Storables calls these hanging dry racks and they know a bit more about it than I do. I'd call it a multi-hanger, but whatever. I use it for all those pesky socks and undies that tend to take up lots of room (and clothespins) on our umbrella clothes line.



Now, 19 clothes pins all fit around the lid of a 5 gallon bucket outfitted with a coat hanger. This way the lid twirls and can dry the socks, undies, hanker chiefs and all the small stuff doesn't take up room for t-shirts and other clothes which need significantly more room.


The fancy "Hanging Dry Rack" at Storables comes with half the clothespins, is metal (rust?) and costs 15.95. Ours has 19 clothes pins, is made of plastic and costs 5.95 maximum. Plastic, in this circumstance, was slightly important because it will not wear out and need replacing with all the rain and summer's extreme sun. We can also easily drill through the plastic to hang the clothes pins.

Materials Needed
Power drill with 1/16th drill bit and a
fine-toothed wood saw
Wire cutters
A pair of pliers

1 package of clothespins (bamboo are the best) $2.50 for 50 pins
1 5 gallon bucket lid $ .99 (@ Home Depot)
1 metal clothes hanger (from the closet, but available at the Dollar Store or dry cleaners)
19 little ring fobs (see below) $1.52 from the lock and key store


Jules is assembling all the parts for these hangers and comes out with "We need to find ring fobs." I had no idea what he was talking about (nothing new when assembling things). Am I the only one who has never heard this term? We do crossword puzzles together and he always knows the weirdest stuff. A ring fob is basically the O that your keys are all hooked to. I always called it a key ring...little did I know. If you buy the ring fobs at Home Depot, Bi-Mart, or Kroger you are going to pay a TON! We found ours at the local lock and key. They were only 8 cents a piece, and are the rinky-dink, little ones you get when a key is made. They had multiple sizes and we chose the smallest (about 1 inch in diameter).

Construction


Using the 1/16th bit, drill a hole though half of the pinching end of the clothes pin.






Thread one ring fob through the hole. Using a fine-toothed, wood saw, cut off about 1 centimeter of the other lever of the clothes pin. You cut the end off so that when you pinch the pin open, it isn't limited by the ring fob.




Repeat. A lot. This is annoying and tedious. A butter knife can save your fingernails and enlisting help can make everyone frustrated and lessen the personal burden of ridiculous frustration.





Using the 1/16 bit, drill holes 2 inches a part all along the lip of the 5 gallon bucket. Cutting a spacer out of index card works really well, or you could just wrap a tape measure around and mark every two inches with a Sharpie. Switch to the 1/4 bit and drill a hole through the center of the lid.















Cut the wire coat hanger 4 inches on each side of the hook. Use the pliers to straighten the sides and bend the hook of the coat hanger fairly straight.





Thread the straightened hook through the center hole of the lid. Once through, bend the hook back into a hook. Turn the lid over and flatten the ends against the plastic.





Thread the ring fobs through the holes drilled around the lip of the lid and you've got yourself a hanging dry rack!

In honor of Melynda at Your Wild Child, here is our summer bucket list:

1. Show the Barracuda how to find a few constellations and spend some time stargazing
2. Road trip across the country
3. See the Sequoias and watch the Barracuda's amazement at just how big nature is and how small we are
4. Cut 5 cords of wood
5. Kill the dryer permanently
6. Spend more time with my guitar
7. Get the book proposal outlined and started
8. Read My Side Of the Mountain while we camp out
9. Figure out next years curriculum
   

What do you want to accomplish before summer is over?

When I first wanted to figure out a way to lower our grocery bill I hit the Internet with grand expectations. Lots of articles were found but all they said was "buy a canner and start canning" or "buy items in bulk" or "learn to cook." I was left wondering what to can, how much to buy in bulk, what should I learn to cook first. As much as the articles meant well, they didn't honestly do much other than give me general ideas. With that in mind, I thought I'd let you all in on the ways we have found worked well. This is just us, but it has also worked well for two friends of ours who were drowning in a tough economy and rising food prices.

The largest way we have found to lower our grocery bill is through setting back quantities of many items so they no longer need to be purchased. We began this with meat when I first bought our pressure canner and a week later all natural chicken went on sale for 99 cents a pound. One hundred dollars of my tax return became canned chicken and chicken stock. This set the ball in motion for our pattern of stocking up. Even when things aren't on sale, small measures go a long way.

First to think about is what to put back? We go with things which ---

1. Do not require many storage requirements. The don't need the electricity of a freezer or fridge, they don't take a ton of space, they are dry or can be packaged so they won't leak.

2. We will never stop needing or regularly using it. Even if the power goes out, even if we decide to move, even if we get snowed in, even if we make a radical lifestyle change, even if zombies attack or one of us becomes abducted by aliens we will still be wanting or needing the product.

3. It costs a lot of money every month for what you get. This seems to fall right in line with the fact that you are always using it regardless of other circumstances. They see you coming and those business guys aren't dumb. Meat is up on the list, cleaners are high on the list, toiletries, most canned goods, fruits, spices, etc. By making these items yourself and packaging them up, you can cut out the middle man and the price drops dramatically.

The example which seems to work the best is laundry soap (and we just happened to be packaging it the other day).

1) When you make the detergent, it only has three main parts (soap, Borax, and washing soda) and all of them are dry with no shelf life.

2) You use it every week rain, shine, tidal wave, zombie attack, alien abduction, what have you and even if you decided to become Amish tomorrow you would still need it. Let's face it, even the Amish wear clean clothes and you don't want blood stains when those Zombies are coming.

3)Laundry soap costs upwards of 10 dollars for the relatively small amount of soap you get. It is quite a racket they've got going. When you make it yourself it costs pennies for what you get.

Next, you need to have an idea of how much you use on average.

When I make one batch of laundry soap, it lasts us for 2 months of normal use. I monitored our usage for about six months to make sure I had a pretty good idea and then just called it good. With something which is used more frequently, like say meat, you can calculate how much is used in a week rather than month long increments.


Now, break out the calculator! Don't worry it isn't crazy math.

Take the amount you use X how many increments happen in one year

If 1 batch of laundry soap lasts our family for two months, how much do we need for 1 year?

1 batch X 6 increments = 6 batches a year

To use tuna as an example: If you eat 3 cans of tuna a week, how many will you need for 1 year?

3 cans X 52 increments = 156 cans per year

We use a year as the length of time to stock up because it means we never have to think about putting it on the grocery list. If you have a years worth of tuna fish, you're sitting pretty good. If you want to become a survivalist and just keep on stacking up cans, more power to you! We feel a years is probably pretty decent.

Start by buying small.
Now that you know how many you will need, buy a few each time you go to the store. Don't burn yourself out. If you drop the money not only is it a really large monetary hit, but it also means packaging time that most families don't have. This is supposed to be a stress reliever not magnifier. We figure on spending only $10-$15 extra on the stockpiled item each month. Ten bucks is usually doable even on a tight budget.

It is important to remember this is extra added on to what you would normally consume. So, we buy 7 Naptha bars and one box of Borax and 1 box of Washing soda each month. That is about 12-15 dollars and gives us 2 years of laundry soap. In one month, we no longer have to buy any laundry soap for two years. If you are paying 10 bucks a month for soap, you just saved $230 by spending only $10 and making it yourself.

Since you no longer have to spend the $10 on laundry soap each month, you can roll it over into back stocking another purchase -- dish soap -- and keep the ball rolling. It initially took us about 6 months to really see a difference, but the savings become exponential.

Our list went something like this: Laundry Soap, Dishwasher soap, hand soap, bananas, peaches, pears, spaghetti sauce, soup, stock and tuna fish.

These 10 items have cut at least 50 or 60 dollars (though mostlikely more) from our food bill each month. Stop buying them over and over in favor of canning them or packaging them yourselves (other than tuna). These items are all canned or packaged dry so that I can add the water later and rehyderate.

Living in 900 square feet, space is at a premium. When this first began we wondered where on earth we would put everything. However, if you begin buying in bulk and creating things from scratch the cupboards begin to thin out at an amazing rate. I had no idea just how much space packaging takes, but it is a TON! Large quantities of backstock (like bulk rice or chicken stock) live in our root cellar in 5 gallon buckets or on the canning shelves we built. The garage is also a great place to store back stocked items.

The list is getting a bit crazy as articles are now flying out at quite a rapid pace. I'm only going to post the ones from DoItYourself.com for the time being since the list is getting large. There are a few AOL articles which are pending publication, but they never tell me how long that takes. One has been purchased, but sitting for over a month! When I finally find out, I'll put them up.

DoItYourself.com
How to Set Up a Rainwater Collection System Part 1 and Part 2
How to use Wire Cutters
Solar versus Wind Power Benefits
Getting the Most Out of Your Small Wind Turbine
All About the Hydraulic Pump
How To Refill A Chalk Line
Home Sustainability - Phantom Loads
Green Gardening - Saving Seeds
Why Native Landscaping is Extremely Beneficial
Green Gardening - Beginning an Organic Garden
Organic Lawn Care - When to Fertilize
Five Common Causes of Salt Water Pool Filter Damage
3 Tips for Repairing a Broken Staple Gun
3 Tips for Maximizing the Life of Energy Efficient Light Bulbs
5 Ice Axe Safety Tips
Pros and Cons of Argon Gas Windows
How Does a Heated Car Seat Work?
6 Advantages of Using Treated Lumber
Why Use an Auxiliary Adapter?
Troubleshooting an Electric Mirror

I will say one thing, my typing as certainly gotten a bit faster!

Garage Sale season is here! Jules gets slightly excited when he sees the first real sign of the year declaring a yard or estate sale. He has an ever-so-tiny obsession with perusing other peoples unwanted stuff. I cannot blame him considering it has completely obliterated our need to shop anywhere else. Most every Saturday and Sunday there is a detour from wherever we are going to head for a yard sale. And, why not? Most of our household items, clothes, tools, gear and other awesome stuff have come directly from local Estate sales. One better, they are cheap and going to be throw away.

One of the unforseen things which has happened in our quest for self sufficiency is our pulling off the consumer grid. Before this, I wouldn't have really known anything about the consumer grid. Even now, that is just the name I have given it; whether there is another name I do not know. By consumer grid, I mean shopping at The Store. Not one specific store, but just shopping at any store in general. We do not feel that shopping is inherently bad, more that the way the United States approaches shopping (evaluation of GDP as all things important) is insidious, malicious, and down right evil.

The GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, is how the United States measures the economy and thus, our status as a nation. The idea was adopted in 1991. (Before that status and progress were measured by various other factors like unemployment, the price of a dollar globally, inflation, etc.) In definition Gross Domestic Product looks like this:

The total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year, equal to total consumer, investment, and government spending, plus the value of exports, minus the value of imports.

Basically, the GDP covers all money changing hands in our nation. In a perfect world, you would record you garage sale earnings on your taxes (because we all do that) and eBay earnings (every one of us declares those as well) and any of the under-the-table work (that none of us ever participate in) because money is changing hands. The more times a dollar changes hands, the higher the GDP. So if my dollar goes through 3 people when I buy a pair of shoes (a cut to the big box store, then a cut to the distributor, and finally to the company) it is much better than if it goes directly to the company itself. Specialization, middle men, big box stores, and a loss of all traceability from source is what results. This is an admittedly, massively oversimplified explanation.

In the United States, growth in GDP is all that matters. More money needs to keep changing hands. This concept disturbs both Jules and I enormously. If the entire status of our nation and our progress is hinged on how much more people are spending, then why would anyone conserve anything? (Economists will even admit the fastest way to grow GDP is during crisis - HOW CREEPY IS THAT!)

We finally asked ourselves, "Why not just find the source?" Amazingly, it wasn't that hard.

The best part has been watching our sense of urgency, our stress level, and our concept of need changing. You cannot urgently go pick something up from a garage sale. You cannot rush by the farm on the way home from work and then speed home with an insta-dinner. Rhubarb just isn't going to be around in August and Strawberries aren't going to appear in January. Often, going to the source is not one stop shopping. There is patience and waiting involved, and in that time you realize there isn't much you really need like you thought. Community life and living are deliberate acts of slowing down, paring down, and evaluating.

To some not knowing where you "stuff" comes from isn't an issue, but to others they may have never considered it before. A year ago, we sure hadn't thought about our stuff or what it did to our lives. Amazingly, it was everything we were trying to fill the house with that was creating the void in the first place.

In the summer our family does many things, but the major one is that we read. And we read. And we read. We read to each other. We read separately. Sometimes the whole family will be in the living room silently reading their own books. We go to bookstores and buy books to read. We listen to authors talk about books we have read. We read in the park, outside in the front yard, or down at the beach. We read at home, in Georgia, and on the airplane in between. There are books in every room of our house and we frequently take large bundles to sell back to the used bookstore for credit. It was never planned this way; it just sorta happened.

The Barracuda taught himself to read at three. It is very scary to have your child just start reading things out of nowhere without any formal instruction into even letters. "Zoo" was his first read word. Soon after we started writing out, coloring, and placing three sight words a week the Barracuda's walls at his request. Then he wanted 5 a week. Then he wanted 10 a week. Then the list wasn't needed anymore he was just reading everything. Jules developed a game where they would use a long, Lego pointer to pick out words off the walls and make silly sentences. They would play long into bedtime. Shortly after, I started reading classic children's novels to The Barracuda and he got his first library card. We haven't ever looked back.

The experience of being able to discuss a book with your child and make connections to life is one that I can't imagine living without and one I would encourage most parents to attempt. When I looked for a classic children's lit book list of high interest read-aloud books there weren't many to find anywhere. There were lots of kid's classic lit lists which were short books and there were lots for kids who could read by themselves, but not many family read alouds. So here is our family's read aloud list. These are whole family, high interest, read aloud books which parents don't avoid like the plague. (If you are at the point of never wanting to read another book with talking animals, this might be the list for you!)

Beginning Books
Winnie the Pooh series by A.A. Milne
The narrator cuts in a few times in these books which can be a bit confusing as a read aloud. We skipped the narrations easily and made the book much more readible. The stories are incredible and worth it.

Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
Voices are great for this one.

Stuart Little by E.B. White
Short chapters make this an ideal before-bed book.

The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
This is the quintessential girl book. I haven't even bothered reading it to my son, he would careless. But even as a tomboy, I LOVED this book. I would still read it over and over as an adult if I owned a copy.

Continuing Reads
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Some older English words, but my son still LOVED it

All of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Don't stop after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They get SO much better! These are action packed, about kids doing cool stuff, and FULL of moral values to discuss. There are significant religious undertones (which are not subtle for an adult) but they completely flew over my head as a kid and my son is clueless about them.

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'dell
A chick book to balance out a few of the boy reads. Boys might get into it, but don't feel bad stopping if their eyes begin to gloss over. For girls this strong heroine will balance out the Disney Princesses.

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
Admittedly a bit of a "boy" book, but many girls will love the concept too and the author is a girl. This is now a trilogy, but we have only read the first one.

Hatchet by Gary Larson
Another slightly "boy" book, but I thought it was amazing when I read it the first time and my son finds it just as riveting.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
This was the book that sold Jules on reading. He was about 7 and later decided to become an English teacher due to a love of reading. Younger kids you might need to help along with the plot subtleties a bit, but the action and moral questions are worth it.

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Great moral questions in this classic adventure tale. A very good one to discuss with kids some hard questions about right and wrong, appropriate choices, and explain why they thing certain choices were right or wrong.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Don't worry, I promise the dog doesn't die. I was waiting the entire book for the dog to die, ripping both my and the child's guts out and leaving us sobbing. You totally fall in love with this dog.

Rascal by Sterling North
A unique story of a boy and his dog, only the dog is a raccoon.

Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
My favorite quote in all of literature is from the Velveteen Rabbit. Be prepared parents, this book is so well written, poignant, and beautiful you may want to pre-read a section with a box of tissues. Kids won't be effected as much of the beauty comes from experience. They will see a wonderful story about toys.

Be sure to drop a comment on any which might have been missed or ones we should look into. I love the classical questions and timeless stories. When compiling this list, Jules and I got into differing ideas and questions like "What happened with Buck and the Indians at the end of Call of the Wild?" (we both had differing ideas, he was right) or "What did The Man In The Yellow Hat in Curious George do for a living?" (we were both wrong). They had to be Googled. Those are the types of things I want my son to get out of books. I want him to know the timeless classics so he can have bizarre conversations and friendly debates with others as he gets older. I want him to be able to relate to literature in hopes of finding some answers for himself to tough life questions.

Another set of articles if any of you all out there are curious about things like Hydrogen Fuel Cells and Toe Kick Heaters. I must say, the best thing about this job is being able to learn all kinds of stuff I didn't even know that I didn't know.

DoItYourself.Com
What is a Solar Attic?
How to Prevent a Clogged Garbage Disposal
How to Remove a Tail Light
What is a NiCad Battery?
Kitchen Cabinet Finishes: Paint vs. Stain
Advantages of A Toe Kick Heater
Trouble Shooting Toe Kick Heater Problems
Hydrogen Fuel Storage: Charles' Law and Boyle's Law
How Does A Hydrogen Fuel Cell Work
5 Household Applications for A Hydrogen Fuel Cell
5 Best Uses for SuperGlue


Examiner.com
I have recently been asked to become the Natural Family Living Examiner for our area. My job is to highlight local events, businesses, people, and news of interest to Natural Family Living and blog about it during the week. Even if you are not local to the area, I'm attempting to make the information as universal as possible to all Natural Families. If anyone else is interested in this sort of blogging/reporting/highlighting of local life (in any topic and most locations) drop me a comment and I can follow up with you. It is something I am really enjoying and most anyone with an interest in writing and community would love.

U-Pick Strawberries (includes a no pectin jam recipe)
Hello All (introduction of myself and how our family started natural living)
Local Book Events (3 Newly Released Books)
Barefoot Home (Awesome book about Natural Living Architecture)
Limbo Bulk Herbs (includes Horehound cough syrup recipe)
Fittest Cities in the U.S.


The Homemaking Cottage
This is a subscription website. That is why I haven't mentioned it before. The woman and the organization are good ones, so if you want to check it out go ahead. Again, I don't get anything if you sign up or if you click or anything. I think it is 10 bucks a month.

So what does our family do without television? We practice our aim with a cork gun and the lid of a 5 gallon bucket.


The Barracuda has only ever seen one real gun in his entire life. Jule's used it to show him exactly what a gun is and how to be careful when handling a firearm. But, we do have guns in our house. They are locked up and unloaded, however it is important The Barracuda knows how to appropriately use a firearm if we own them (especially if we are going to move to the middle of no where and hunt). Recently he acquired his very own Daisy Red Rider BB gun to begin learning. Grampa stepped in with a much better idea by purchasing a cork gun a garage sale. It has been very helpful with our wet weather.

All year long we save our change, bits of my tip money, and tax returns for our only major vacation - 3 weeks in the deep south. This year, it looked like that trip may not happen. Even when we flew into an out of the way airport, even when flying into the deep south in the middle of July, even having multiple lay overs, airfare was almost 200 dollars more per person this year. We just plain cannot swing that.

Out came the calculator. Numbers were crunched. Over-estimates in cost were made and numbers were re-crunched just to be sure. We would have to camp. We could mail ourselves hiker boxes and then not need to eat out as much. My car would need a new radio so we didn't kill each other. But we could see Yosemite; we could see the Sequoias; we could see the Tetons and New Orleans. We do short hikes across the United States and show our son a respect for the beauty of all different ecology. It was settled, we're roadtripping it!


You see, Jules' people live in Georgia. The problem is we live about as far from Georgia as you can get and still stay in the continental United States. The trip is an essential part of our lives, bit it is a bit like visiting another planet.

Jules' people are they are very Southern and very Georgia. I do not mean that in a bad way. In fact, I kinda love Georgia. I mean it as the simplest illustration tool I could think of to explain the contrast.

We are very Pacific Northwest. The last time we visited just stepping off the plane you could see people react. "I aint never seen no white girl with dreads [dreadlocked hair] before," was a phrase I became very used to. "Boy, is that your real hair?" was asked of the Barracuda's screaming-blue mohawk at least a dozen times. In the summer I believe in wearing the smallest item which could possibly pass as a shirt (many of which tie on) and Jules wore shorts to church (appalling even me). The Barracuda sports his dashiki as well as very loud plaid shorts. He rocks both of them pretty dang hard.

Rural Georgia wasn't quite ready for us. In all honesty, I wasn't quite ready for rural Georgia.

I think my favorite part was the picture we now have of Jules and The Barracuda at the Georgia Mountain Fair sporting inflatable AK 47's decorated like American flags while kneeling in front of a large Confederate Flag giving me the "Thumbs Up." Both the AK-47s and the large Confederate Flag wall hanging were prizes which children could win. Families were lined up to try. The sheer incredulous amazement warranted a picture.

We have repeatedly survived Georgia. A couple near misses with food poisoning, my complete loss of faith as an environmentalist, The Barracuda informing us about "our Savior Jesus, the beloved Son of God," and having to explain discrimination to a 4 year old have been slight set backs. The South definitely approaches the world differently and they tend to raise children a bit differently too, but that isn't a bad thing. Our son called out one of his friends for racist comments at 5 years old, my views of environmentalism and preservation have been fortified, I have seen the other side of some very complicated U.S. History that I never learned as a Yankee kid.

At this point, I think we are starting to approach it as "what will this year bring!?" If anything, we are building story line and characters for a novel.

All the firewood used this year has really done a number on our floors. In one corner of the living room we would pile up the wood to be burned for the evening so we didn't have to skip out in the freezing temperatures to get another few logs. It worked really well for us. Not so much for the floors....













The living room corner which holds our small wood pile had a completely differently colored floor. The pitch and wood sap left quite a film to collect dirt and debris. After being attacked with the wood floor cleaner the floor quickly came clean again, but brutalizing the house wasn't quite what we had in mind when we wanted to simplify. So out Jules went to build a firewood box.

Materials
3 inch wood screws
2 inch wood screws
Power Drill
2 - 2x4x10's or a pile of 2 x4 scrap
1 sheet of plywood
4 felt non scratch bottoms (like you put on table legs)


All you are really doing is building two identical squares out of 2x4 and connecting them. Measure the floor space you are wanting the box to fit into. Now subtract 1 inch from the length and width. Make two identical squares out of 2x4's. Secure the squares with 3 inch wood screws

To connect the square, measure the height you wish for the box to be. Now subtract 8 inches. Cut 4 identical 2 x 4 pieces. Place each board on a corner between the two squares and attach with 3 inch wood screws. Now you have a box.

Use your original measurements (no subtracting) to cut the plywood pieces. You should have:

1 piece the size of the floor space for the box to fit in (Length x Width)
2 pieces the size of the height and one side of the floor (Length x Height)
2 pieces the size of the height and the other side of the floor (Width x Height)

The reason you subtracted an inch from the original measured squares is to allow for plywood sides on the box. Take each plywood piece and mount it to the box with the 2 inch wood screws. Be careful not to hit the screws you have already used.


Once the sides are all in place, you need to sand down the all edges and the plywood. Due to being inside and having heavy use, we didn't much want splinters.

Once the box has been sanded, flip it up on the side so that the bottom is exposed. Screw in the felted scuff stoppers to each corner before painting.

Now you can paint or stain your box any color you want. We went with the same color as our walls so that the large box tends to blend right in and not seem so intrusive. Be sure that you also paint the inside at least to cover the top 2x4's since you will see that part when you look at the box across the room. Jules opted to paint the inside of the whole thing.













As you can see, The Barracuda is now required to help with household projects as much as he possibly can without Jules or I wanting to strangle him. In example, he did not get to paint because the patio would never have been the same. This direct working with tools, building, and planting have become essential parts of his homeschooling and math curriculum.

Have any of you out there seen these?!?They are Glasslock containers by Snapware which are completely made of glass other than their plastic, gasketed lids (I can live with a plastic lid). They are tempered so they can go in the freezer, refrigerator, or microwave (no oven) and best of all they mean that all the Gladware in our house can disappear! Swoon!

Gladware has been a long hold out in our household because it was all we could find for Jules to take his lunch to and from school. The Pyrex, which has long since replaced household Tupperware, wouldn't stand up to multiple trips being beaten around in the back of Jule's truck. Plus, the lids on Pyrex don't stick on making spills inevitable. It just wouldn't have worked, so the Gladware trudged on getting ever more discusting and ever more stained. Has anyone else noticed that the cheapo plastic Gladware is incredibly hard to clean?

But today, what did we find as we perused the local discount co-op? Glasslock! So Glasslock it will now be. Apparently, Glasslock has been around in swanky stores which normal families cannot shop. Stores like Crate and Barrel and the Container Store have had them around a while. Now they are showing up everywhere, even on Amazon.

I'm so excited! The Gladware was one of the last major plastic holdouts in our household. Rest In Peace you ocean clogging, non-biodegradable, incredibly unhealthy plastic.

Canning season is almost upon us. I can feel the throws of fruit picking mania just over the horizon. Last year was our first real initiation into the U-Pick market. We learned a few things.

While waiting in line for our peaches to be weighed, we ogled the fruit crates of an older man in front of us. He had his red wagon train stacked with peaches, all nicely nestled and perfectly balanced. Nothing was bruising as he bumped along the gravel road. There was serious skill here. This man had canning season down to an art. We proceeded to ogle and awe further vowing to take on his Jedi-like fruit season knowledge.

Our one hundred pounds of peaches started to soften and bruise the instant we brought them through the door last year. A frenzied, sticky day was spent peeling, slicing, and canning. Jules had to finish up all by himself (gulp!) due to me needing to go to work that evening. We figured we had at least two days to split the canning up into. We were totally wrong.

When a stack of pallets was up for grabs on a street corner, we grabbed them. Later, we saw an older fruit crate at an estate sale and grabbed it, too. Together, these would become our coveted fruit crates.


The construction of a fruit crate is remarkably simple. The important parts are 1) to leave air spaces between the slats so the fruit can have air circulate all around it preventing spoilage, 2) no sharp edges inside so that the fruit could become bruised or ripped open, and 3) stackable but not resting on the fruit. These fruit crates provide all that and cost about 50 cents a piece using salvaged wood. 'Trol around on Craigslist or Freecycle a bit and see if you can find any pallets up for grabs. They can easily be sliced apart to form light weight, uniform boards. If the size of your deconstructed pallets isn't exactly the same, just go with it.

Tools:
Hammer
A box of 4D nails
Miter saw (though any kind of saw would work)
Tape measure

Materials:
Deconstructed Pallets
2 - 52 inch lattice trim boards (a whopping 26 cents a piece at Home Depot)


To begin with, cut your pallet boards to the correct sizes. You will need:

2 - 6 inch x 14 inch (front and back)
2 - 6 inch x 17 inch (bottom)
Miter the corners of these boards at a 45 degree angle 3/4 of an inch in from the corners. The mitered edges allow the crates to stack without bruising the fruit.

From each lattice board cut:
2 - 17 inch side pieces
1 - 14 inch bottom support board

Now that all the pieces are cut, you just have to stack them up and have a lovely assistant (that's always my job) hold them in place while you nail things together. As much as the assistant isn't completely necessary, they make things a ton faster (and it gives me a job when Jules' works).


Have your lovely assistant hold the front and back boards while you nail the bottom boards on one at a time. There should be a 2 inch gap down the center of the crate to allow airflow.


Cover the nails holding the bottom boards with the bottom support board, by carefully nailing it on top. This board provides added structure to the crate for fruits picked hard and therefore extremely heavy (like pears). This piece also allows for additional airflow when the crates are all stacked together.

Turning the crate up on one side, carefully nail in each lattice board leaving a gap down the center for airflow. Flip the crate over and do the same thing on the other side.

It is that simple!

Now you just have to make a whole bunch and head on out to the orchard.

At the urging of a few readers and many friends the following is a list of links to published works for various companies. These are not pay-per-click and I do not get any kind of money for traffic, advertising or such. Mainly, people just wanted to see, well I guess read, what I had written. These are the ones which have been published, a couple have been purchased with scheduled publishing and still others are waiting for review from my editor. (I still get a little excited at writing the words "my editor." I actually have an editor!) Depending on how fast my editor goes through articles, and on interest, I will publish more as they come.

DoItYourself.com

Kevlar vs. Ceramic Brake Pads

How to Clean a Flat Plate Solar Collector

How to Remove Cabinet Door Pulls

These are some of last weeks articles. I was on the bottom of the seniority ladder and thus got the leftovers that no one else wanted. After producing all last week, the articles have become a little more hardcore.

In our household, we don't eat much meat. That statement would have been sacrilege a year or so ago. (Jules' has literally been hospitalized for enjoying a steak too rapidly.) Now, however, we don't really miss the meat that used to grace the table so liberally. We aren't vegetarians (yet), but we definitely aren't carnivorous anymore. Jules still loves a steak (even if his stomach doesn't) and I must admit a couple bites tastes pretty good. However, we no longer get hamburgers since they don't agree with us and veggies are showing up in larger and larger quantities. Slowly, but surely, we are beginning to lose our stomach enzymes to be able to break down meat proteins and the taste tends to fall away as well.

In reality, daily protein requirements are very small. Two to four ounces of lean meat a day is more than plenty for most adults. Not per meal but per day. With this in mind, our household has shifted away from eating meat as a staple to eating meat as a part of our dinners.

All dinners in our household use less than half a pound of meat pre-portioned into cans and stored in The Hole. In instances of meat sauce or vegetable beef soup (also portioned in The Hole), it is far less than half a pound. One pint lasts for all of our dinner and then Jules' lunch the next day.

This reduction in meat consumption has been one of the largest factors in lowering our grocery bill. We flat out don't buy any meat when we do monthly grocery shopping. All meat is purchased in really large increments when the all natural, never frozen stuff is on sale for 1 dollar a pound.

Occasionally we go crazy and purchase the clearance meat at Safeway for things like stir fry, breakfast for dinner, pork chops or something. This meat is cut into portions about the size of a deck of cards. One deck of cards is approximately 3 ounces of meat. Most packaged meat is about twice as thick as a card deck and that is how much we use for our dinners.

The rest is then individually wrapped in foil and frozen. For about four dollars we can have enough for four dinners. In our household, that is an extravagant meat filled dinner.

The transition hasn't been hard at all as long as you keep the foods flavorful. A small amount of bacon can go a really long ways. The same is true for beef that has been cooked in its own juices or chicken canned in broth. Most of meat's taste is in the smell, so if you can preserve the scent your tongue can be easily fooled. Once you get used to a smaller portion, you don't have fool yourself at all.

Secondly, the meat is mixed in with other things and cooked in its own juices. No longer is their a large hunk of meat on our plates. Instead meat is mixed with rice, gravy, or in soup. This provides small flavorful bits which make way for other tastes never experienced before. When your dinner plate is piled with a hunk of meat, some kind of veggie, and a starchy side there isn't much room for experimentation. Once you decide that this dinner equation doesn't work, the world is open to much more enjoyable things. Curry, zucchini or squashes, fresh herbs, large salads, and even beets are things that our family is eating and growing.

When you consider the amount of resources which go into a single pound of beef the concept of stretching the meat out makes even more sense. (Click on any of the sentences to find the source of the information.) Two-thousand five hundred gallons of water are used to produce only one pound of beef. Ten times more fossil fuels are necessary to produce one calorie of animal protein than one pound of plant protein. That is ten times more carbon dioxide emitted as well. Grazing land covers 26% of the earth's land surface and one third of all arable land is used for feed crops. With this, and our health, in mind we have made the conscious decision to green up our diet along with our lifestyle.

With food this good, who's missing it!

If you would like to use a protein calculator to find out how much protein your body actually needs visit this website.

So what does our family do without television? We buy cheapo pizza, eat like pigs, and play Uno until long past the Barracuda's bedtime.

For this last year of homeschooling we haven't ever really had a schedule. Life has been fairly loose and open as The Barracuda was so young and I was so new to all this. We have let whimsy take us as we may go. Now, with me working from home and The Barracuda becoming so much more active, a schedule has become necessary in order for everything to get done. An active boy means that there are many more things he wants to do, much more dirt in the house, and lots more stuff flying around to clutter up our worlds. Also, I used to be able to completely leave the house and be isolated from family when I worked. This is definitely not preferable in some ways, but it meant that there were no interruptions.

Jules has become much more frustrated lately with how jumbled our house is and with my admitted lack of balancing ability. A schedule makes Jules nervous. He wants The Barracuda to be able to assess and prioritize things which need to be done and then complete them accordingly. He feels that timers, schedules, and specifics will hinder The Barracuda's ability to think for himself. Life is constantly changing and lots of gray area will help prepare our son for that fact.

I don't do gray areas very well. Balancing and juggling multiple things with a thousand different variables leaves me constantly surprised and with no direction. There is almost nothing I hate more than surprises. The distaste is so strong that Jules has been directly informed I do not want to be proposed to without some kind of warning. If I'm going to be accountable for something I want to know exactly how something should be done and exactly when. Things stay the same, I do them the same way, in the same order, and conclude with the same result. When that doesn't happen, I get all flustered and distracted or I make completely the wrong judgment call. Projects go unfinished, stuff gets left out, and I don't follow through with anything. A flustered, distracted, whimsical lifestyle suits me very well as there aren't too many things I honestly care much about. We need to be happy, healthy, and together the rest is just small stuff. Jules grew up in the military (born and raised either on base or just outside) and it doesn't suit him at all. All that small stuff makes him stressed.

Jules and I discussed it, again (this is a recurring conversation). The lists I have made myself weren't working; stuff was still overlooked and mis-prioritized. I was getting discouraged. Compromise was necessary somewhere in the middle of itemized life and complete open blank slate.

This morning, The Barracuda and I sat down to write a schedule that will hopefully meet all our household needs. The Barracuda got to list all the things he feels are important for our day to include even if they weren't fun things (like cleaning). Once the list was formed, he separated them into Morning, Lunch, Dinner, and Evening activities. Next, I came in with specific times for these activities to start and end. This created specific timed transitions for me to be able to have a definitive ending and starting for activities. The time is chunked out into subjects but not specifically itemized so The Barracuda will still have to prioritize and assess how things should be accomplished, but time won't get away from us. Together, we decided that everything seemed reasonable.

Daily Schedule

Morning: 8:00am

get dressed
I still don't know why this takes him ten minutes, but it does.

8:10am -- make beds
I literally have to say "I don't care if you are naked, it is time to make your bed!"

eat breakfast
oatmeal or fruit

brush teeth

9:00-9:45am -- Walk the dog

10:00 -- 2 hours quiet time
The Barracuda gets to play quietly with something that doesn't require batteries while Mommy writes

clean up

Lunch: 12:00

eat lunch
left overs, soup and quesadilla, or veggies and tuna fish

brush teeth

12:45 -- 45 minutes Barracuda's self school time
Self directed learning is an important part of our homeschooling. Math work, copy work from essays he has dictated, Rosetta Stone Spanish, finishing science or book report pictures, etc. are all things he can do without my direct assistance. The Barracuda has to work on school completely by himself unless something in his room is on fire or there is a serial killer outside his window. At that point he can call for me.

brush teeth

1:30 -- 2 hours play time
Outside, Inside, on the computer, loudly, with the neighbors, whatever. This is also Mommy housecleaning time.

Afternoon: 3:30
Dad gets home and decompresses from crazy, high schoolers that have only 28 more days of school.

Walk the dog up to the park and play

Mom makes dinner

Dinner: 5:00
eat dinner and talk together about our day
brush teeth

6:00 -- 1.5 hours of school time
This is time for The Barracuda and I to work directly one-on-one and discuss new school concepts or connections between concepts. During this time we can read a chapter or two from his novel as well. Jules uses this time to grade papers, plan, and do his school stuff as well.

Evening: 7:30
Family time to do something fun together.

8:30 -- brush teeth and jammies on
brush teeth
Barracuda goes to bed while Jules and I eat candy and go crazy while doing daily crossword puzzle together.

You may notice that brushing teeth is written quite a few times and is a schedule event. After a couple mortifying fabulous trips to the pediatric dentist I have learned quite a bit more about my horrible dental genetics and why Gatorade is as bad as soda for a child to drink. I'll post about it soon when I really wrap my head around the disastrous fabulous situation. Now, we have scheduled teeth brushing for both the Barracuda and myself a minimum of four times a day. Fun! Fun! Fun!

The only day this schedule doesn't happen is on Wednesday due to The Barracuda being with Grammie and Grampie all day. Other than that, library story times, movies or circus days at the local parks, homeschool meet-ups, and even spending time with the other grandparents fit into the time blocks so that there is a definite flow to our day. Hopefully, this will allow for us to have a much more seamless day rather than a choppy time of crazed events where much is being overlooked.

As the Barracuda encroaches on 6 he is beginning to have greater endurance. This means we can actively do more "stuff" allowing Jules and I to get a little more of our pre-child lives back. We do not wish to throw our 5 and a half year old into the deep end just yet, so day hiking is all we are taking on. This summer will be our first backpacking endeavor with The Barracuda when we stay 7-10 days in the Cahutta Wilderness. Currently, while The Barracuda is training for being able to walk 10 mile days with a backpack on, Jules and I are trying to get the kinks worked out of how our own personal hiking patterns will meld into one cohesive family hiking style.

The Barracuda is not sporting his actual Osprey Jib backpack. It would be way overkill. For day hikes he is packing his rad, little, garage sale, 1970's, fab-tacular rainbow backpack. Not only is it hard to load too full, but it also has much smaller straps and torso making it specifically for a child. With the very important job of snack carrier, The Barracuda carries a whopping 2.5 lbs enabling him to go bounding ahead of Jules and I on most any trail.

All water, cell phones, sweatshirts, and other necessities are placed in the family pack that Jules or I wear.

Happily, the beauty of nature isn't lost on our son. He keeps a pretty steady pace, but always loves to stop and look at beetles, plants, flowers, rocks, mushrooms, sticks, leaves, animals, on and on and on. He is also quite fond of the sounds nature makes and is ever alert for water, birds, chattering squirrels, the wind, on and on and on. This admiration for nature used to drive both Jules and I crazy due to causing even short jaunts to take at least an hour. By now, The Barracuda has figured out how to both look and be enamored while still moving. If a view is truly spectacular he will stop and stare from ahead of Jules and I, calling back "Hey guys! You gotta see this!" Thankfully by enduring the exceptionally-long, short hikes when he was 2 and a half we can now actively hike. It is rather wonderful for both Jules and I to realize that his appreciation spans further than a love of sticks and rocks.

Sticks and rocks are still of high importance. They are actively his favorite part of all hiking, especially when water is concerned. Most all hikes we have taken focus around water. It means that there is a definite destination which is normally quite fun and often showy. Towering water and large pools to splash around in make for quite a reason to keep walking until we get there. Skipping rocks has also become important now that The Barracuda is getting older. Much time has been spent with Jules attempting to get just the right technique. Pooh sticks (stick races named famously from the children's classic Winnie the Pooh) are a favorite game to play as well. Sticks are chosen for various characteristics (short sticks go fastest, wide sticks are more stable, long tin sticks can stretch past the finish line first) and we race them down the river to see who wins.

As much as hiking is a spiritual and physical exercise for our as a family, it is also important science curriculum at work. The Barracuda, being homeschooled, has a different sense of school than most kids. There are no breaks and there are no classrooms. We learn just about everywhere we go and especially on hikes. Jules knows much more about climbing and topographical maps. I am more well versed in flora, fauna, and rock formations. Important emphasis is placed on the idea of how small we are, how interconnected our world is, and the value of discussing these concepts with each other.

The time of year for us to actively be outside is a welcomed event in our house. The rainy season is so wet here that hiking becomes so dangerous it is rather stupid. As much as we want The Barracuda to enjoy being outside, we want him to realize some ventures are not safe. Extremely slick rocks, inches of mud, and large, steep cliff faces are not a good combination. But man, all that rain sure makes for one heck of a view when the weather dries out.

The season is definitely worth the wait!

"Now we're cookin' with oil!" as Jules would say. I don't know if that is a distinctly southern phrase, but he loves it and it always makes me smile. A new hard drive, a new copy of Windows, and a nice chunk of time downloading everything back onto the laptop and I'm typing in the backyard sun again. I can't complain too much. The nice chunk of money wasn't allocated for computer repair, it wasn't an un-doable amount and we are back in business with a fairly small amount of time lost.

I am writing this from The Barracuda's room on his ghetto older desktop. His desk is one that I had when I lived in my college van. It is rather small, and I no longer fit in it at all. The desktop is still plugging away, though it seems as slow as I remember dial up being when it comes to loading pictures. I feel a bit as though I've gone back in time and nostalgia hasn't been good to me. Needless to say, we are hoping for our laptop to come home from the doctor in about 3 days and still praying the $200 bill was not as 99% accurate as they estimated.

We are experiencing some technical difficulties over here at End of Ordinary. The laptop decided to die. A post will be coming soon!