First Swim of the Season

There is one public pool in White Pine County. It's a little man-made lake that for a hundred years the county has maintained. There are slides and diving boards, and a little concrete island called the Cat Walk that kids jump off of.

Yesterday was the season opener party. It's funny to me how temperature feels different up here. The high yesterday was 67 degrees. I was cold enough to wear a jacket when the wind kicked up, but warm enough to wear shorts and a tank top under it. The pool is fed by a warm springs, so there were eleventy billion kids in there. But in Las Vegas 67 degrees is cold enough that you wouldn't consider swimming. It certainly doesn't feel like summer.

Anywho...some pics!

My girls:



Ruby chomping down on a dog before she realized I have in deed turned into my mother and wasn't going to let her go back into the water for twenty minutes.



Nick coming out of the bottom of a slide.



The real Sandy Cheeks:



What I saw when I lay on my back:

Tingles

I spent last night watching CNN.

I can not remember a time, ever, when I was as exhilarated by the political process as I am right now. I am so excited that Barrack Obama has become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

I don't know if it will make a difference. I don't know if things will be different with a different president. Will I have affordable health insurance? Will teachers really be paid a living wage under his direction? Will No Child Left Behind be funded? Will I be able to stop worrying about my brothers being drafted? Will the war end? Will Obama really institute an Energy program that might actually have an affect?

Oh the questions. I'm excited to learn the answers.

Obama '08

Food and Gas

I've decided that I'm going to shop a different way.

I'm going to shop a'la Tightwad Gazette. Remember that book? It's one of my favorites. I have the big compilation book and look at it often. In it, the author talks about how her husband shops (shopped?) for them and their six kids by the stock-up method. They only buy what they need to refill their stock and they buy according to loss leaders at the stores.

Here's my take on it:

I'm going to look at the flyer each week and only buy the things that are on a good discount. And then look at things in the clearance areas of our local store. Every morning the butcher marks meat that needs to be sold that day down to half and there is usually some produce marked down that much on a rack in the produce section. There's also a bakery discount rack and a giant box (think of those huge-mungus boxes that watermelons and pumpkins are sold out of) of marked down grocery items.

I went to the market today armed with my list from the flyer. Here's what I got:

8 1-pound things of ground turkey
10 pounds of fresh broccoli
10 pounds of apples
6 pounds of oranges
1 pound of cherries (because I love them, and they were on sale!)
4 cantaloupes
2 big bags of frozen raspberries
1 package hot dogs and 1 of buns from the bakery discount (the dogs were on sale, too)
about $5 worth of stuff from a grocery cart full of seeds and seed starting stuff marked for clearance
5 bags of honey mustard pretzels from the big box of marked down stuff
A half-gallon of orange juice (on sale)
A gallon of skim milk (regular price, but what are you going to do?)
and a raincheck for 4 whole chickens that were sold out

I spent $70, not including the chickens. Shocking, but if I'd paid full price for everything it would have been $110.

I'm going to freeze the broccoli today. I might have to go back and buy more of that, it was a really good sale.

I am constantly shocked at how much we spend on food. It's outrageous really. Six years ago, when I was a single mom with two school-aged kids, I fed all three of us on about $300 a month. I would say we're easily spending $200 a WEEK on food right now. Unreasonable. But, damn. Food is so crazy expensive. And there are five of us, two adults, two teenagers and a toddler. But milk used to be like $1.80 a gallon. Now it's almost $4. Eggs were about a dollar a dozen, now they're $2.50.

Gas is $4.21 a gallon this week. I'm so glad that school is out next week. That will free up a whooping $100 a month just because I don't have to drive Adrienne to school everyday. If we let our vehicle run to empty, it would cost about $110 to fill it up.

Scary shit.

And Bush is talking about how this is a 'slow down' and not a recession. I guess it's easy to say when you're a millionaire who doesn't have to worry about how he's going to feed his children or get them to school.

So we're spending quite a lot more on food and gasoline, but our family income has remained largely the same for the last five years.

This freaks me out some

We have several gas stations in the little town nearest to us.

Most are chains, like Shell. One is a family run full-service gas station where you pull up and someone runs out and gases you up and washes your windows.

That station has big signs on their pumps right now.

They ran out of gas.

Yikes.

My Garden in Waiting

I thought I'd share some pics of my seedlings. I'm so proud of them!

Here's what I have:

broccoli (3)
sweet peppers (4)
eggplant (4)
Watermelon (4)
Cabbage (8)
Zuccini (4)
Onions (4)
Brandywine tomatoes (6)
Cherry tomatoes (6)
Pumpkins (4--did you see those monsters?)
Birdhouse gourds (2--more monsters!)

The orange pot has dill, chives, chamomile, and lemon balm.

I'm going out this afternoon when Ruby goes down for her nap to plant some peas, radishes, beets, spinach, and lettuce outside. It's finally warmed up enough for those, I think. I'll be ready with a tarp or something if it gets cold one more time.

Next week Kevin is going to help me build some cinder block raised beds for my warm weather veggies. I ordered some seeds and they should be here today (whoop!)

Independance Days Update

Man, I'm a really terrible blogger. I'm sorry I've been missing in action for so long. No wonder only a dozen people read this thing! lol

I am anxiously awaiting warmth. We had one freak weekend (not this weekend, last) that included three days of 80 to 90 degree weather. I got all excited. I dug up a bed for my peas, and set up my outdoor furniture. The day after the last day of 90 degree weather it snowed. Yes, it snowed and was 29 degrees for an overnight low. That's a 60 degree difference. Unbelievable. And it's been cold ever since. So my peas didn't make it to their new home.

It's supposed to warm up some today, and it's been raining, so the ground is sort of loosened up. I'm going to try to get out and dig up some more today.

Plant Something: Like I said, I dug up a bed for my peas. It's still too unpredictable to plant out until mid-June. It snowed on the last day of school last year! I also planned out my raised beds, which I hope to put in next week. I ordered my warm-weather seeds from a company that specializes in high desert gardens.

Harvested: Nothing.

Preserved: Since I harvested nothing, I had nothing to preserve. I want to start watching my grocery store for the produce that they mark down sometimes, keeping an eye out for anything I can preserve. I am also WAY TOO excited about hearing that there will be a farmer's market here from August to October. I'm planning on participating. And also buying up the goodies to preserve.

Stored: Sadly, nothing. I have these huge plans, but they aren't panning out as well as I'd like them to.

Managed: We started a new program for paying off our debt, which basically is just putting an extra $50 a week toward our card with the lowest principal. When that one is paid off (in July) we'll roll over that $50 a week, plus the monthly payment to that card over to the next card. And so on and so on. In this way, we should be completely out of debt, including out car, in about two years. I hope that the economy holds out that long. I'm not optimistic.

Prepped: See the planted section. I also made a batch of laundry detergent. I bought some things so that I can start really learning how to sew. I am writing a short story, in the hopes of having it published.

Cooked Something New: I made a pork roast in my crock pot. Okay, that's not really a big deal, but I'd never made one before and it was AMAZING. We made pulled pork barbeque sandwiches out of it with coleslaw. Holy cow.

Advocate for Local Food Systems: I've been spreading the word about the Farmer's Market. And planning for it. I want to have some information to hand out to people who come to my booth. I need to start planning what I'm going to offer. We can have what we grow, plus seedlings, seeds, and food. I might order some bulk seeds from Seed Savers and offer them for use next year. I also plan on offering herb seedlings that can be grown indoors until next summer. And bread. I've also been talking up my plan to have chickens.

Reduced Waste: We are still saving our recycling, but not as diligently as I'd like. Need to step that one up.

Learned a Skill: I learned how to line a crocheted wallet. Go me!

I've decided to add a new category that is important to me. Building health. Not just for me, but for my family. I think that it's going to be very important in the coming years to be as mentally, physically and emotionally healthy as possible. So:

Building Health: I lost four pounds this week. Nice, eh? Yeah. I bought some multi-vitamins that were on sale at the local grocery store half off. Adrienne has been having leg cramps and has also been really tired lately. It finally occurred to me that she might be anemic, like me. So vitamins for her, and for everyone for good measure. I ordered some medicinal herb seeds. I also reread SuperFoods, which is fascinating to me.

We really do live in one of the most amazing places in the country. Rural Northeastern Nevada has to be one of the few really unblemished areas in America. Here are some pictures I took while I was on a drive on the Success Loop, about ten miles from my house.