Come the Revolution

Archive for July, 2008

I’ll admit, I’m an addict. Just about everywhere I go I take some reading material. I’m not just talking the standard newspaper-on-the-can bit. I have books with me all the time. In fact, we’ve run out of space in this apartment for my and Amanda’s collective book collections- and these are just the ones we have <i>with</i> us. Lately I’ve been reading ravenously- trying to alternate between scary/serious and novels (which are often serious in their own right, but faster to read). I’m trying to make myself write reviews for the books in my collection that are relevant to this blog. If you have something you’d like to review in kind, please e-mail us. We want guest writers!

Ok, enough of this banter- time to get down to business. Today’s business is Better Off. It’s the true story of a young couple who moved from urban Boston, one having just received a Masters degree from MIT, to an Anabaptist community in the Mid-West. Eric and Mary, newly wed at the time, stumble through 18 months of living with no electricity or other “time saving devices”. They had never lived lives like that before- no phone, no running water, no lightswitches, no office jobs or outside income (they kept the indoor toilet and flushed it, likely with greywater). Neither had ever lived on a farm, either- which leads to some interesting moments throughout the first growing season they are there.

The book was interesting for me because I felt a sense of identification with Eric as he tries to assimilate to the degree appropriate into a religious community that he feels he can learn a great deal from, which is also a community of manual laborers who have lived with relatively little outside world connections. His and Mary’s interests largely match mine and Amanda’s, which made it easier for me to pick up the book. I believe his writing style is accessible enough and his drive toward this project (living at the relative other end of the technological continuum) popular enough to be relatively easy reading for anyone interested in this blog.

There is nothing perfect in life, and Eric Bende’s book is not different in that regard. Mary and Eric soon settle into a “men’s work/women’s work” dichotomy when they get to the farm that I have since had a few pointed conversations about. Some of the things they stumble over seem, at least from my comfortable distance, as a sign they weren’t as prepared as they could have been for their sojourn into a life of relative simplicity- something that bothers me in strange ways as I read such books. There is also a strong concentration on their first 6 months or so, with a condensed version of the rest of their stay (which was 18 months and not 12 as the cover suggests).

All in all a really enjoyable read, and one that I recommend you borrow from your local library or favorite blogger.

A few days ago Sarah was working on some homework, or rather procrastinating on doing some homework, and stumbled across Chris Jordan’s website. A lot of his recent work is both alarming and important because it highlights American culture and wastefulness.

I’m horrified by the amount of waste and abuse of resources that Jordan has managed to depict perfectly. I only hope that his work convinces people to take a few fewer plastic bags and commercial flights.

Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds. [emphasis is mine]

Strawberry season is long gone here in the mid-atlantic region, but let me tell you, I made the most of it while it lasted. I bought a flat and a half of strawberries — that’s 12 quarts — over the course of two weeks.

Most of them got frozen. Some I froze in slices, for adding to oatmeal and yogurt. Others I froze whole for future jamming and baking projects. Either way, the process was simple: hull the berries, slice them if you want, and freeze them on baking sheets before transferring them to freezer bags or other containers of choice. (Freezing them in a single layer keeps them from getting mushy and freezing together.)

I turned four quarts into jam. I have pretty limited jamming experience. Okay, actually, I have NO jamming experience, because the last time I tried to make jam I didn’t cook it long enough. It was still really yummy, just not quite… jelled. I called it preserves. Late last fall I made pomegranate jelly, which also came out a little runnier than I would have liked, although it did pass for jelly and I received rave reviews (and requests for more) from the family members I tested it out on.

So given my vaguely undercooked jamming history, I decided to let this jam cook until I was damn good and sure that it was jam.

A word of advice?

Don’t do what I did.

With the first of the two batches, I waited and waited for the would-be jam to “sheet” off the spoon, even though I’d never seen an explanation of sheeting that I really understood. Finally I did the cold-plate test, and decided it was done.

Oh man, was it ever done. Once it set up, that first batch was downright chewy. Not exactly the right texture for spreading. It’s still really tasty, though, so I found a solution: I’m going to freeze the chewy “jam” in little balls, and then coat those with melted chocolate. And call them dessert. When life hands you chewy strawberries, I say, make chocolates.

The second batch came out better, and I’ll probably make another batch in the fall with the some of the frozen berries. This recipe has no added pectin, which means that there’s a lot of sugar and it’s pretty sweet — I might think about adding a little lemon juice the next time around.

Recipe: Traditional Strawberry Jam
2 quarts strawberries, fresh or frozen
6 cups sugar

Wash, hull, and crush (or defrost) berries in a large saucepot. Add sugar, stirring to mix. Cook over low heat, stirring continuously until sugar dissolves. Crank up the heat a little and bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Cook rapidly just to gelling point (but not beyond! I recommend the cold plate test). Remove from heat, skim foam (which isn’t as easy as it sounds), and ladle into hot jars. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.

Makes 4 pints, supposedly, but I only got three out of it.

PS: That’s not my jam. It’s Dvortygirl’s.

College graduation, I was told, would be both the most exciting and most terrifying day in my fairly short life. I believe the terrifying part would have been true, if I hadn’t skipped my college graduation (Sorry, fellow ’07s) to spend it moving. I found that instead of finding those emotions on the last day of my academic life (at least for now, or so I tell my relatives), I was bombarded by them on my first day of farming. The reason for this was that my farm internship (the first of a bunch, I’m sure) was my trial time to see if I was really able to take on farming and see if it was where I wanted to go with my life.

It was a fairly standard farming internship I’d signed up for, or so I thought. I found out later that it wasn’t quite “normal” for a farmer to really see you as an apprentice and not an extra set of hands that can hold a hoe. In the first 24 hours I learned that a long (12+ hour) days were exhausting but possible, that I needed a lot of practice hand-weeding (and boy would I get practice), how to trellis bean and tomato plants (and when, and why), a strangely large amount about sugar snap peas and garlic, that I should try to invest in an outfit to look like the gorton fisherman, and most importantly- that water is the bodyfluid of plants, and as such, the biggest method of disease transfer.

Over the months that followed I had lots of long days, lots of days where I got soaked (I have since invested in that rain outfit), and a growing feeling of accomplishment as I slowly learned that I stayed longer than any other intern on this particular farm, that there’s a lot more to being a farm intern than dealing with the work (especially if you’re in a house with a young family), and how terrifying it is to manage a farm by yourself for the first time- even if it’s only for a week. A farm apprenticeship on a small farm is important for someone looking to have a small farm eventually, and this farm was a really good pick for me. I never thought I’d be so exhausted from a job and still want to get up and feed the chickens the next morning.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been so excited for rain in my whole life.

Two weeks ago, I signed up for the Crunchmeister’s Keep Yer Cool Challenge. The goal? No air conditioning in the Tiny Apartment at all. All summer. In DC.

Truth be told, I hate air conditioning. I hate being cold, and I especially resent it in the summer, when I’m supposed to have the opportunity to be HOT for a change. My office is so over-airconditioned that walking out into 92-degree weather at the end of the day is actually a relief. I need to bring in a sweater to keep at my desk because I’m perpetually cold.

But inevitably, for the past two weeks, by the time I’ve gotten back to my apartment building I’ve been swelteringly hot. And my apartment is, of course, swelteringly hot as well, even though I leave the fan going during the day. I walk in, and I think, “Maybe I should turn on the AC, just for a few minutes, just to cool the place off a bit.”

By the time I’ve peed, taken off most of my clothes, and gotten a glass of water, the instinct to turn on the AC passes. And most of the time, as the evening wears on, I find my self adding more clothes as the temperature in my warm apartment feels cooler and cooler.

So: Two weeks and no AC. I’m pretty impressed, if I do say so myself! Here, in no particular order, are my strategies for keeping cool:

• Open the window when it cools down in the evening, and close it before leaving for work the next day. This lets cool air in and keeps hot air out. I also pull the shades during the day.
• Take an icepack to bed. I keep one, wrapped in a small towel, in bed next to me. It radiates coolness, which helps me sleep.
• Wear less clothing. Hey, you don’t have to ask me twice.
• The fan/bowl of ice combo. I set up a fan to blow across a small bowl of ice directly at the bed. It simulates air conditioning without the insane energy expenditures. I’ve only done this once, when I was really desperate and couldn’t sleep, but it definitely did the trick.