What is it about children and couches? Is it just my children who cannot walk past a couch without upending a cushion, pitching a throw pillow, twirling an arm cover on one finger, or dragging the throw-blanket away for a superman cape? If there’s anything I regret most in this life it is buying a couch with unattached cushions. A day does not go by when I don’t have to track down and return some critical seat or back cushion for our couch. I will put the couch back in order and no more than leave the room before the cat appears wearing an arm cover as head piece or a child flies past me with a seat cushion strapped to his chest as a shield. I always know when my youngest has been messing with the stereo, not because of the sound but because of the huge stack of couch cushions positioned in front of the cabinet so that he can reach all the knobs. On the scale of life’s difficulties I know that replacing the cushions and washing the pillow covers once again is relatively low. But what drives me nuts is that I could have prevented this.
Parenting is all about prevention. Kids grow up, this is inevitable. Our job as parents is to create an atmosphere that is safe and sane and gives them enough freedom without turning ourselves in to shrews who are constantly yelling, “Why is the couch cushion on the swing set?” We need to be smart because kids’ brains are gaining on us every day. Prevention. I’m telling you that is the key. Buy couches with attached cushions. If you don’t want your kids watching 10 hours of TV a day, cut the cable (and break your own habit too). If that video game seems way to mature for kids, get it out of your house. You want your kids to read more? Don’t tell them to read, fill the bookshelves. Reduce the screen options. Kids won’t stay bored for long – I promise. Learn to say no. If you don’t want your kids to have it, then don’t give it to them. And for heaven’s sake, don’t fall for that “all the other kids are doing it” crap. My kids still don’t know how to play Nintendo and have no idea what a reality TV show is. And it’s not making them social pariahs. Just because so many kids out there are allowed to watch inappropriate adult television shows, play hours of violent video games and eat corn syrup sweetened diets and society shrugs their shoulders, doesn’t mean it’s OK. Whatever you decide is right for your kids, be clear with them because making no decision is certainly making a decision. Kids know this and they capitalize on it. Just remember - you don’t get another shot at raising your kids.
The same goes for eating healthy and organic. Of course kids aren’t going to choose the healthy choice if it’s stale and unappetizing and there are Transformer Fruit Snacks on the next shelf. If you don’t want your kids to eat things that aren’t good for them – don’t buy them. Don’t have them around. Fill your cabinets, fridge, and counter tops with healthy options. Fresh fruit, nuts, cheese, whole grain snack food, and yogurt should always be available. I left a bowl of freshly picked apricots out on the counter this weekend and my kids ate every last one by Monday morning. (Of course, I’m still finding pits all over the house too, but that’s the price I’ll pay.)
Think through what you really want for your kids in terms of lifestyle, habits, eating, and priorities. And take a hard look at your home – make the changes you need to make. Kids aren’t supposed to have all that impulse control mastered yet so we need to set them up to be successful. Sometimes teaching them about healthy choices means not having any unhealthy ones available. I look at it this way – I’ve only got a few years to have any influence on their lives and even fewer in which I can actually control much of their lives. I have to make the most of my time, my example, and my decisions now. Sure they may make all kinds of unhealthy choices the moment they set out on their own, but at least I’ll know the foundation I helped them build is strong and there is a good chance that some habits will be hard to break.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Just Bag It
So lets talk about bags. I know they seem boring and inconsequential, but in reality they have great impact on the quality of your life – or at least, your food (which is necessary for your life, so indirectly the bags affect your life). This year I’ve truly expanded my bag repertoire. That’s a sentence I never expected to write in this life (and probably not one you expected to read). I have bread bags, cheese bags, lettuce bags, potato bags, onion bags, and too many bags for recycling.
Let’s start with the potato and onion bags because that was my first venture outside of re-using the plastic grocery bags. I bought these bags from Current. I’ve recycled their catalog for years and rarely give it a parting glance, but on this occasion I was stranded at the bus stop holding the mail and the kindergarten bus was late. There was nothing else to do but leaf through the catalog. I discovered these bags in their clearance section so I don’t know for sure if they’re still available with Current, but I’m sure someone somewhere is selling them on the internet. The catalog claimed that these bags would keep your potatoes and onions from growing eyes and tails as potatoes and onions are prone to do if you don’t eat them quickly. They are heavy burlapy feeling bags that have a dark lining that keeps light out. They have a drawstring on one end and a small zipper entrance on the other. You place your potatoes in the potato bag and your onions in the onion bag. Aside form the cutesy drawing of potatoes and onions on the outside, I don’t see how the bags are any different. I’m not sure what made me order them in the first place, most likely it was the great clearance price. When I look back it seems very out of character for me to have ordered some cheesy bags from a wrapping paper catalog. At any rate, the bags work great so I’m glad I did. My mother looked at them and deduced that you could probably make your own, but I like to believe that these are one-of-a-kind bags with years of technology behind them. If you venture out and buy your own potato or onion bags, remember you should never store potatoes and onions together. They will make each other go bad. Even when they are in their own bags – keep them apart.
The next specialized bags I purchased were bread bags called Debbie Meyer Bread Bags. They came 10 in a box (including 2 extra long ones for French baguettes) and cost about $7. The box claimed to make bread last longer. Since I bake our bread and homemade bread tends to mold much faster than the preservative laden store bought bread, I was all about finding ways to make it last longer. The bread bags do seem to extend the life, but more importantly they are large enough to hold a bread machine loaf. With the bread bags, my bread will last about 4 or 5 days in the bread drawer and weeks in the refrigerator. I don’t have a huge mass of data on this because bread doesn’t typically last that long at our house without being eaten. I asked my dad the PhD Chemical Engineer why these bags that look like ordinary plastic bags would make bread last longer and he said it probably had something to do with the amount of oxygen in the plastic. Hmm. They do tear pretty easy so we’ve gone through a few. I bought our last box about four months ago and we’re down to about five bags now.
Cheese bags come from the same company as the bread bags. They are my newest addition to my bag collection. So far I do believe that cheese kept in these bags is not getting moldy. You do have to remove the wrapper the cheese comes in which makes it difficult to know which cheese is what if you have as many types in your fridge as I do. I find myself sniffing little blue cheese bags pretty regularly trying to identify the occupant.
I have tried the vegetable bags made by Ziploc and been unimpressed. Vegetables at my house either get eaten immediately or get lost in the back of the vegetable drawer never to seen from again until the drawer starts leaking nasty liquids and my husband cleans it out, muttering under his breath about people who stuff too much in the fridge. I am most happy with my own system which is to leave veggies in their original package if they come from the store and to eat or freeze them immediately if they come from my garden. Lettuce would be the only exception. Lettuce I wash, dry, and put in Ziploc bags with a dry paper towel. I think the specialized bags by Ziploc and hefty are just one more way to take our money and clog up our kitchen cabinets with unnecessary boxes of bags.
Which brings me to the gazillion plastic bags that manage to enter my house even though I carry my own bags to the store with me. I think that some day when they are digging up the remains of our civilization what they will find is plastic grocery bags. We are completely outnumbered by them. I just want to take the electronic space right here to say – recycle your plastic bags – ALL OF THEM. I know sometimes we get lazy and think “I’ll just throw away this one,” but don’t do it. Even the little plastic ones that individually wrap the gift card you bought or the plastic bags that held all the pieces for the game your kid just got for his birthday. All of these bags need to be recycled so that they don’t end up blowing around a parking lot somewhere, or suffocating a woodland creature or clogging up the drainage ditches. Instead they can become a deck or playground or whatever else the clever scientists are figuring out to do with them. So recycle your bags – develop your own system to make it easy. Buy or make a bag collecting bag or put a box in the bottom of your closet or pay your kids to recycle them, but find a way to do it. Because someday you don’t want the only thing our generation is remembered for to be a plethora of plastic bags.
Let’s start with the potato and onion bags because that was my first venture outside of re-using the plastic grocery bags. I bought these bags from Current. I’ve recycled their catalog for years and rarely give it a parting glance, but on this occasion I was stranded at the bus stop holding the mail and the kindergarten bus was late. There was nothing else to do but leaf through the catalog. I discovered these bags in their clearance section so I don’t know for sure if they’re still available with Current, but I’m sure someone somewhere is selling them on the internet. The catalog claimed that these bags would keep your potatoes and onions from growing eyes and tails as potatoes and onions are prone to do if you don’t eat them quickly. They are heavy burlapy feeling bags that have a dark lining that keeps light out. They have a drawstring on one end and a small zipper entrance on the other. You place your potatoes in the potato bag and your onions in the onion bag. Aside form the cutesy drawing of potatoes and onions on the outside, I don’t see how the bags are any different. I’m not sure what made me order them in the first place, most likely it was the great clearance price. When I look back it seems very out of character for me to have ordered some cheesy bags from a wrapping paper catalog. At any rate, the bags work great so I’m glad I did. My mother looked at them and deduced that you could probably make your own, but I like to believe that these are one-of-a-kind bags with years of technology behind them. If you venture out and buy your own potato or onion bags, remember you should never store potatoes and onions together. They will make each other go bad. Even when they are in their own bags – keep them apart.
The next specialized bags I purchased were bread bags called Debbie Meyer Bread Bags. They came 10 in a box (including 2 extra long ones for French baguettes) and cost about $7. The box claimed to make bread last longer. Since I bake our bread and homemade bread tends to mold much faster than the preservative laden store bought bread, I was all about finding ways to make it last longer. The bread bags do seem to extend the life, but more importantly they are large enough to hold a bread machine loaf. With the bread bags, my bread will last about 4 or 5 days in the bread drawer and weeks in the refrigerator. I don’t have a huge mass of data on this because bread doesn’t typically last that long at our house without being eaten. I asked my dad the PhD Chemical Engineer why these bags that look like ordinary plastic bags would make bread last longer and he said it probably had something to do with the amount of oxygen in the plastic. Hmm. They do tear pretty easy so we’ve gone through a few. I bought our last box about four months ago and we’re down to about five bags now.
Cheese bags come from the same company as the bread bags. They are my newest addition to my bag collection. So far I do believe that cheese kept in these bags is not getting moldy. You do have to remove the wrapper the cheese comes in which makes it difficult to know which cheese is what if you have as many types in your fridge as I do. I find myself sniffing little blue cheese bags pretty regularly trying to identify the occupant.
I have tried the vegetable bags made by Ziploc and been unimpressed. Vegetables at my house either get eaten immediately or get lost in the back of the vegetable drawer never to seen from again until the drawer starts leaking nasty liquids and my husband cleans it out, muttering under his breath about people who stuff too much in the fridge. I am most happy with my own system which is to leave veggies in their original package if they come from the store and to eat or freeze them immediately if they come from my garden. Lettuce would be the only exception. Lettuce I wash, dry, and put in Ziploc bags with a dry paper towel. I think the specialized bags by Ziploc and hefty are just one more way to take our money and clog up our kitchen cabinets with unnecessary boxes of bags.
Which brings me to the gazillion plastic bags that manage to enter my house even though I carry my own bags to the store with me. I think that some day when they are digging up the remains of our civilization what they will find is plastic grocery bags. We are completely outnumbered by them. I just want to take the electronic space right here to say – recycle your plastic bags – ALL OF THEM. I know sometimes we get lazy and think “I’ll just throw away this one,” but don’t do it. Even the little plastic ones that individually wrap the gift card you bought or the plastic bags that held all the pieces for the game your kid just got for his birthday. All of these bags need to be recycled so that they don’t end up blowing around a parking lot somewhere, or suffocating a woodland creature or clogging up the drainage ditches. Instead they can become a deck or playground or whatever else the clever scientists are figuring out to do with them. So recycle your bags – develop your own system to make it easy. Buy or make a bag collecting bag or put a box in the bottom of your closet or pay your kids to recycle them, but find a way to do it. Because someday you don’t want the only thing our generation is remembered for to be a plethora of plastic bags.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
More Eco-friendly Cleaning Ideas
My husband and I are in the midst of a huge project. We’re building a deck and screened in porch. It seemed like a great idea on paper and in my mind’s eye, but it’s bigger than the both of us. It’s so big that after a week of full time work, we had to call in some reinforcements in the person of Nick’s best childhood friend. I’ve been sidelined for the time being as the two of them carefully construct a roof that is several stories off the ground. That’s fine with me, but my excuse for the mess inside the house is gone. Back to cleaning, or as it is, digging out.
Two of my favorite cleaners are vinegar and baking soda. They both have different purposes, but sometimes I get a little over the top in my cleaning efforts and I’ve combined their forces. Recently I learned that’s not such a good idea. It renders them both ineffective. Vinegar is an acid and baking soda is alkaline, so the ingredients neutralize each other. Not that I would have remembered any of those terms from my high school chemistry class. I found this information in an old issue of Body & Soul magazine.
The article suggested dissolving 1 teaspoon of baking soda in hot water in a clean spray bottle and adding a squirt of castile soap. This spray makes a potent, all-purpose cleanser for baseboards, tabletops, and other hard surfaces and it will last several months.
I like to use vinegar and water to clean windows and mirrors, but when I share this advice with others, I’ve been told it leaves streaks. Turns out the streaks are not from the vinegar, they’re from build up created by commercial window cleaners. To get rid of the residue, add a dab of liquid castile soap to ¼ cup vinegar and 1 cup water in a clean spray bottle. After you rid your windows of the buildup you can go back to vinegar and water for regular cleaning. The article also mentioned that the residue left by commercial cleaners may contain 2-Butoxyethanol, a suspected hormone disrupter that could cause developmental and reproductive problems. Just one more reason to get rid of the commercial cleaning agents.
I leafed through some of my old notes from my early days of cleaning organically and found a couple helpful things –
1. Hydrogen peroxide is good for bathroom mold. Leave it on for an hour to let it eat away at the mold and do its job and then wipe it off.
2. If the vinegar smell bothers you, you can mix it with natural oils such as lavender or lemon.
3. Tea cleans hardwood floors and woodwork. (I’d forgotten this one and have never tried it, but I plan to.)
4. Baking soda is great for cleaning electric ovens.
5. Borax works well on walls and floors and for any general purpose cleaning job.
6. Sprinkle baking soda on carpet, let sit 15 minutes and then vacuum to freshen carpet.
7. “Grubby corners – Mix hydrogen peroxide with baking soda, let sit for one hour, spray out.” (I’m guessing that this note refers to bathroom tub corners, but I suppose it would work on any corner. I’m also guessing that you “spray out” with water. It seemed important at the time.)
Tomorrow me and my impact drill are needed back on the job site, thank goodness. So I’ll be off the hook again on the cleaning. Meanwhile, I’m going to look for some grubby corners. If you’ve got any great cleaning tips, please let me know. I’m always looking for ways to do things better, cheaper, and easier.
Two of my favorite cleaners are vinegar and baking soda. They both have different purposes, but sometimes I get a little over the top in my cleaning efforts and I’ve combined their forces. Recently I learned that’s not such a good idea. It renders them both ineffective. Vinegar is an acid and baking soda is alkaline, so the ingredients neutralize each other. Not that I would have remembered any of those terms from my high school chemistry class. I found this information in an old issue of Body & Soul magazine.
The article suggested dissolving 1 teaspoon of baking soda in hot water in a clean spray bottle and adding a squirt of castile soap. This spray makes a potent, all-purpose cleanser for baseboards, tabletops, and other hard surfaces and it will last several months.
I like to use vinegar and water to clean windows and mirrors, but when I share this advice with others, I’ve been told it leaves streaks. Turns out the streaks are not from the vinegar, they’re from build up created by commercial window cleaners. To get rid of the residue, add a dab of liquid castile soap to ¼ cup vinegar and 1 cup water in a clean spray bottle. After you rid your windows of the buildup you can go back to vinegar and water for regular cleaning. The article also mentioned that the residue left by commercial cleaners may contain 2-Butoxyethanol, a suspected hormone disrupter that could cause developmental and reproductive problems. Just one more reason to get rid of the commercial cleaning agents.
I leafed through some of my old notes from my early days of cleaning organically and found a couple helpful things –
1. Hydrogen peroxide is good for bathroom mold. Leave it on for an hour to let it eat away at the mold and do its job and then wipe it off.
2. If the vinegar smell bothers you, you can mix it with natural oils such as lavender or lemon.
3. Tea cleans hardwood floors and woodwork. (I’d forgotten this one and have never tried it, but I plan to.)
4. Baking soda is great for cleaning electric ovens.
5. Borax works well on walls and floors and for any general purpose cleaning job.
6. Sprinkle baking soda on carpet, let sit 15 minutes and then vacuum to freshen carpet.
7. “Grubby corners – Mix hydrogen peroxide with baking soda, let sit for one hour, spray out.” (I’m guessing that this note refers to bathroom tub corners, but I suppose it would work on any corner. I’m also guessing that you “spray out” with water. It seemed important at the time.)
Tomorrow me and my impact drill are needed back on the job site, thank goodness. So I’ll be off the hook again on the cleaning. Meanwhile, I’m going to look for some grubby corners. If you’ve got any great cleaning tips, please let me know. I’m always looking for ways to do things better, cheaper, and easier.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Grass is Always Greener
Let’s talk about grass. Really. I spend up to five or six hours a month on the lawn mower and I’m only the second string grass cutter in this house. My time is mostly spent in the pasture as the ponies just cannot keep up this time of year. Anyway, as I go around and around and ponder how major league ballparks get those amazing patterns in their grass, I also think about the lawns I run past that have the little warning signs sticking up saying this lawn has recently had a treatment of some kind – a chemical treatment. It’s kind of sad that any lawn wouldn’t be safe for your children to roll around on, but beyond that it’s really not so great for your lawn.
Here’s what happens when you start treating your lawn with chemicals – you can’t stop. Because if you do, your chemically dependent grass will not grow. It becomes like an addict and without its regular dose of chemicals it will wither up and die. I’m not kidding. How do you think all those companies stay in business? They get you hooked and then if you decide maybe you don’t want to do the chemical thing anymore and you stop, the grass has become so weak on it’s own it struggles and you run to your phone because the grass looked so much better when you were paying someone lots of money to dump toxic chemicals on it. Like lots of bad habits, once you start it’s really hard to stop. The biodiversity in your lawn is also destroyed so that all your little grass leaves look exactly alike – whichever brand of grass looks prettiest and grows uniformly. A few years ago we had a terrible drought around here and just about everyone’s lawn withered up and turned brown all over. Not ours. Since we have never taken offense at a few weed-like shapes amongst our grass, the hardiest breeds survived and kept our grass greener than brown.
Want to know why else you shouldn’t be treating your grass with chemical fertilizers and weed killers? Because it’s only good for the grass – it’s not good for the air, the soil, the water supply, the pets, or the children. Just how badly do you need that perfectly green lawn? Try some natural compost or fertilizer. There are lots of them out there and more companies are developing them every day as people are getting smarter and saner about caring for their lawns. Gardens Alive is a company that has been doing this for awhile and has a very educational catalog. We’ve used many of their products and never been disappointed. You can see their products and order a catalog of your own at www.gardensalive.com. If you’re ready to kick the chemically habit their website is a great place to start, but there’s lot of other information online.
Nematodes are another great addition for your grass. I’m not clear on exactly what they are. I thought they were a fungus, but a quick web search turned up this statement: “Nematodes are the most numerous multicellular animals on earth,” so maybe their more than a fungus. Anyway, they’re sold by the million, so whatever they are they’re really small. The kind we bought looked like powder and you simply mixed them with water and sprayed it on the grass. We applied them to combat Japanese beetles, which they’ve done beautifully. What they do is kill the grubs before they become beetles. The catalog also says they attack nearly every type of soil-dwelling garden pest, so maybe we’ve eliminated other problems too. I like them because they’re naturally occurring, they don’t effect the health of my soil, and the effect they have lasts all year and beyond. Simple chemical free solution.
Oh! But here’s what I really wanted to say - DON’T BAG YOUR GRASS CLIPPINGS! Seriously. Don’t do it. The clippings are wonderful mulch and fertilizer for your grass and will help protect and promote its health. I don’t understand why anyone would pick up the clippings – it’s a bother to do it in the first place and in the second place it’s not good for your grass. So you track some grass in the house – big deal. Leave the clippings where they lie. But if you must collect your clippings because you have some kind of compulsive disorder (or your spouse does), please, please, please don’t pack them in plastic bags and send them to the land fill. Grass clippings are great fertilizer, mulch, and can be composted. Find a use for them or pawn them off on your organic neighbors (unless you chemically treat your grass which isn’t good either – see above).
Another suggestion – try not to cut your grass so often. Lawn mowers are not good for the environment, plus how much fun is it anyway? Maybe I only think it isn’t fun because I’m a woman. Men seem to get a kick out of mowing the lawn. I believe my husband likes to cut the grass as his own quiet time (which is kind of ironic since the noise of the mower could be making him even more hard of hearing). Still, I would suggest that you cut it as short as you can and then let it go for awhile. This time of year we get away with cutting only every 10-14 days. There are earthier people than me who would say the best thing to do is let your grass go. Cultivate a natural look. I’m not ready for that. I dislike ticks and wet socks too much. I’ll keep cutting, but someday I might get there, who knows. In the meantime I will keep claiming more and more of our lawn for my gardens.
I know there were a few other points I wanted to make about grass. I think of these things while I’m mowing and never have a notepad with me on the mower, so I’m sure there’s more things I want to rant about but they’ll have to wait for a later post. It still hasn’t rained in our neck of the woods, so I might be able to skip the mowing altogether this weekend. Which is good because I’ve got better things to do - like hit the Book Bonanza.
If you live in the York area, don’t miss the Book Nook Bonanza at Suburban Middle School– best used book sale all year this Friday and Saturday. Bring your bags and wear comfortable shoes because you could be there for hours. It’s huge.
Here’s what happens when you start treating your lawn with chemicals – you can’t stop. Because if you do, your chemically dependent grass will not grow. It becomes like an addict and without its regular dose of chemicals it will wither up and die. I’m not kidding. How do you think all those companies stay in business? They get you hooked and then if you decide maybe you don’t want to do the chemical thing anymore and you stop, the grass has become so weak on it’s own it struggles and you run to your phone because the grass looked so much better when you were paying someone lots of money to dump toxic chemicals on it. Like lots of bad habits, once you start it’s really hard to stop. The biodiversity in your lawn is also destroyed so that all your little grass leaves look exactly alike – whichever brand of grass looks prettiest and grows uniformly. A few years ago we had a terrible drought around here and just about everyone’s lawn withered up and turned brown all over. Not ours. Since we have never taken offense at a few weed-like shapes amongst our grass, the hardiest breeds survived and kept our grass greener than brown.
Want to know why else you shouldn’t be treating your grass with chemical fertilizers and weed killers? Because it’s only good for the grass – it’s not good for the air, the soil, the water supply, the pets, or the children. Just how badly do you need that perfectly green lawn? Try some natural compost or fertilizer. There are lots of them out there and more companies are developing them every day as people are getting smarter and saner about caring for their lawns. Gardens Alive is a company that has been doing this for awhile and has a very educational catalog. We’ve used many of their products and never been disappointed. You can see their products and order a catalog of your own at www.gardensalive.com. If you’re ready to kick the chemically habit their website is a great place to start, but there’s lot of other information online.
Nematodes are another great addition for your grass. I’m not clear on exactly what they are. I thought they were a fungus, but a quick web search turned up this statement: “Nematodes are the most numerous multicellular animals on earth,” so maybe their more than a fungus. Anyway, they’re sold by the million, so whatever they are they’re really small. The kind we bought looked like powder and you simply mixed them with water and sprayed it on the grass. We applied them to combat Japanese beetles, which they’ve done beautifully. What they do is kill the grubs before they become beetles. The catalog also says they attack nearly every type of soil-dwelling garden pest, so maybe we’ve eliminated other problems too. I like them because they’re naturally occurring, they don’t effect the health of my soil, and the effect they have lasts all year and beyond. Simple chemical free solution.
Oh! But here’s what I really wanted to say - DON’T BAG YOUR GRASS CLIPPINGS! Seriously. Don’t do it. The clippings are wonderful mulch and fertilizer for your grass and will help protect and promote its health. I don’t understand why anyone would pick up the clippings – it’s a bother to do it in the first place and in the second place it’s not good for your grass. So you track some grass in the house – big deal. Leave the clippings where they lie. But if you must collect your clippings because you have some kind of compulsive disorder (or your spouse does), please, please, please don’t pack them in plastic bags and send them to the land fill. Grass clippings are great fertilizer, mulch, and can be composted. Find a use for them or pawn them off on your organic neighbors (unless you chemically treat your grass which isn’t good either – see above).
Another suggestion – try not to cut your grass so often. Lawn mowers are not good for the environment, plus how much fun is it anyway? Maybe I only think it isn’t fun because I’m a woman. Men seem to get a kick out of mowing the lawn. I believe my husband likes to cut the grass as his own quiet time (which is kind of ironic since the noise of the mower could be making him even more hard of hearing). Still, I would suggest that you cut it as short as you can and then let it go for awhile. This time of year we get away with cutting only every 10-14 days. There are earthier people than me who would say the best thing to do is let your grass go. Cultivate a natural look. I’m not ready for that. I dislike ticks and wet socks too much. I’ll keep cutting, but someday I might get there, who knows. In the meantime I will keep claiming more and more of our lawn for my gardens.
I know there were a few other points I wanted to make about grass. I think of these things while I’m mowing and never have a notepad with me on the mower, so I’m sure there’s more things I want to rant about but they’ll have to wait for a later post. It still hasn’t rained in our neck of the woods, so I might be able to skip the mowing altogether this weekend. Which is good because I’ve got better things to do - like hit the Book Bonanza.
If you live in the York area, don’t miss the Book Nook Bonanza at Suburban Middle School– best used book sale all year this Friday and Saturday. Bring your bags and wear comfortable shoes because you could be there for hours. It’s huge.
Monday, June 22, 2009
It's Time To Party!
It’s party time at our house. June is full of birthdays (5), Father’s Day, and end of year activities, not to mention an anniversary. So it seems like there is always a party to have or a party to attend. This weekend there were two parties to attend and one big party to host. We celebrated my youngest son’s birthday with a feast of the Knights of the Oblong Table, complete with scooter jousting, Hippity-Hop Ball duels, and a full fledge battle involving pool noodles and cardboard castles. By the end of the evening, everyone was stuffed with artificially flavored and colored treats, exhausted from hippity-hopping on our hills, filthy from head to toe, and maybe a little sore after the rigors of battle. Good party. I’m just glad it’s over for a few weeks, then on to the annual Fourth of July Barbeque.
Admittedly, it’s very hard to have an organic party. I don’t even try to substitute on the treats. I take the kid-to-be-honored to the store, walk down the snack aisle and let them have at it. But I also served watermelon and cantaloupe balls served in a watermelon half (presentation is everything when you want kids to eat something healthy). The punch was made from organic juices. Carrot sticks and dip, strawberries, and orange slices are other offerings that can tempt the junior palate, especially after a rousing hippity hop battle. My advice to those of you trying to serve healthy food at kids parties is to split the difference. Let them have the snacks they beg for all year long, but counter that with some great looking healthy options. The kids at our feast yesterday pigged out on the watermelon balls. I gave them toothpicks to eat with and they loved it. We served the watermelon, cantaloupe, and carrots before we brought out the chips and pizza. When it comes to getting them to eat healthy, you just need a good plan. It worked because after eating all the fruit, seven kids only made a dent in the Doritos bag. Their bellies were full with fiber rich fruit.
Here’s a couple other ideas for keeping parties kid-friendly, semi-organic, and healthy:
1. Buy a huge set of plastic plates with dividers, bowls, and cups. We bought our sets at Wal-Mart in blue, yellow, pink, and green. They only cost $1 for 10, so we now have service for 80 if necessary and I always have a color to match the theme of whatever party we’re throwing, whether it’s a pink princess party (yellow and pink) or a race car party (blue and green). This weekend my little knight chose blue and yellow as his kingdom’s colors. No one misses the theme decorated paper plates that cost $4.50 for 8. Plus it’s much nicer to eat on plastic than paper. We’ve discovered that we can even wash our plasticware in the dishwasher if we set it on the “fine china” setting and use “energy-saver dry”. I know I’ve saved lots of money on unbought paper goods, plus this is much better for the environment.
2. We did the same thing with utensils. We found cheap utensils again at Wal-Mart at just $1 for eight and bought service for 40 for $5. These utensils also get packed in kids’ lunches when necessary since Mom won’t freak out if they slip up and toss them in the trash barrel.
3. Have your party at home. I know it seems easier to go to Chuck-E-Cheese, but it’s definitely more expensive and much harder to truly celebrate your kid. Sure the big mouse sings to them, but after that the kids are scattered all over celebrating the token-bound games and might not even see your kid until the end when their parent forces them to track you down to say thank you. Consider having a smaller party at your house – there are endless ideas to be found on the internet. Winter birthday can be harder, but get creative and keep the numbers down. No one needs that many presents anyway. Or ask a relative with a bigger house to host the party. Just like presents - it's the thought that counts. You don't need to blow the bank on a birthday party for a six year old. Keep it simple and get creative.
4. You don’t need prizes. I have never given prizes at birthday parties and kids don’t miss them. It’s just fun to play the games. We almost always have a piñata so they go home with candy no matter what. Prizes seem to make one kid happy, but other kids sad. Best to skip the cost and stress altogether.
5. Give a real gift instead of a goodie bag full of junk. In the end you spend nearly $4 or $5 on each bag of junk, so instead of a bag full of made-in-China plastic crap, pick out something nice the kids can take home. We’ve given away Beach Balls (let all the kids sign them), shovel and pail (decorate the pail), Flashlights (bonfire party), and this time – pool noodles (after being utilized as swords). None of those gifts cost more than $2 or $3, so I saved money and the kids had something useful to take home. If you need an idea, go to the dollar store – you’ll find something.
6. The younger the kids are the more planned activities you need. Once they get older (say 7), you need to build in some free play too, but when they are young remember the best defense is a good offense and have a plan with more activities than you think you’ll need. There are a lot of people with too much time on their hands posting a gazillion birthday party ideas, games, cakes, and themes on line. Just google "kids birthday party ideas" - you'll find more than you need (and be amazed and grateful that people actually post this stuff!).
7. Take a picture of each guest (actually take 2 or 3 because someone’s always got their eyes closed or their finger up their nose) and use the picture to make a thank you note. I take random pictures throughout the party, plus the classic pony ride picture, but then when it’s time to open presents I sit the giver next to the birthday boy and take a picture of them together as the present is opened. Not only does it give me another potential picture for the thank you note, it also gives me a record of what each kid gave the birthday boy which is critical information when writing thank you notes.
8. Now this one might make you groan, but hear me out. Bake your kid’s birthday cake. I don’t have to say you’ll save money, that’s obvious by the price of decorated cakes these days. And I probably don’t have to tell you that homemade cakes are WAY, WAY, WAY better tasting than store bought cake. And you can probably figure out for yourself that if you bake it yourself you can use some organic ingredients. No, the real reason to bake a cake for your kid instead of buying one is that it’s a gift. When my husband asks me why I’m once again spending too much time trying to figure out how to craft a cake that resembles a race car or Tinkerbell or a s’more, I tell him, “This is my gift to them. I make their cake. I make exactly what they wanted.” Sometimes the birthday child has a vision or even a picture of the cake they want which can be helpful or not. Expectations are hard to live up to. But no matter what they know I’m going to try my best to make them a really special cake and that means a lot. As they get older they like to help me and so the cakes don’t always turn out the way I planned, but they taste great and in my child’s mind at least they are perfect.
When I was cleaning up the feast in preparation for the piñata and the kids were outside having a loud game of capture the castle supervised by my kid-at-heart hubby, my mom commented that I was really good to give my kids all these parties. She said that she let me and my brothers have a party every other year. I only remember one or two parties, but they are good memories. So maybe I’m over the top with the parties for my kids. I just love the opportunity to celebrate them each year. You can never say – “you’re special and I’m glad you were born” too many times or in too many ways. So I’ll keep throwing these crazy parties and making incredible, by-request cakes, because by doing that not only am I making it clear how much I love these kids, I’m making memories. And someday when they’re negotiating the birthday party plan with their own spouse, they’ll say, “My mom used to throw the best birthday parties…”
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Of Weeds, Lettuce, and Tomatoes
OK this is going to be a boring garden post. So if you’re tired of me writing about gardening, you can skip this one. I checked though and I haven’t written about gardening in nearly two weeks! Gardens require maintenance, sad but true. There was a time when I just planted seeds and left them to their own devices. I figured whatever I got was better than nothing. But now I know better. A minimal effort can bring great rewards.
Take weeding. I hate it most days, but I’ve come to find a sense of satisfaction in a weed-free tidy garden, or at least patches of weed-free tidy garden. My garden keeps getting bigger and it becomes impossible to keep all the weeds out. You do what you can.
Mulch is one tool in the battle of the weeds. You can lay newspaper around your established plants and hose it real good for an inexpensive, if unsightly, mulch. If you’re rich, you can just buy mulch and surround your plants. Be careful though, I would caution you that most mulch is not the least bit organic and could leach any number of chemicals in to your soil. I save the commercial mulch for flowers. I don’t worry if they aren’t so organic. Straw is another good choice for mulch, and it will compost in to your garden during the fall and winter.
Mulch aside, it comes back to weeding. I prioritize my weeding efforts. I weed closest to established plants by hand, careful to get the entire weed. Between the roes, I use a stirrup hoe (looks like a real stirrup with sharp edges that you work back and forth over the soil) to just scrape off the top layer beating back the weeds in mass and keeping the weeds from going to seed and expanding my problem. It doesn’t always look pretty but it keeps things under control. Most importantly, weed after a good rain. There’s no point in weeding when the ground is dry as bone, unless you use a hose and hose the area you are weeding, which seems a little backward to be watering your weeds.
Weed every chance you get. Don’t leave all your weeding for one day – can’t be done – or it can and your back will complain about it later. You’re outside admiring how beautifully your tomatoes are taking to their training, you pull a few weeds. You’re killing time waiting for your kids to be ready to go to soccer, you pull a few weeds. Your kids are driving you to drink, instead go outside and pull a few weeds. Every chance you get – pull a few weeds. Sorry, but it’s a never ending process. I've considered using my children as indentured servants to take care of my weeding problem, but I don't want them to resent the garden or anything that comes out of it. Some children can be convinced to help by cold hard cash. Good luck with that.
How is your lettuce growing? As painful as it may be, it’s important to thin your lettuce. You need to pull baby plants that are crowded. You’ll want to keep thinning (and eating the babies you pull) until your plants aren’t touching. This necessitates that you thin as they grow. If you’re lettuce stays cramped and crowded the leaves on the bottom won’t get sunlight and they’ll rot, rotting all the leaves around them too.
If you eat lettuce like I do, you’ll soon have bare patches in your lettuce rows – plant more lettuce. In fact, plant lettuce in any spare spot you have. They love to grow in the filtered sunlight under other plants. Tuck in more lettuce in any spare space you have, and that includes flower beds. Walk around in the early afternoon and figure out if there are places in your gardens that only get morning sun – perfect spot for some more lettuce (or spinach).
Once you’ve picked your lettuce, washing it can take time. Know this going in. When you buy store bought lettuce it has been washed by some high pressure lettuce washing gadget and still you have to wash it because there are little specks of dirt. The lettuce you pull out of your beautiful garden will be covered in dirt, grass clippings, and bugs. The lettuce you bought at the store was once covered in those things too, plus some chemical fertilizers. When you are washing your home grown lettuce, take care to wash it one leaf at a time. Nothing can put you off homegrown lettuce like a bite of slug with your salad. I soak all of my lettuce in my sink as I’m washing it so the bugs will detach themselves or drown. I pick up one leaf at a time for a gentle hand scrubbing before placing it in the salad spinner. Once all my lettuce is clean and dry, I place a dry paper towel in the bottom of a plastic bag and load in the lettuce on top. The paper towel will soak up any water and keep my lettuce from rotting. I keep these bags in the crisper drawer of my fridge and the lettuce will stay fresh for nearly a week.
On to tomatoes – hopefully yours are looking happy and bushy by now. It’s time to give them a trim. Grab your hand clippers or kitchen shears and carefully trim off any of the lower branches whose leave are touching the ground. Then as your plant grows and you begin tying it up to your tomato fence or stake or basket, gather the leaves that are in danger of drooping to the ground and wrap your tie around them as you tie to keep them off the ground. This may sound confusing, that’s why I added the picture up top. The bottom line is you don’t want any leaves touching the ground. If they droop on the ground they can rot and spread that rot to your entire plant. That’s why you sometimes see tomato plants that are bushy and green on top and brown and scraggly on the bottom. They may survive, but they won’t product nearly the same number of fruits.
When watering tomatoes, do all you can to water the ground under them and not the leaves themselves. A good deep watering at their base is much better for them than a sprinkle from your automatic sprinkler. It takes time, but everything that matters takes time. You should know that by now.
Tomatoes need support, like all of us. You can buy tomato cages at the store that do a great job of supporting your tomatoes. The problem I’ve had with them in the past is that it’s impossible to pick the tomatoes that grow inside the baskets. You’re stuck like the monkey in that experiment – you can’t get your hand back out of the cage unless you drop the tomato. Maybe you’ve had success with these cages, but not me. There are lots of other options – fences, stakes, trellis, use what works for you. We’ve used fences in the past, but after last years six foot high tomatoes, this year my husband has made it his personal quest to accommodate the tomatoes no matter how tall they get. He borrowed his system from the tomato gardens he sees in China where he travels for his work. Using skinny boards, he has built a wooden frame that is six feet high with boards going across it at one foot intervals. As the plants grow he uses torn pieces of cotton clothing or sheets to tie the plants. This is a great way to recycle your old t-shirts. He plans to train the tomatoes to snake in and out of the cross boards as they grow up so that the weight will be evenly distributed and the fruits will grow on both sides of the frame. I’ll post a picture on my blog so you can see the tomatoes’ progress. I’ll let you know how this plan works out.
Peas of all shapes and sizes should be ready about now. Remember to pick early and often if you want to prolong your season. It’s just about cherry season too, so watch your local farms for pick your own local cherries.
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