Water Down the Drain

We lose a lot of water down the drain. When I go to take a shower, I usually let the water run until it gets hot. So I lose about a 1/2 gallon of water on every shower. Since there are two of us in the house, that amounts to about 365 gallons per year (assuming one shower each, every day). We aren't living under drought conditions, but that's no reason to waste all that water, and besides it costs money. We're charged about 50 cents per cubic foot of water (1 cubic foot = ~7.5 gallons), which works out to about $50/year. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot of money, but again, there's no reason to put that much money down the drain (hehe).

I was inspired by a post on Radiant Things about how she saves water. Now, when we run the water to get the shower to warm up, we catch the water in an old detergent bottle and use it to water our garden. Maybe it only saves us a little money, maybe it won't save the planet, but really, there's no reason not to.

Strawberry Season

I went strawberry picking yesterday with one of my friends and my boyfriend. We went in the afternoon, so it was hard work (a case of the early birds getting the worms), but we still had quite a good haul.

Yesterday, we canned strawberry jam (left) and strawberry-rhubarb butter (right). The strawberry-rhubarb butter recipe comes from Food in Jars, a nifty canning blog. I think I like it much better than regular strawberry jam: more flavor, less sweetness.



I'm also making strawberry-balsamic ice cream today. The balsamic vinegar is a souvenir from our trip to Italy in January. It's three-medal grade and amazingly good. Makes me wonder what five-medal balsamic is like.

Pesto!

The first basil harvest of the season.

This year I decided to have lots of a few things in my garden, and so far it's working. Last year, we had a small handful of tomatoes. This year we already have enough basil to make pesto. mmmm, tasty.

Jam Muffins

Things in my life that are true:

1. I'm not a milk and cereal person, but I like my breakfast.

2. Mostly my boyfriend eats breakfast only if I make it for him.

3. We canned way, way too much jam.

It just so happens that our plan to give away jam as gifts, did not actually result in net less jam, because people kept giving us their jam in return. Hence, an overabundance of jam.

So, every week, I try to come up with something that will address all three problems. Eventually, I settled on baking bread for toast. I found a wonderful recipe over at Orangette, but bread requires planning, and somehow, we've gotten all the way to Tuesday with no time for bread until next weekend.

But I'm hungry when I wake up in the morning.

I've taken to reading Joy of Cooking on the couch when I get home, and while I don't have the ingredients to make fancy muffins, I do have jam. I took the regular muffin recipe from Joy of Cooking and filled the muffin cups half full, spooned some jam in, and put more muffin batter on top. They baked up really pretty.

Service

I've been thinking a lot about Service lately. When I was in New Zealand, I met a girl who was recently discharged from the Israeli army. Military service is required for all people in Israel. 3 years for men and 2 for women. Mandatory state service requirements are not uncommon in other countries, but we don't have one in the United States.

Military service is not for me, but I have great admiration for people who have chosen to give their lives in Service. This includes the living and the dead, members of the armed forces (although I may disagree with the means, these people have offered their lives and for that they command my admiration), members of the clergy, and others. I'm a great believer in Service. Imagine the good that could be done in the world if every person gave one year of their lives to improve the world.

While I've been mulling over these thoughts, one thing became shockingly clear: I haven't given my year.

There were a number of options for me right when I finished college. I could have joined the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps or Teach for America or gone to work for a nonprofit. I could have done these things, but I didn't. I went to grad school instead.

The way I see it, I owe the world one year of my life.

So how much is a year? Let's say that one year is 40 hours a week for 50 weeks (somehow, this seems stingy to me, but for the sake of having a number, let's go with). That's 2,000 hours. Well, I'd better get started then.

About a month ago, I put in a request to volunteer at the Homework Help Center at the Library. I did my first 3 hour shift on Monday. It was great to work with the students, and I think it will be a very rewarding experience. I'm looking forward to making Service a regular feature in my life, and little by little I'll accumulate my year.

The Mountain of "Useful" Things

So, I just moved. Firstly, I now have my very own sewing room. It's got windows on two walls (lots of light) and a wood floor (giant cutting/layout surface). I'm very excited to use it, but first I have to put all the stuff away...ack.

The process of moving out and then moving in is sort of amazing. Having to box things up, haul them across town, and find a new place for it to occupy gave me a real perspective on how much Stuff I have. I have this compulsion to keep things that "might be useful"...or not. I love thinking about what things could be, but it seems I rarely realize that potential. I have bags and bags of stuff that I acquired to turn into something else either because I liked the fabric or because I already owned it but don't wear it or because it was free.

Here's the deal. I'm joining Wardrobe Refashion again, but this time for 6 months. I'm going to tackle this pile of clothing and ugly fabric (the good fabric is 'stash', which at the moment is allowed). Anything that I haven't turned into something useful by the end of 6 months is going to Goodwill.
I'm also going to use this as an opportunity to develop some sewing skills I keep meaning to work on. Some of the things you might expect to hear about in the coming months:
- fitting clothes
- drafting patterns for a basic shirt and basic pants
- learning to machine quilt
- cutting, sewing, and tieing a quilt made from old jeans

Canning

August is almost over, but I do have an August post. Well, actually, it may really be a July post. It's hard to keep it all straight.



My boyfriend and I have started canning. We started with the asparagus pickle recipe from the New York Times back in May when asparagus were everywhere. And when zucchini started coming in, zucchini refrigerator pickles seemed to be the natural thing (via Tea and Cookies)*. Given our initial success, we then tackled quick dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, an dilly beans from Joy of Cooking.



After all the pickling, we took a class at Stratford Ecological Center** on canning tomatoes. It's the same process as pickles (a hot water bath), but now we know to start timing from a rolling boil, not when the pickles go in. The zucchini pickles could also probably be properly preserved. They're very similar to bread and butter pickles made with cucumbers, so we could do it as long as we use the same amount of zucchini (non-acid) as we would cucumbers (also non-acid). The trick is to maintain the proper acidity so all the scary stuff (botulism) dies.

And here are our canned goods safely ensconced in their new home in the basement of the house we just moved to:



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*As a side note, this is the first use of zucchini I've found that I like that doesn't involve shredding it until it's unrecognizable.

**Stratford is a really cool place. It's a working farm that has an extensive education program. We also took a class called Beginning Goat Raising where we learned about the care and keeping of dairy goats including some hands-on experience with milking and hoof trimming. They also have education programs for school groups.