Home for the Future

Over the winter Allan and I visited his mother in Toppenish, WA in Yakima County. She lives in a tiny city, right on the edge of town, practically across the street from some farmland. Right now the air is fragrant with mint! (It's generally fragrant with something, and mint is a real pleasure compared to fertilizer.)

The house next door came up for sale because the previous resident, Alma, passed away at 98 years old. I suggested we buy it and rent it to a family until we're ready to retire in 9 or so years. So we did! It is just the thing we had been hoping to do here on the west side of the Cascades, but haven't been able to. This way we'll be nearby if his mother needs us, but not in her home or she in ours. Unlike my humungous extended family, Allan's family is quite small and the support for Grandma is limited. 

The sale was final on June 17, and we went over, cleaned it up, and rented it. Our craigslist ad drew about 20 calls in the first 3 hours, so we took it down at around noon. There aren't enough rentals in Toppenish for the people who need homes. We are feeling very blessed. 

Trying My Hand at Whole Wheat Sourdough

 I have talked about it a bit, but I had a bad, bad experience with homemade sourdough bread. When I was in 7^th grade my mother, in her eccentric wannabe hippy days, decided to expose us kids to the Sourdough Experience.

You have to understand—I had really only eaten the low-end white bread for my entire life up to this point. It wasn't bad (to me), either, except for the pbj absorption problem with school lunches. But I digress.

I'm not sure why sourdough—although, come to think of it, sourdough was less work and expense than other traditional artisan loaves. [Nowadays “artisan” is a compliment.] But there were definitely some problems with our Sourdough Experience.

The first was the bread pan—it was too big for the amount of dough placed therein. After the big rise, the bread reached about halfway up the pan. This made for a decidedly short slice of bread—maybe 1 ½ inches. The sandwich made with this bread was an impractical size and the proportion of bread-to-crust was off. Plus it didn't fit into the baggie very well.

The second problem was the texture of the bread, along with the color. It was, well, transparent. I think it may have been that the dough was too moist, but whatever the issue, the bread was kind of see-through. And kind of a pale grayish whitish blueish. It was neither appealing to the eye, nor appetizing.

The third problem was that it was really, really sour. Our former sandwich bread was pretty much tasteless, so that made it inoffensive. Not so with Mom's sourdough. It was extremely offensive to the olfactory sense, my own and my classmates' as well.

Silly-looking, transparent, and smelly. But wait, there's more.

It freezes nicely!!

Peanut butter and jam, the lunchtime fare, does not go well with sourdough. Today I might try a savory combination of peanut butter and pickles or something like that on sourdough, or even something meaty. Pbj just didn't work with Mom's sourdough.

In my first marriage my husband always talked about his friend's great homemade sourdough bread, he just couldn't get enough of it. But I relived the traumatic 7^th grade year of lunches every time he brought it up. I knew in my head that there was good sourdough out there, but I just couldn't embrace the concept then, it being so fresh in my memory.

See recipe: myfamilyrecipes.livejournal.com

And then, just 40 years after the trauma (Really! That was 1972!), my friend Liz came along. Liz loves real food. And she makes all the bread for her family of 9: whole wheat sourdough. I got her recipe and method in October, when I had my broken ankle and couldn't entertain the thought of making anything, including the bed. Her instructions (she had taught a class) were so thorough and easy to follow that I couldn't resist the inner challenge. In April I went ahead and got some starter from Liz, and off I went.

Great slices--sandwiches look appetizing.

The first loaves were fine, but a little short—though not too wide because I appropriately used an 8”x4” pan. And when I offered some to my son, Zach, and his wife, Julie, I explained that it wasn't that great, not what you may expect, a little heavy, not like at the store, she chastized me: “It tastes just like sourdough, don't sell yourself short!” (God bless her.) And the rest of the family ate it all up.

And now I am a seasoned whole wheat sourdough maker!! And it's good! And pretty! With great color and a delicious crunchy and satisfying crust! And it makes excellent toast. 

Would you care for some starter?

Useful Pioneer Skills: Laundry

I was asked to do a mini-lesson on the pioneer skill of laundry-without-electricity that is helpful when the power goes out for an extended period of time. I know that most of us have so many clothes that we could go quite a long time before having to launder our clothes, but in the end this is a wonderful skill to have practiced.

I consulted one of my favorite sources for this, although the author grew up in The Depression, not pioneer times. But, when you think about it, The Depression was something of a return to old-time thrift and practicality. To put it mildly.

What's different from old-time washing and newfangled laundry practices? To be honest, it's about time and labor. With the modern labor-saving washing machine and dryer, there's not much to doing the washing. Throw the clothes and soap in, start the machine, and come back in 45 minutes to fresh-smelling, clean clothes. Toss them in the dryer, and come back in, say, an hour and your fresh-smelling clean clothes are perfectly dry and ready to be folded and put away.

Not so in the olden days. First of all, they didn't have/wear as many clothes as we have now. Often, they wore the same clothing every day for a week and used things like aprons to keep them presentable and protected from all the dust and dirt that could get on them. Men had removable/disposable collars for their shirts, or wore them without in country or in casual settings. (I just read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which was a reminder.)

Here's another difference between then and now. When laundry day rolled around, the clothes were sorted. The whites, like underthings, were put into the huge pot of nearly boiling water first. After these were cleaned and removed, the next least-dirty linens and clothes were added to this very same hot water, until finally the men's tough and filthy overalls were the final users of the hot water. [In the olden days something similar was done with bath water, too, only going from grown-ups down the row of kids. Glad I wasn't the baby!]

So, in an emergency or crisis, we may consider using fewer articles of clothing between washings, as well as economizing on water and fuel.

Anyhow, when I got the call to give this little class, I decided to do all my kitchen linens (we use cloth napkins exclusively, as well as kitchen towels and old t-shirt pieces in lieu of paper towels) by hand in order to put my ideas on pioneer/hand laundering to the test.

There was an awesome video that I looked at that really gives wonderful, quick instruction on how to include hand-washing practices and supplies in an emergency preparedness kit.  http://54thward.blogspot.com/2013/02/doing-your-laundry-in-emergency.html There was also a great blog post from a young woman living in VietNam, where it is the usual practice to do your own laundry every few days by hand. http://www.peakprosperity.com/wsidblog/81810/doing-laundry-less

Doing Laundry by Hand

Here are the supplies you need:

• 5-gallon bucket with lid; lid has 1” hole drilled through the center
• Rubber toilet plunger (preferably clean!) with various 1” holes drilled in it
• Cleaning agent (detergent or soap) of your choice
• Water (ideally hot for wash, cold for rinse)

Here's how you do it:

Place clothing to wash in the empty 5-gallon bucket. Cover with hot water and add cleaning agent. Put plunger in and top with lid for bucket. Move plunger up and down, butter-churn style, agitating clothing for desired amount of time. [My normal washing machine time for agitating is 10 minutes.That is a LONG time!]

Empty out hot water and squeeze excess water out of each piece of clothing. There are a variety of ways to do this, including putting them through the presser of a mop bucket or wringing them out with your hands. If the clothes are really light weight you can even use something like a salad spinner. I also read and tried a method of drilling holes in yet another 5 gallon bucket and throwing the wet clothes in and squeezing out the water by sitting on a lidded bucket nested inside the holey one.

Rinse clothing by putting them in the bucket, covering them with cold water, replacing the plunger in the bucket, and replacing the lid. Agitate. You may do another rinse as well.

Again, empty out water and squeeze excess water out of clothing. Hang to dry!

Now drying is another whole thing. You can hang them on the line like Grandma did. They can be hung on hangers and lines set up in the house, which is something to think about if it's winter or you live in a rainy climate. You may have a handy drying-rack. In Little Heathens she suggests laying 2x2 pieces of wood across a couple of chairs and using them for hanging bars, and then using the wood for quilting frames when they're needed. 

  Years ago (in the 1990s) we visited a family near Bristol, England. In their kitchen was their underwear hanging on a line. Where we ate our dinner! I learned that in England and other places in Europe (but not all!)  middle-class families don't buy dryers, and that wash hanging in the kitchen is as normal as having a stove or a sink in there.

When would this skill come in handy? When could you practice the nearly-lost skill of washing clothes by hand? Anytime! Not that I want to, but my little practice with the kitchen laundry has been helpful in making me consider this topic. I am thinking that doing the laundry by hand when you're camping or something like that would be a good time to teach children and practice hanging even their beach towels on a clothesline.

How Happy are You?

(I wrote this a couple weeks ago.)

Last night I was hanging around some sisters from my ward at church, having a great time eating snacks and playing cards and talking and talking, and one of the sisters stated that she hated this stage of her life. Another chimed in that she agreed.

There were 6 of us altogether. I find it interesting that these dissatisfied women were the only 2 in the group that hadn't had their family ravaged through divorce or the death of a spouse. They have both been through a lot, but, then again, who hasn't been through a lot by the time their in their 50s and beyond? They both have all their children in functional situations, and both are financially stable. Let me tell you, I think if I were in either of their situations, I would be enjoying this stage of my life even more!

Because, even though they are my peers and I enjoy their company so much, I am definitely enjoying this stage of my life. I did love it (in some ways) while my children were small—in fact, having and raising my children was very fulfilling for me. That time brought me so much joy, even in a sporadically dysfunctional marriage. And, good for me, that I can say that. I remember being acquainted with people who DIDN'T find that time happy. (Even my own former mother-in-law said she had hated being a mother—which explains a lot about my family's dysfunction!) But I must say I look back on the time my children were small with joy and fondness, along with relief that I got through it.

Reflecting on the years I was single young adult, creating myself and the life I would have, going to school and working at jobs with people I would have never met in my academic life. Those were marvelous years, full of adventure and beauty and growth, and most of all HOPE.

And even the time between my marriages was full of optimistic expectancy, new excitement, self-expression through working outside the home, and other benefits and, well, fun.

I just finished a book called THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, by Gretchen Rubin. She is a 30-something woman, married, full-time writer and mother of 2 who realized she wasn't as happy as she thought she should or could be. She worked for a whole year on being a happier person, with goals and a chart and much record-keeping, and found herself happier after that year. One of the reasons I loved this book is that Gretchen knew that the secret to happiness was to work from the inside of herself to make changes (and some were DIFFICULT!) that would make the quality of her relationships and daily living more happy.

And it worked!!

Like Gretchen, I know I can be a happier person if I change some of the things I am doing in my life, although I find this time of life, with all its changes, unpredictability, and challenges interesting.

My children are (virtually) grown up and finding their places in the world. I have great relationships with some of my children and good relationships with the rest. My husband and I are creating a new life together that doesn't ALWAYS have to center on the needs of our offspring first. And, although we aren't as financially stable as some of our peers who were not devastated by divorce, career upsets, or the economy, we are looking ahead toward retirement and planning how to live our dreams for that time with hopeful anticipation. And living other dreams right now.

And I am totally enjoying grandchildren and all they bring to my life. All of mine are close, so it's easy to relish my experience with them. As children join our family who live far, far away, I am sure it will be a little more challenging to stay connected and have those same great relationships. But I have had good role models in that, and am looking forward to it.

As for my body, the changes, aches and pains, and unpredictability never leave me with a dull moment. I enjoyed the book YOUNGER NEXT YEAR, with its enthusiastic and knowledgeable authors so much. It has given me promise that the quality of my life now and in the future years can be just as good (maybe even better) than it has in the past at times. Why shouldn't my body do for me what it was created to do in these future years just as well as it has in the past?

I received a voice mail last night from a friend in California, near where I grew up. Her oldest son committed suicide yesterday, and her family is, of course, devastated. As I mourn for her and with her, I realize that our world is such a hard place to stay sometimes, and that there is despair almost everywhere you look. But we are created with resilience, too, and a capacity for joy and happiness within this world of dark times and experiences. Happiness comes from doing things that make us feel good about ourselves, doing right, and growing.

I feel grateful for this time in my life to explore new paths, discover new relationships, and strengthen old relationships. My life has been such a gift, so rich with people and experiences, and hope for the future.

What do you do in your life to increase your daily and long-term joy and happiness? I am thinking about doing my own full-blown HAPPINESS PROJECT. Would anyone care to join me?

Christmas Traditions

As Christmas approaches, I have been thinking about traditions our family has created and carried on. There aren't many, it seems, and yet--there are.

We have a tree. I didn't really feel like putting it up, but was out-voted. It's up, colorful, and mood-lifting on these dark days here. We have gifts. I have been focusing on a less materialistic attitude, and yet want to commemorate the season with some things.

I find the music of the season really enjoyable, so have attended a number of musical events. Fortunately we still have children in school bands and such. And I must say, a college concert is fantastic! We enjoyed a sign-language Christmas concert last night in our local school district. It's also a real treat to listen to my favorite Pandora holiday stations along with the music I have collected through the years.

Putting some energy into giving to others outside our family is something we work at, too. This has been more of a quiet activity within the family as children have grown up and started their adult lives.

In the past we have made special treats, decorated gingerbread houses and cookies, and done other sweet activities together. But as things have changed, so has the emphasis of our celebrating. I really appreciate this time of year, and the light and good cheer and attitude of goodwill and hope this season seems to perpetuate.

People are nicer! If I stay out of the terribly congested parking lots of the mega-shopping-centers, strangers just seem kinder and more light-hearted.

What about you? What are your favorite traditions of the season?

My Mall Experience

I don't go to the mall very often. Why, you ask? Well, I don't usually buy much, or at least not there. But this past Friday a young friend and I wanted to spend some time together, and she felt like getting a little Christmas shopping done, so off we went.

Thanks Silverdale Chamber of Commerce for the photo.

Luckily my friend, whom I will call Karen, knew just the things she wanted, and in which store they were. We parked, went straight to the proper section, and Karen searched for her prospective gifts. I helped her with sizes, colors and styles for a while, but she seemed to have everything under control. So I stood around for a few minutes. I noticed some shirts that were a good price, gorgeous colors this year, and nice and long, like I prefer. Suddenly I believed I "could use" a few shirts like these. I held back, though.

Selections in hand, Karen and I went and looked through the mundane, useful item I thought I would get for a loved one for Christmas. It was a little more expensive than I would usually prefer, but the quality and quantity and country of origin were acceptable. We made our purchases and decided what to do next.

We had passed some purses that were really cute, so we looked at them for a while, killing time before leaving the mall to go to dinner. The more I looked at a particular style of bag, the more I wanted one. (These specific ones were nearly $100, not something I would ever seriously consider.) The shape was really pleasing, and the colors were so appealing; so many to choose from! Oh, well, off to dinner.

I haven't stopped thinking about those bags, not because I am going to buy one, but because I liked them so much. I won't feel very good about myself if I get one, but the fact that their style and color and presentation in the store were so very attractive is something I am giving a lot of attention.

I suppose the moral of the story is that I know material things don't make me happy. And that marketers and other people who want to get some of our money work from the perspective that material things (that they are carrying in their retail centers) will make us happy until we come to the mall next time.

So--why was I so enthralled with the purses, anyway? I believe it's because my current one isn't really meeting my needs. I have some choices here: 1. Find one in my closet that will work (I have a few in there); 2. Get one second-hand (totally in my value system if I really NEED it); 3. Make one.

Are you an impulse shopper, or a self-medicating-shopper? Where is your favorite place to shop? Do you have strategies to avoid getting too many things?

Stay tuned while I stay out of the mall.

And Happy Holidays!

Summer Winding Down

The evenings and night time have a bit of a bite these days, and there's a woodsmoke flavor in the air. Autumn is coming, and, as always, change is in the air. There has been a lot going on in our corner of the world, and here's some of it.

Allan has started work this week as an employee of the US Government at Keyport, Washington, just 8 minutes away. There are mixed feelings, but mostly relief on my end. We have learned some valuable lessons in the past 6 months of Allan's unemployment, and some important home chores have happened during that time, like an overhauled garage and exterior house painting.

Another blessing has been the birth of a new grandchild, Clayton Seeley Edmondson last week. He is healthy and seems happy to be in his lively family.

The garden has been growing well. I did a few experiments this year, like growing potatoes in plastic garbage cans (not a huge success, but we have lots of new potatoes) and growing squash and tomatoes in old tires (tomatoes relatively fruitful, squash, not so much). I have a number of spaghetti squash that need to ripen up, and more tomatoes to harvest. Also, I'll be planting lettuce and other greens today or tomorrow to get a jump on spring. There has been a paltry 18 lb of food harvested, but when I realize that much of that was salad greens, which take SO MUCH to make a pound, I am not as disappointed.

Other efforts in sustainable living are waxing and waning all the time. I am getting ready to set some new goals to have less impact on the earth, like sticking with reusable bags when shopping (if I shop at all!) and bring containers for leftovers in restaurants. Those things I can do 100%, unlike some of the other things that rely on family participation/buy-in that doesn't always happen when young adult children are living at home.

Our 6 laying hens (a slight misnomer) are doing fine in our backyard's expanded chicken coop. Only 2 are laying regularly, and they are the 2 I got in 2008. The new-to-me ones are not laying, but hopefully will be before I get frustrated and put them in the pot. Which I probably never would, unless I had to.

That's it for now, I will be adding photos soon.