!!  I'm really excited that 4 of the 5 are pullets and only one is a cockerel.  Of course that still leaves me with a dilemma.  What to do with the excess male bird.  And he is at the moment far more lovable than his pop.

Rocky and I have a tenuous truce, which neither one of us is anxious to put to the test.  It makes cleaning the chicken house and working in that part of the yard difficult though, and if a fence comes down, it becomes a real adrenaline rush to get it repaired.  The secret to my success is that FOOD is the great moderator.

Sparky (Mike named the new one) is my friend.  I'm not sure if he knows the score or not, but he's doing his best to get on my good side, and so far, he's my pal.

Ruby (mom) is finally after 10 weeks, starting to peck at them.  Again, it's that whole FOOD thing.  I introduced her back into the hen yard with Rocky.  I won't say there was a tender reunion, because that's just not Rocky's style, but he was glad to see her.  (I might get more chicks out of that interaction).

She didn't stay put.  She was upset to be separated from the chicks, and wanted me to let them in too.  I decided to let her out instead, and she was OK with that.  Today we tried it again, though.  I guess for the next few days, I'll keep letting her into the hen yard until they remember who she is.  Ten weeks ago she was top hen in the flock.  Now she's at the bottom of the pecking order.  They won't let her near the food, and Rocky wasn't all that thrilled that I fed her a bit away from them.  He wanted to dominate both food supplies.  (Sort of reminded me of Monsanto.)  I had to lure him back to his own food.

I guess I'll just observe how it works out, and if I can bring her and the chicks into the flock--great.  If not, than I'll have two flocks.  I would rather have them all together though, but I'll have to see how Rocky and Sparky will get along.

I'll be glad to get the Peepers out of the back yard.  It was okay when they were still tiny, but now, my back porch and patio resemble a barn yard.  Every evening I have to shovel it off and sluice it down.  (I know, too much information.)

Never the less, I do love them and they always make me laugh.  And they all seem to like being held.

Enough about chickens.

My resolve to move toward zero waste, is coming along.  Last week we generated about a gallon of trash.  (I don't remember what we threw in the trash to even get that much...it must have been some kind of plastic that I ran across when I was cleaning out the kitchen.  I keep finding old plastic squirreled away (I guess I was hoping I would eventually find a use for some of it.)  But as far as the trash goes, typically, I generate about 3 yogurt cups full of plastic trash a week now.  It's getting easier to compost and recycle almost everything else, as long as I pay really close attention to what I am bringing home.  (We haven't bought bacon since the new year--sigh--I do miss it, and I just need to find time to drive over to the meat market, where I can hopefully get some uncured bacon wrapped in non plasticized paper.  #jumping through hoops!)

And finally, I wanted to share that someone who bought Winter Tales through Pegana Press, liked it enough to also buy a copy of Hearth & Heart Summer edition.  He also hinted broadly that he would buy Hearth & Heart Autumn (Coming Soon).  I got a chuckle out of that, until I realized that I had 3 zines partially finished and that I needed to get my butt in gear and get them out.  All the stories have been finished for months, I just need to put them in zine format, which is mostly finished.

But for now, I'm still binding another two batches of books and working on profit and loss for 2015 tax return.  Definitely trying to make sure I stay up with book keeping this year, so it's not so hard later.  The shoe box method, isn't working anymore.  I went in to see if I qualified for a reduced rate in my power bill last year, and the woman said to me.  If you're self employed you should have all your totals already.  I got a hardy laugh out of that, and resisted the temptation to respond with...You've never owned a business before where you did everything yourself, have you?  I have another friend who runs multiple business out of her home too, and it's just her and her partner, just like with me and Mike.  They do everything on their own, just like we do and they work 12 hours or more a day - every day, just like we do.  Tell me, where do people like us find time to make sure their book keeping is up to date?

But now that is on the list for 2016.  Wish me luck.

Solving Problems

I had a list taped to my refrigerator for most of last year, labeled "Solving Problems" which listed 5 things I wanted to improve in my life with possible solutions.  I just took the list down yesterday.  4 out of 5 were accomplished.  

Now I'm ready to tackle something new and this year, my biggest project to work on is solving the problem of Space and Time.

I don't have enough of either one.

At least that's what it's felt like these last two years.  So my big project this year is to come up with some modifications to organize my living space and my time better.

I've already solved one problem linked to my current project.  The problem of perception.

Before, I could only see the lack of space and the chaos that is/was my home.  I'm not a hoarder.  It isn't that.  It's just that things accumulate, and I couldn't seem to find the time or energy to declutter.

It's difficult because we run our businesses out of our home, and as the business spaces expanded, the living spaces shrank.  And time has been affected in the same way.  As I took on more work projects, my personal time almost completely disappeared.  When you work out of your home, the boundaries can become blurred because you're not separated by distance from your work place.

But as I said, my perception has shifted around seeing my living space as chaotic.  These last two years, I've spent a lot of time in the state of Overwhelm, (that's just south of here).  But about a month ago, I stopped feeling frantic.

So today, I was looking at my same ol' living space and didn't see it as a horrific jumble.  In fact I even said to myself, "This isn't so bad".  And I made progress today, on turning it into a space that works for me.

And I enjoyed the process.  It was restful, and it was a relief.

The Game

Whenever I have something big to overcome in my life, I figure out how I can make a game of it.  It keeps me focused and it gives me a creative way to change my life.  So the other day, I created a new game to help me reduce my "inventory" of stuff, and create a beautiful, organized, practical space, which can function for both business and living.

Trash

One of the challenges I face in my home is how much trash builds up.  So I wanted to address that issue as part of this game.

Back in the late 1980 s, I became aware of the trash problem, and so I began recycling.  But in the last few years, I've come to believe that it's not enough.  The problem of trash has gotten complicated.  It just has.  And in my quirky way, I have responded by trying to be more aware and responsible about my own trash.  Sometimes that leads to me hanging onto things to either reuse, or find a way to dispose of responsibly. I have reduced my consumption of items that come packaged in plastic, and I try to avoid wasting things.

In July of 2014, I participated in a world wide event called Plastic Free July.  The idea was to try to avoid single use plastic.  It was hard.  In fact, you'd have to be pretty self sustainable to pull it off.  And that was the point of the exercise.  To raise awareness.  Some of the practices, I still continue, but I have also made compromises which make me feel guilty.  And that really ticks me off.  Because I don't want it to be hard, and I don't want to feel guilty.

I'm not talking about what other people should do with their trash.  I'm talking about me.  I'm talking about how this issue has complicated my life.  I'm talking about how it affects me personally.  Because I have educated myself on this subject.  Now I know what I know, and I can't unknow it.

I want to do better.  So when I look around my home, and see a lot of accumulation that I am no longer able, in good conscious to just throw in the trash, it makes me mad.  We are constantly bombarded with trash.

But anger can be a useful thing.  In Chinese Medicine, the concept is that Anger gets you moving.  It causes you to take action.  And that action has led me to rethink how I'm handling my trash and to create some new goals for myself.

So another one of my goals for this year is to immediately and significantly reduce the volume of trash I put into my trash can every week.  My usual volume is about two grocery bags each week.  But half of that is chicken bones from making bone broth, and there is also used cat litter from my 3 cats.  Both of those can be composted, it just requires a different process than the yard waste style of compost pile.

There is a whole belief system around composting and people discuss it at great length and even disagree about it.  But here's my belief.  If it's food, and it's done correctly, even if it's meat, bone, dairy and fat, it will break down.  The same should be true for most of what I throw into the trash.  I buy very few things that aren't biodegradable.  It just requires an adjustment in what becomes natural for me to do.

I will be writing about this from time to time, as I discover what is possible.  For now my new indoor trash can is a yogurt cup.  My daily goal is to only generate enough non biodegradable trash to fill that cup, and no more.  As I experiment with this, I will reduce that amount if I can.  The real challenge will come when I begin to declutter.  Who knows what that will look like!

The Peepers

It snowed on The Peepers yesterday!  Both flocks went into their houses and stayed there the rest of the day.  But today it was much warmer, and they seemed happier.