mooretrees journal

Where are you and where are you going?
mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

theanimal wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 9:00 pm
Ha! I've certainly entertained the thought. I've been doing a lot more skijoring and bikejoring this winter. It feels like the natural version of an ebike and the like. I've recently been scheming how to make it work with stores and commerical establishments
I think that would so cool if you could pull up and hitch your dogs before going into the store. But how to keep them protected from the elements when they're waiting for you, never considered that part.

horsewoman
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by horsewoman »

This is a thing I often whimsically think about with my horses. Theoretically I could do my shopping/erands without a car but the whole infrastructure is geared towards cars, which makes it cumbersome.
But should the shit hit the fan we'll be still mobile on horsepower :)

The dogs would probably not be bothered by the elements but other people would be bothered by the dogs!

Western Red Cedar
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

I'm probably not the best member to give props on tracking expenses since I do a poor job of it myself, but I will give you props on a successful transition to part-time work and a well-balanced life. It sounds like you are doing great!
mooretrees wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 7:07 pm
I'm quite obsessed with climate change now, and I've had some dark days because of it. I find that if I focus on what I can slowly change that will reduce my carbon footprint, it's much easier to have equanimity about the future. I'm tracking our mileage to have a better accounting of our foot print. I've done a few on line calculators and it's so hard to get a good number when I'm guessing about how much we drive.
It's been quite interesting reading about various members existential relationship with climate change in the last few months. I went through a lot of this about 15 years ago in my early 20's - anger, guilt, grief, acceptance. I've found the discussions stirring up some old emotions, which I think is probably because some of the compromises I've made (air travel every couple of years, eating beef once or twice a month) conflict with some of my underlying values and beliefs.

I'd strongly encourage you to go easy on yourself in regards to your impacts on climate change. I had many dark days, and probably years, as a result of stewing about it. It's not healthy or helpful.

I'm a big proponent of taking personal responsibility and minimizing your impacts. But this is an issue that requires collective action and significant policy changes at various levels of government. It is a tragedy of the commons.

I ultimately reached a place of acceptance many years ago and have used a pareto approach in terms of my personal impacts.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@WRC, my initial thought to your thoughtful comment was 'but isn't it a privilege to be able to step away from thinking about climate change?' Now, I did understand your point, it really is beyond my ability to make the changes to reverse this course. But, I'm 44, soon to be 45 and I've looked the other way for many years. Looked away from many issues, not just CC. So, a few dark days seems like a decent penance? I was raised Catholic so perhaps it's rearing its head now? Anyway, the reality is that I'm also tired of covid, tired of socially isolating, tired of being a full-time parent and so on. So while I might have dark days that seem like they're all due to grief about climate change, it's likely true that I'm also at a lower point than normal due to the pandemic.

One of the most stressful parts of being obsessed with climate change or ERE for that matter, is how weak my skills are for living the way I think I want. My skills are much higher than several years ago, but I still have much to learn. I'm not going to be like Jacob and write a book/blog that can change lives, but I'd like to be one of his lieutenants. And I've noticed that when I carefully share my stories of how I'm changing our lives, people will seek me out and tell me their successes. I really like when folks tell me their triumphs.

I'm also really bummed about losing people recently. Classical_Liberal had been such a support and so generous with advice, suggestions and generally an interesting guy that I'm sad he's gone. Bigato, ffj, Jason, Augustus, c_L have all left in the last two years. That's a lot of smart higher level wheaton level people who aren't contributing anymore (well, maybe augustus and Jason weren't so high, but they were both interesting). I'm lighting a hand dipped home made beeswax candle for all of them tonight.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

@MT - I think I'm a bit of an outlier on the forum because I tend to focus on climate solutions from a top-down perspective rather than a bottom-up perspective. This probably results from how I think about and approach these things professionally. @Jacob's presentation on the stoa was really interesting near the end as he was talking about these two approaches and where both of them tend to fall apart. I actually think some combination of the two is probably the most effective for change - enough concern and outrage at the grassroots level ultimately leads to policy change. For example, the major pieces of environmental legislation in the USA (clean air act, clean water act, endangered species act) resulted from individuals like Rachel Carson highlighting growing environmental problems, and regular people becoming aware and demanding change.

Part of the reason I chose to engage on the topic here is that you your journal emanates so much positivity. I spent multiple years really upset and frustrated about how our collective actions were detrimentally affecting the climate and biodiversity. I'm not particularly optimistic about the future, but I learned over the years that feeling upset didn't really do much to address the problem. We don't have a whole lot of individual control over these large-scale problems, but we have control over our own emotional responses.

This isn't to say that we should ignore the problem. I think we have an ethical responsibility to minimize our footprint on the earth. I try to educate myself as much as possible, and focus on where my biggest impacts are. The real magic happens when you start to change as an individual because the changes you are making on behalf of others are making you happier (simpler life, local garden, fresh air and exercise, stronger local relationships, etc.)

The personal benefit of living without a car for a decade resulted from the beauty of taking walks everywhere, riding my bike, being in nature, interacting with my environment, and changing my perspectives and relationship to the world as a consequence. The reduced petrol was just a drop in the bucket in terms of the total environmental impact.

Part of my meditation practice is emphasizing how the practice will affect others in my life. Coming to terms with anxiety and addressing negative thought patterns, whether caused by Covid or climate or something else, will not only benefit me, but those directly around me.

AxelHeyst
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by AxelHeyst »

I think this post from Paul dealing with the relationship between bottom-up and top-down is really relevant to this thread: https://permies.com/t/51417/Derrick-Jen ... -political

It's obviously his proto-thinking of the book he and Klassen-Koop just published, but his thinking synthesizing with Derrick Jensen is really spot on. He's essentially saying, the more people exist who have their own backyards in order, the more people of like minds you have "infiltrating" the system, and so the more you're likely to actually get the system to change. The efforts are not distinct. To quote Paul in that post (emphasis mine):
And suppose we have come up with things to make it so that we reduce our waste at home. Effectively. Suppose we reduce 90% of our waste. And we activate the whole "everyone" thing. All of that industry is populated with .... people. The same people that just reduced all of their home waste.


And as someone who works(ed) in sustainability, I strongly agree with the idea that more people need to have their own backyards in order - there's a ton of people *in sustainability* who aren't effective because they've chosen to use their professional lives as a way to bypass personal responsibility - but this winds up causing their professional work to be full of holes, to be ineffectual to some degree. I think.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@WRC I really appreciate your comments. You have a measured way of writing that show a lot of thoughtfulness. I think as I've been writing and thinking about this negative side effect of focusing on climate change, I've realized that it is related to two distinct realities. One, when I've failed to live up to my expectations and/or don't have good processes to live a lighter life (no bike lights, bad planning, impatience, etc) and two, when I think about my son's future. The later one is really hard and also so vague as to be useless. I think my normal attitude is relentlessly and effortlessly positive so bad days are mostly an anomaly. But they are interesting and perhaps useful as I learn what exactly triggers me.

I am looking for more of what you talk about with your experience of living without a car. The money or reduced greenhouse gases might be the starting point for making a change, but the better quality of life is really what keeps one with the change. I am experiencing that now in fits and bursts as I slowly adapt our lives to be lighter on the earth. A useful way for me to think about it is as my life as a spiral. I might be in a similar place as before, but I'll be different or my situation will be different-hopefully in positive ways!

@AH I did buy Paul Wheaton's book recently on the strength of your review of it, plus it was fairly cheap. I did a quick read and am now rereading relevant sections more slowly and thoughtfully. I 100% agree about cleaning up your backyard, or as my boss says, my side of the street. I'll check out that blog post. One thing I've noticed is, that while I'm learning to get my yard in order, I'm getting exposed to a new set of people who are obviously thinking along some of the same lines. That's pretty exciting and once people can be together I'm hopeful more connections can happen.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

Some initial thoughts about spending and two months semi-retirement/part time work.

Spending tension/friction:
I understood going into part time work that we'd be learning how to reduce spending because of urgency due to making less money. I will post a detailed break down of spending soon but wanted to get some thoughts out before descending into numbers. Firstly, I've done a decent job tracking which is a change from last year. Secondly, we're breaking even with spending/income. Feb was a skip month with the mortgage due to refinancing, so we artificially reduced spending-to our benefit. Feb's savings rate is not even worth calculating. We only saved money due to the 401 k and the HSA deductions.

I feel a little embarrassment with breaking even with spending/income. However, I am slowly getting over it as I remind myself of the YMOYL 'no shame, no blame' mantra.

Feb might have been my hardest month emotionally for this whole pandemic (to date). The lack of socialization, lack of open public places and bitter cold coupled with my newfound struggle to drive to ski areas meant I stayed inside with a three year old a lot of the day. Lots of dark moments during Feb for me, and for DH as well.

This past week has dramatically shifted my emotional state. The weather is warmer, the snow is melting, the library opened up for in-person (30 min) visits, and I've started my first seeds indoors. I cried when I got inside the library, it was a little silly but it was the first time I was in a building that wasn't work or a store. It's pretty clear that I don't have good habits to boost/stabilize my mood. I'm usually so effortlessly upbeat that I've not learned how to work my way out a dark place.

Is this reduced income worth it still? YES. I can see that part time work could get annoying. Especially if we can't reign in our spending and make serious progress on saving money. It is great to have many days off and much shorter work days when I'm working. But I'm tethered to the job in basically the same way still. In some ways, I've got a stronger tether to the job as I have less ability (so far) to save money to stop working. But, we are likely to be living in the bus this year, so we'll be able to save more money AND have more free time in the near future.

The benefits are clear: I have more free time to learn, hang with my kid and eventually, start gardening. However, starting part time work in the middle of a pandemic, during winter and then deciding I shouldn't drive to the beautiful snowy mountains makes for a rough start for this new chapter. I don't think it is a bad thing to not ski, but I just didn't have a good alternative set up in place to switch to. So it was too much deprivation and not enough creativity applied to solving this problem. And it sucked.

Garden:
I've got cabbage, two types of broc, brussel sprouts and onions started. Some of them are too leggy so I've tried to move the light closer to them. With some, I just plucked them and started over. My kiddo ate them, so I guess I just grew microgreens for the first time. I'm waiting to hear back from the organization that runs the community garden and I've rallied a coworker to share the plot with me, if I get it. The kale are still producing once I dug them out from the snow. I haven't planted anything outside yet, though supposedly I could. I don't have a garden plan mapped out yet, so I'm holding off until I have a better idea where things will go.

Salaryman mindset:
I can see more clearly now that making a lot of money was a hindrance to creative living for me. I'd gotten used to my income, which while not huge, was still over twice what I ever made before in my whole working life. I'd gotten used to throwing money at a problem and 'solving' it quickly. Now, by choice, I've reduced our ability to use money to solve problems. But, I still have the mindset that money is the first tool to use with a problem. Now that I'm not in such a dark place, I'm recognizing the salaryman mindset I've lived with for six years. Two months isn't enough time to make big changes, for me anyway. So, I'm hopeful I can slough off that mindset in the months ahead.

Hristo Botev
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Hristo Botev »

Spring is almost here! (Is what I find myself repeating like a mantra more and more, but I actively believe it now.) Re the library, DW and I have about HAD IT with ours. There have been a few institutions that I’ve been really disappointed with in how they’ve utterly failed to navigate this pandemic, and our library is one. My office is a pleasant 5 minute walk to our library, and at least once or twice a week I’d make the walk as a nice break from work to go pick up books, dvds, or cds for me or DW or the kids. Now, in pandemic times, you have to schedule a 30 minute window to pick something up, outside, at least a day or more out, sometime between 10-4, based on availability (sorry to all those 9-5 workers out there). And if you miss your scheduled appointment time, you’re screwed. Well, I never really know when I’m going to have a free 15 minutes or so at work the next day, much less a week out. And of course in-person browsing is out of the question; you have to browse and request books via the library’s extremely clunky website. So the library has just become one more thing I have to schedule and stress about. Meanwhile, the public library in Orlando has been using folks’ taxpayer dollars to deliver books and dvds to library members for years; why didn’t we use the pandemic as an excuse to start doing something like that? More and more it just seems like our local library system is just one more tax-funded welfare system for the folks that work at the library, rather than a service provided to the community. Alright, rant over.

disk_poet
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by disk_poet »

Glad to hear you got through February. I often find February to be a hard month because I think the dark time is over and then February comes around. Esp. with COVID it's hard. I've had some health issues in February which prevented me from doing physical activity and realized that my coping skills were all clustered around that. I am trying to take it as a sign to expand my skillset in that area. I am writing this because you said: "It's pretty clear that I don't have good habits to boost/stabilize my mood." and the question popped into my head if you don't have "good" habits or if there was something (like COVID) that prevented you from using your normal habits? I am not meaning to imply something. I am just wondering because that's a realization that I had. It is probably different for you but maybe food for thought.
mooretrees wrote:
Fri Mar 05, 2021 11:44 pm
I can see more clearly now that making a lot of money was a hindrance to creative living for me. I'd gotten used to my income, which while not huge, was still over twice what I ever made before in my whole working life. I'd gotten used to throwing money at a problem and 'solving' it quickly. Now, by choice, I've reduced our ability to use money to solve problems. But, I still have the mindset that money is the first tool to use with a problem. Now that I'm not in such a dark place, I'm recognizing the salaryman mindset I've lived with for six years. Two months isn't enough time to make big changes, for me anyway. So, I'm hopeful I can slough off that mindset in the months ahead.
I think I've come to a similar realization. For me money was a way to game the system and fake progress. I realize that this is a very privileged thing to say because there are a majority of people who are prevented from taking opportunities because they have too little money but for me (someone trying to size down) it's almost like leaning on crutches. I consider myself lucky to be able to have this learning experience but it's still interesting to me.

I hope the next months will be better for you and your family!

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@disk_poet, I think I meant that I didn't have a regular meditation practice, or exercise regime that were ingrained habits to keep me moving and create small moments to feel better. I'd be curious what you're thinking of as far as habits that could help you?

@Hristo, yah, your library sucks! Mine has been really creative, they've started a 'dial-a-story' phone line for young kids, they do deliver, they have book packages for teens and lots more. They made it pretty easy to order books, though it's much more fun to browse. Early on they had a service where you told them authors you liked and they'd pick out some books for you. I liked that, especially for DS. I don't know how long they'll be open, but I've gone four times the first week. Which is silly, but I do love the building and being near books.

Enjoy all of the future pizza parties, we kids loved it, lots of running around, dashing in to help and then the excitement of eating your pizza.

disk_poet
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by disk_poet »

mooretrees wrote:
Sat Mar 06, 2021 9:19 am
@disk_poet, I think I meant that I didn't have a regular meditation practice, or exercise regime that were ingrained habits to keep me moving and create small moments to feel better. I'd be curious what you're thinking of as far as habits that could help you?
Meditation is actually something I am trying out. Same for Progressive Muscle Relaxation. I basically realized that I had coping skills but they were not applicable in my current situation which means I want to get additional ones to be more resilient. I think I was also a bit too focused on my already established habits which pushed me into a mindset of wallowing the loss of coping skills instead of seeing it as a chance to broaden my skillset. I hope that makes sense. The big caveat is that I have not made a lot of progress here. Acquiring more skills is hard for me when there is potentially something established I can fall back on. I think it's the same with money actually...

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@dp, I haven't heard of Progressive Muscle Relaxation before. I'll check it out. I get your point. My basic good-naturedness is not something I work on, so it's kinda weirdly prevented me from focusing on concrete skills to maintain emotional stability. I do think it's the same with money!

One area I'm hoping to make progress in is finding free sources of garden compost and bark mulch. Those are two expenses that I've incurred annually that, while not much, could be solved with more creativity. A friend I saw recently found a source of well aged horse manure that I might be able to get some. This is the first year that our personal compost pile should be usable too. Now to get the free bark chips I'm gonna call the local tree removal companies and see if they would dump a load of chips in our driveway. When I was a tree climber we'd do it for clients. Plus it saves the company a dump fee. We'll see how it goes.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

Feb Spending:

Food Home: 557.93
Food out: 66.75
Bills: 238.50
Animals: 369.44
Vehicles:
Ins: 42.37
Fuel: 75.19
Books: 30.73
Garden: 23.74
Entertainment: 16.97
Hobbies: 88.26 (violin lessons and candle wick)
Gifts: 66.94
Clothes: 46.74
Electronics: 32.99
Health: 287.27

Total Out: 1943.82
Total In: 2209.55
With mortgage payment total out would have been: 2702.82. Ugh.

Okay, now for the excuses/explanations and declarations of how March will be MUCH better. I tried to cut a dread lock off of our cat and gave her a laceration which needed stitches. Poor kitty. Plus, she is old with a bunch of rotten teeth that needed to be pulled. She's much better now and I apologized sincerely. She doesn't seem to be a grudge holder.

Food home: I was down and didn't have the energy to be better with food shopping and in fact it was an area I felt like splurging to try and make myself feel better. News flash, it didn't really work.
Food out: Some friends opened a take out lunch place and I wanted to support them. Likely will spend money there again but not as much.

Animals: both dogs need their teeth cleaned and there's a deal for doing it this month so we'll be spending about the same on them as we did on the cat in Feb.
DH has been seeing a chiro for shoulder issues and so our health expenses will likely remain about the same. We have a lot of money in the HSA, so might get reimbursed for that, not sure yet?
I have some birthday presents for best friends so gifts are likely again. Hoping that we won't spend anymore money on candle making-its getting light out.... and DH wants to practice his violin before taking anymore lessons. We are planning on buying some underwear, but we'll do that with the REI dividend we got, so we shouldn't be spending any 'real' money on clothes. I don't need anymore seeds and think I can work around buying compost for the garden so hoping that's it for garden supplies. Shouldn't need anymore books as I need to read what I have.
Anyway, most of where I hope to make up the difference for spending in March is: less food home, shooting for <350, no clothes, books, electronics, hobbies or garden related spending.

In short, it's likely that March spending will be close to breaking even with March money earned. Is this a worrying trend? Sorta. Animals and health spending are two categories we don't spend money on routinely (other than food). I'll be happy if we reduce what we spend on food at home and rein in other categories. If we didn't have plans to address housing this year, I'm pretty sure I'd be freaking out. As it is, we'll see a big reduction in spending sometime this year, so we can weather some close months until then.

Health:
Both DH and I had some neck/shoulder issues last month that carried over to this month. We're both much better. I've found a renewed interest in yoga and a book I've loved for years, Pain Free by Pete Egoscue. I've found myself doing daily exercises to improve my posture and address unbalanced areas, especially my hips. DH has actually been stretching, using the foam roller and doing some yoga with me too-a stunning reversal of the norm. I'm enjoying Yoga With Adriene and there's a lot of content to work through. I want to get some flexibility back and then try out the resistance bands or some form of combat conditioning/body weights in the next couple of weeks.

Unexpectedly, a friend got in touch with DH yesterday to let him know that a local Safeway had extra covid vaccine shots and were opening appointments up to the whole community. So, today he got his first shot. I was so frazzled with excitement yesterday I was worthless at work. With the new CDC guidelines, we can actually have a limited social life after his second shot. Amazing.

Hristo Botev
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Hristo Botev »

mooretrees wrote:
Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:47 pm
Okay, now for the excuses/explanations and declarations of how March will be MUCH better.
Ha! That's pretty much all I do on my own journal!

7Wannabe5
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think many of us are going to have to write off “one time” health expenditures to Covid. Mine would have been terribly high if it weren’t for the fact that my primary thought I had Covid each time he sent me to the hospital for something else.

Vaikeasti
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Vaikeasti »

You're such an inspiration to me! How your life has changed and how your going towards your goals! Keep up being amazing!

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@7w5, I hadn't thought of that connection. Also, someday I'd love to hear the story of your forum name.

@Vaikeasti, thanks! I feel like there's still so much to learn, do, and get better at. Baby steps!

I've started a good parenting book, Hunt, Gather, Parent. It's been really interesting so far. Basically, treat your child like a full-fledged member of the family by including them in daily activities-at their appropriate skill level, stop praising them, be VERY calm and patient. Halfway through and I'm incorporating some of the suggestions. For example, we make cookies today and he did most of the mixing, grabbing the fork from my hand! I let him do as much as he wanted with minimal intervention and no focus on mess or praise. It was fun. It's been interesting to realize how much I praised him for simple things. Why did I feel the need to say good job SO much? I've also started reducing his toys again. This is a suggestion from the book, but also my natural inclination. Right now he's literally playing with acorns and two small shovels. I don't think he would notice a significant reduction in toys.

Garden:
I've spread my seeds out to at least four friends, one has very little experience with gardening so it was educational for me to work with her. I basically brought over seeds and helped her plant radishes and scallions. I've got some local sources for aged horse manure and bark chips-which feels awesome as those two were products I've purchased in the past. My starts are really leggy but I'm gonna see how they do when I pot them up, maybe bury them a little bit? I'm hoping to keep encouraging local friends to garden some, more or at all. So far my encouragement has been in sharing seeds, talking about polycultural planting and actually helping a friend plant.
One bed has sprouted a number of plants, too soon to tell what each one is. I planted my first polycultural bed full of radishes, scallions, beets, carrots and other greens. Peas are planted too, nothing sprouting yet but we have a few days of warmth ahead.

Cooking:
I clabbered milk recently. I think I let it ferment too long as it's very intense. I'm gonna try @Alphaville's suggestion of adding salt and chili and mellow it out. I made my first batch of flour tortillas. They were too chewy but tasty. I'm gonna make some more tonight, DS is pretty good at flipping them on the skillet so that's fun. I think I used too much flour and didn't have a fat in the dough. I watched two videos by Mexican women and they both had a fat (lard, shortening ect) so I'm going to try that.

Other:
We got our stimulus check, wow. I didn't realize my son would qualify for so much money. We're contemplating two big purchases: an electric assist for the cargo bike and a manual grain grinder. We love the bike, but it isn't geared low enough to be as functional as it could be. The electric assist is a little over a grand. We'd have a friend who is starting a new bike shop install it so it gets done quickly and we support him.

The manual grain grinder is interesting and it feels sorta prepper to contemplate it. The one we're thinking of has two sets of grinders, stone and steel. I want one that is smallish, can grind flour and corn, and possibly peanuts. I have blue corn seeds for the garden this year so I hope I can produce a small amount of polenta or corn flour for tortillas. I'm interested in suggestions.

Almost finished with my third month of part-time work. Every month has been so different. March has been the best yet, partly because of the increasing daylight, DH getting started with his vaccination and being able to garden. I'm on a current stretch of seven days off. I don't dread work at all. My days are mellow, I don't feel the crazy urgency to GET STUFF DONE that I did when I work 40 hours. My main job is really parenting now, which is getting easier and more fun.

School Bus:
DH has finished his major redo of his table saw. I think he's going to start milling a big slab of cedar for the exterior of the windows. He will also be milling (not sure that's correct) some gifted plywood for the interior of the caboose raise windows. We unpacked the windows from the car roof topper and they look sharp! He choose a black metal frame and eight out of ten windows open and have screens. This roof raise has added a huge amount of work, but I think the final result will be fantastic. He's now cleaning and organizing his tools-he has a tendency to be really messy during projects and then do a big clean. It's not the best habit, but it's his method.

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Alphaville
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Alphaville »

mooretrees wrote:
Wed Mar 31, 2021 8:01 pm
Cooking:
I clabbered milk recently. I think I let it ferment too long as it's very intense. I'm gonna try @Alphaville's suggestion of adding salt and chili and mellow it out. I made my first batch of flour tortillas.
just for clarification, salt and chili are not so much meant to mellow but to *stand up* to the acidity. like chile and lime. like tajín. like salt and vinegar potato chip. like a salty dog cocktail. like a good pickle. like thai/vietnamese food. hotdogs and sauerkraut! acid goes well with salt... and heat also.

so you could use it as an intense crema maybe, with beans and tortillas (i see you made tortillas).

the other suggestion was to drain the whey for more of a requesón/paneer type consistency. which, more experimental i guess, not sure of separation with clabbered milk. but i'll assume yes. raw milk cheese!

(btw i ate my supertart strained yogurt this evening with ground flax+chia, olive oil, and salt. tomorrow i'll add chopped parsley to the oil, maybe a bit of garlic and ground walnut)

for further explorations on the subject, samin nosrat gets into the acid/heat pair in her mexican travelogues (netflix version, i haven't read the book)

Western Red Cedar
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Great to hear that you are doing so well with the part time/semi-ERE arrangement. I imagine things will only get better as the weather improves and you have more time outside. It is also really cool to hear about you nudging your friends towards gardening. That kind of positive change has a tendency to ripple in ways we can't imagine.

Please post pictures of the bus project when you get a chance :)

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