Life With The Crew

Happy Thanksgiving

Being a vegetarian, I do have to admit that the part of this holiday that is the center of the holiday for a lot of people, makes me feel quite sad.  A lot of factory farm bred, monstrous turkeys suffered so that people's holidays can be complete.  If you do eat meat, then perhaps for Christmas or next year's Thanksgiving, you might want to consider buying a heritage breed turkey for your holiday meal.  The Livestock Conservancy (used to be the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy) has an article about heritage turkeys.  

You might also consider looking to see if there is a farmer in your area that participates in the Animal Welfare Approved program.  From their website, "Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) is a food label for meat and dairy products that come from farm animals raised to the highest animal welfare and environmental standards. The program was founded in 2006 as a market-based solution to the growing consumer demand for meat, eggs and dairy products from animals treated with high welfare and managed with the environment in mind."  If you are going to eat meat, it would be nice to know that the animal lived as humanely a life as possible.

Natural and health food stores often offer turkeys from local farmers that were treated more humanely, with access to the outdoors, and not fed entirely on grain.  They might be more expensive, but aren't you supposed to splurge a little on the special holiday meal?

Hope this post wasn't too much of a downer, but perhaps provided some information about options other than the neighborhood grocery store special.

Sunday Sewing

A neighbor knitted the most beautiful pink alpaca sweater vest for my babe when she was first born.  She can actually still wear it a year later, but it is very tight!  I like sweater vests and I thought they seemed pretty simple to sew, so I was trying to think of what scrap material I have to make one.  I remembered that I had this cream cashmere fringed scarf  in the scrap bin because I knew that one day I could make something out of it.  As is, it just isn't my style.

So I used the knitted vest as a template and cut mine just a bit bigger.  Since the fringe was on both ends of the scarf, I didn't have to cut a bottom edge.  I sewed the one side and neck piece shut and then put buttons on the other side and neck piece, following the other vest's pattern.  I had to sew the button holes by hand since I don't know how to do that on the sewing machine yet and I didn't want to fart around with figuring it out.  (I am an impatient crafter.  If I want to do something, I want to do it NOW.  I am aware this tendency can cause things to look half-assed.)

I had just received some cute buttons as a gift and had 4 matching ones - just what I needed!  It is not the cleanest or most attractive sewing job, but it fits, a button hasn't popped off yet, it will help keep my babe warm, and I LOVE the fringe on my little hippie babe!  

And the best part is that it was FREE!  

On My Soapbox

This week was Bulk Waste Week in my township.  What does this mean?  It means that you can put on the curb whatever junk you have been collecting in your garages, sheds, attics, and basements and the garbage truck will come and smash it before hauling it off to a landfill.

Let me share with you some pictures of things that my husband and I saw on our morning run today. 

I'm going to paint and try to reupholster the chair.

We will use the cooler - it is in perfect condition.

My daughter won't be ready for a bike for several years, so I'm going to sell this on Craiglist.

By next summer, my daughter will be old enough to play in the sand, so we'll be all set.  Or the dogs will enjoy lying in the "pool".

 

We also saw lots of mattresses (one house had 4!), tires, electronic equipment including working televisions, luggage, a pair of roller blades, several shelving units, and miscellaneous other items that were actually junk.  When there are so many options for people to dispose of what they do not want anymore, it disgusts me that people just consider this stuff trash and do not think about the unsustainability of their actions.  In our town in Pennsylvania, there are the following ways that you can dispose of your unwanted items.

-Goodwill  Accepts household items and clothes.

-Habitat for Humanity  Accepts household applicances and construction materials.

-Craiglist  You can either list items for "free" or sell them.

-We also have several other organizations in our area that are similar to Goodwill, like Pete's Used Furniture that will haul away your item for you.  We also have a cool store in town called Freeze Thaw that takes old bikes and uses the parts to build new bikes.   And there is always the good old yard sale/garage sale/boot sale where you can make a couple dollars.  

I just wish that people would think a little more about the end destination of their unwanted items.  I'm going to twist the old cliche "you better eat that because there are starving children in Africa" - there are also millions of people who do not have a bed to sleep on, so please reconsider putting four mattresses into the landfill to sit there forever.  Yes, you can't ship them to Africa, but you can donate them so that they can continue to be of use to someone.

When I was running by all of these unwanted items destined for the landfill, I was thinking about a book I read recently called Visit Sunny Chernobyl by Andrew Blackwell.  The author narrarates his visits to places such as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the "electronics-recycling wonderland" in China.  Quirky title, serious topics, with a humorous slant.  Otherwise who would want to read about these depressing places?  

So I am now stepping off my soapbox.  What is one of your creative ways of reusing/repurposing an item?

 

Thankful Tuesday - 10.8.13

I am going to try to get in a rhythm with posting.  "This Moment" is on Fridays and I would like to start a "Thankful Tuesday" post (on Tuesdays!)  So here it goes:

I am thankful for the late season heat wave that brought us a warm and beautiful Friday afternoon.  I am thankful that we have a local dairy that doesn't treat its cows with hormones and makes yummy ice cream.  So combine those together and it made for a great end of the week treat for my husband, daughter, and I.  (ice cream already eaten in picture)

 

I am thankful for family that was able to come help us with various projects this weekend, including my mother-in-law who showed me how to use a sewing machine.  My babe is wearing my first project below - a pair of leg warmers.

Totally simple, nothing special, but this first time sewer is proud!  I noticed that when I go for walks with my daughter in her carrier, her pants ride up and her ankles are exposed.  It hasn't been cold enough for the one piece fleece bunting, but it is chilly in the mornings.  So I've been thinking of making her some elasticized leg warmers, but I found this old wool mix scarf in my scrap bag and it was the perfect size.  Just had to cut the length and sew the tube together.  Of course, it was raining today so we didn't get to test them out on a walk, but she looked just as cute wearing them inside the house.

 

I am grateful that I have a husband who loves me and treats me right.  After our long run on Saturday, he brought me a raspberry cream filled donut from the farmer's market, without me asking for it.  Totally yum.  I am also thankful for the healthy Lentil Soup in Acorn Squash that he made recently.  Helped soak up all that hydrogenated goodness.

(No picture.  I will let you imagine me with a face full of white powdered sugar and purple cream filling.)

 

What are you thankful for today?

Chickens or the Eggs

What is more important - keeping chickens or having eggs?  Because keeping chickens does not mean that you will have eggs.  We have a flock of 9 hens of various breeds that we chose because they were pretty.  They are all over 2 years old now and so egg prodution varies.  Some days they wow us and we'll get 4, other days we won't get any, even in summer.

I love how different the eggs are.  If you buy a dozen from the grocery store, all 12 look identical in size and color.  Not our eggs.  I brought these 4 in today and each one is a different size and slightly different color, ranging from terracotta to a light buff.  We keep chickens because they are fun to look at, they eat our kitchen scraps, we love cooking with our own eggs (when they decide to grace us with some), and now that we have a daughter, I am looking forward to teaching her about that part of the food chain.  So we keep our chickens until they die of natural causes, be that illness or possum, and we have taken then to the vet to be euthanized when that is the most humane thing to do.  I know a lot of people will think that is crazy and say we should just whack off their heads, but that is not our style and not what our hearts tell us to do.  

So I am grateful for the 4 eggs I received today and I will continue to be embarassed when I have to go to the farmer's market and buy a dozen when I have my own flock in the backyard!