survive and thrive friday: camouflage, difference between self-sustainability and self-reliance, and a homemade mouse trap

I took these pics before the inception of Survive and Thrive Friday, but I'm including them since being camouflaged is a pretty survival-relevant idea, canigetawitness.

Do you see the moth?
If not, there's a hint at the bottom of this post.
Fun times, right? Participatory blog reading.

Jason's hunting clothes, becoming one with the forest (as far as scent)

*   *   *   *   *

Now then, the terms self-sustaining and self-reliant. I have used those words somewhat interchangeably, which I guess is fairly common, but a podcast by Jack Spirko a few weeks ago put me to pondering. In that same podcast, Jack talks about lifestyle design, and asks people to consider if the life they now live looks anything like what they would intentionally design for themselves, and if not, what they can do to work toward what they want. He has a lot of great thoughts. Side note. Anyway, if the systems we currently rely on were to shut down (power, water, availability of fuel, food, etc.) self-reliance, says Jack, is getting by temporarily. It's the bandaid fixes. Food in the pantry. Flashlights and candles. A generator. Self-sustainability, on the other hand, allows a person to produce their own power/food/warmth/shelter and live indefinitely in that state. Both are important to think about and work toward; neither should be ignored.

It's interesting how the two are best measured. Self-reliance should be measured in time. Like, if we're keeping bags of beans or canned goods in a pantry, maybe we have 4 weeks' worth of emergency food on hand. Self-sustainability, though, is measured in percentages - what percent of our needs we would be able to fill ourselves (or within our small community). For now, because the existing systems are working okay, most people aren't too self-sustaining. As an example, maybe folks who garden are 30% self-sustaining in the specific area of food, being able to provide vegetables for themselves. If they know how to hunt small and large game, or how to keep chickens for eggs and meat, or if they plant some fruit trees on their property, or keep bees, their self-sustainability percentage increases. See what I mean? The idea is to keep upping the percentage of self-sustainability as you go along - slowly, deliberately, with the acquisition of skills and equipment, animals, whatever you're going for, and at the same time to better situate yourself for self-reliance, the quick fixes to get by if the system you rely on shuts down. The failure could even be within your own system (poor growing season, disease among the animals, etc.), so self-reliance is essential as the back up plan.


That idea sure clicked some things into place for me.

Well, that's the end of the warm, fuzzy section about the world as we know it potentially ending. Next up, a method for trapping mice and other rodents!


Most of you who read my blog probably read Rachel's too. Her recent post called, "There Is One Kind of Hippy I Will Never Be," is about her fear of rodents, amphibians, bugs, and every other small creature known to Earth. This is a perfect segue from that - a small rodent trap. What it has to do with survival is several fold. First, though we don't eat the rodents we catch, we could if times were, like, really hard. A person could conceivably set this same system up for larger animals with a 5 gallon bucket or crud, a 50 gallon drum. Secondly, even though we don't eat them, just disposing of mice is good for our health, since mice can spread diseases just by being their cute but nasty little selves. Thirdly, this is much safer to have around kids than spring loaded mouse traps, which could no doubt snap off fingers or toes unwittingly. You can opt to put a bit of water in the bucket, so that is something to be aware of with kids, but it doesn't take much water. Jason learned of this mouse trap from a fellow employee in Glacier Park, and the first time we set it up here in ND, we caught four mice in 45 minutes. They had taken over our home while we were on a vacation, and by the time we returned, they were brave and plentiful little party animals. Have your party in our bucket, you little mice-ies.

Here's the recipe, so to speak.

1. Find a bucket. Ours is a 2 gallon bucket.
2. Cut a stick to be a skosh longer than the bucket's diameter. It should stick tight in there just by pressure.
3. Cut a hole in both ends of an aluminum can or plastic juice can that you can put the stick through. The holes should be bigger than the diameter of the stick, so that the can is able to freely spin on the stick.
4. Smear peanut butter in a line around the can - toward one end rather than in the center.
5. Put an inch or so of water in the bucket. 
6. Find a plank-like stick and secure it somehow to the bucket.

The idea is that the mouse smells the peanut butter. He scurries up the plank to find it, sees the peanut butter, and steps out onto the can. (If he can stretch to the peanut butter without stepping onto the can, it's no good.) The can spins on the stick, and the mouse falls into the bucket. If you have water in it, the mouse will drown. Sorry, yo. If you do not have water in it, it is a live trap, and I'd go with a bigger bucket to insure no jumping escapees. Meanwhile, the trap stays perfectly functional for the next victim; there is p.b. all the way around the can, so it doesn't matter where it stops spinning.


Man. This feels really different to blog about than, say, a nice book I'm reading or a funny character I met in town. But, it is what it is, and that wraps up another delightful edition of Survive and Thrive Friday.

Survive!
Thrive!
Hot dog!   

Hint for the moth picture: the moth looks like a leaf. 
Okay, okay the real hint is this: look to the far left, barely above center.

a touch of ppd, and mom's astounding, kick-pants chocolate sauce recipe

[written Wednesday]

Today, I have a terribly messy house and brain, and they both seem to get more cluttered as the hours tick by. I am noticing a pattern. The day after a very full, busy day, I am completely demotivated. When I write that out, it's clear to me what I should do: either pace myself so that even the busy days have time for rest, thereby making the next day less pendulum-ey, OR let myself totally relax the next day (as much as possible with two small children) and indulge in life-ful things without mind for where they fall on my never-ending priority list. Instead, I generally attempt to combat the demotivation by walking around listlessly, starting small tasks and not finishing them, and feeling like a failure for not accomplishing something.

I have managed to keep our fire going and all of us fed today, but that's about it. And when I say "fed," that includes one meal of protein bars. So, there you go. Oh, wait. I have also let Kaladi in and out of the house 13 or 19 times.


Anyway, I think I've got a touch of the old postpartum depression. It's nothing major. Nobody needs to jump into their cars and race over here to intervene. I just have felt a little out of mommying mode and more into whatever mode it is when you lay in a big fluffy bed and eat ice cream all day. I don't have a fluffy bed, so that, among other reasons (two with names that begin with Z) has made that particular fantasy impossible to live out.


We took Ziah to a pediatric appointment at around three months, and they had both Jason and I fill out postpartum depression surveys. I guess I scored a 7 on mine, but the Doc said they aren't worried until it reaches 10. I thought it was funny that we didn't even talk about the questions that lead to the 7 score. I don't know what the high score is, but like my sister said, "10 they're worried, 7 they ain't?! New doctor!" But anyway, yeah, I think it's just a touch of ppd. Reminds me of my childhood. Whenever any of us did something repetitive, we'd say we had a touch of Tourette's. One of my brothers has Tourette's, you know, so we're allowed to use humor and still have it be PC. And if it's not PC, frankly, my dear, I don't give a fruity tuesday toot-a-loot boogers for brains.


I was talking to a friend who learned recently that ppd can take a lot of forms, some of them surprising. Neither of us had really considered ourselves ppd-ers, because we weren't depressed in the ways we envisioned that term to mean. But for both of us (only when we had boys - anyone else have that experience?), it has come as anxiety and also fear of bizarre things. For example, I am daily afraid that little Ziah will be sent to a concentration camp. Um, that would be a perfectly rationale fear in some parts of the world. Not as likely here. But you know what? Life can change in a hurry. Countries can fall apart in a hurry. The point remains though that it's not one of those fears I can DO a lot about, and worrying about it is neither improving my quality of life nor warding off concentration camps. Besides, when I let loose of some of the more ridiculous fears, I have time for the ones like a tiger dragging the children through the bedroom window at night while we sleep. Stuff like that.


All of this is going someplace besides strictly a venting session, not that there would be a problem with a straight up venting session. But the place that it's going is that on days like this, I feel like making a batch of my mom's kick-pants chocolate sauce recipe, which I'm not going to do this particular day, on account of lacking motivation. Doh. Anyway, Mom got this from a magazine or something years ago, and it is a family favorite. It is pretty much the best taste ever, if you're a fan of dark chocolate. I may have posted it before (?).

Mom's Astounding Kick-Pants Chocolate Sauce

 

1 C sugar

2/3 C cocoa powder

1/2 C cream

4T butter

2t vanilla

Combine all ingredients but the vanilla, and heat to boiling over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. (I first combine the sugar and cocoa powder to each other, to cut down on lumps.) When the sauce is well blended, Stir in 2t vanilla. Serve warm over ice cream. Drop your jaw at the mind-bending delicious factor.

Bismarck or bust! (yes)

We took a two-day trip to Bismarck for a change of scenery last Sunday. I'd found out from some moms at a play group that Bismarck was the place to go for a zoo, a pumpkin patch, hotels with cooler-than-average swimming pools (with long slides and kid sized wading pools), plus ordinary city stuff, which is, of course, extraordinary to us.


The weather was cool and cloudy our whole drive there, and then about 10 minutes outside of Bismarck, it started raining. Jason asked Zoralee if it was raining on her side of the car too, a reference to a kids' book we'd gotten from the library not long back. In the story, a girl and her dad are headed to a zoo and it starts raining.

Anyway, we pulled up to the gate, and there was a sign that said the zoo was closed today due to a water pipe breaking. Jason and I looked at each other for a long minute before Zoralee's little inquiring voice brought us to the fact that she had to be told. Her face wrinkled up, and then she cried - silently, tearfully, disbelievingly. To the Zoo Worker People, I'm saying that better have been a pipe of about 3 feet in diameter, totally broken in half, with water spewing every which way, even into the warm cozy nests of the baby ostriches, for you to close down the zoo. Zoralee's reaction would've broken the heart of the most hardened criminal.

At least that moment provided opportunity to quote my Grandpa Lautaret, who once said, "If this isn't the crowning disappointment of our entire trip, we're in for a real jolt somewhere along the line."

Jason pulled up a map of the zoo on his iPhone, and we navigated the roads around it to see what animals we could. There were a few animals hanging out in the rain, actually - bison, a lone wolf in the far far distance, and a few animals we'd never even heard of, so it wound up not being a total loss.

 

The Bismarck zoo is only open three days of the week, so this was our only shot, but Jason and I weren't completely deflated, because we knew about Part B of the plan, which was to hit up Papa's Pumpkin Patch. We didn't mention that to Z, "just in case." We tried to be vaguely comforting, like hey, let's see if there's anything else fun to do in Bismarck! We pulled in to the pumpkin patch parking lot and saw other cars there. We saw people inside the fence, carrying pumpkins, standing on bales of hay, just generally being real autumn-loving. But I looked at the window next to the entrance. "Why does that sign say Closed?" Silly people must've forgotten to change their sign all day.


I got out and asked one of the employees what was happening. He said they were closing down for the day because of the rain. All the other autumn lovers were making their final purchases and coming out.

*%$#!

I gave him my sob story about a little girl who'd driven for hours to get here, and that the zoo was closed too randomly. He wiped away a few tear and then said they would FOR SURE be open tomorrow, if it wasn't raining. All of that's true except the tears. He even asked a lady nearby, who appeared to be more in charge than he was, and she agreed: yep, they'd be open tomorrow if it wasn't raining. I had to go back to the car, where Zoralee was waiting hopefully for "something fun," and break the bad news that this potentially fun but nondiscript place wasn't open today either. She was a little sad, but more tired than anything. We headed for the motel.

When we got there, Jason made absolutely sure that their swimming pool was up and functional before we checked in. Then we woke up Zoralee, gathered Ziah and our belongings, and sloshed through the rain and puddles into the room, dog and all. It was a good room. We regrouped and decided to hit up a nearby Mexican restaurant.

Chips and salsa and a fancy umbrella drink can bring a girl around again.
 Can you tell what color Zoralee recently decided is her favorite?

I debated and debated between their famous fish tacos and their famous super burrito. The waiter suggested the fish tacos, so I went with that. EEEEEngh. Also, their salsa sucked; it was like somebody opened a can of stewed tomatoes and put in a couple flakes of dried cilantro. Oh well. Jason's food was decent, and Zoralee's was even free on account of it being Sunday.

Back at the hotel, Zoralee and I went for a swim in our exceedingly random swimwear. I'd just thrown out her swimsuit a week before. Fortunately, she had a pink body suit from a dress up ballet tutu outfit, and I had - oh, it doesn't even matter. Let's just say I wasn't approached by any modeling agencies. The motel had no fancy slides, but the set up was nice - a regular pool, a hot tub, and a warm in-between temperature wading pool. None were shallow enough for Z to walk around in, but it was really wonderful to hold her as we hopped from pool to pool. We joked and splashed. It was a good feeling to be able to concentrate on her and her alone for a little while. 

When we walked between the pools, if Zoralee got ahead of me, she'd jog / bounce a bit with excitement. Just before what was to be our final dip in the big pool, she was lightly running, and, as though she was the poster child for a Don't Run At Pools campaign, her feet slipped out from under her at the exact moment I was saying, "Zoralee! Don't run!" Bonk went her back, and konk went her noggin. It didn't seem to me that it was a particularly hard fall, but she cried quite a bit, poor thing. That put an end to swimming, which was fine; bed time was overdue.
 

We slept as a family in a King sized bed with a roll away pushed up next to it (and blankets over the crack to connect the beds). It was a fun way to sleep, albeit not excessively restful for me. We've done our share of co-sleeping in various configurations, but all being on the same level like that, Ziah scooched close to me, and Zoralee scooched close to him. It was a super cute visual, but I was too tired to get the camera. The next morning, Zoralee and Kaladi were wrestling around in the motel room, and Kaladi accidentally scratched below Z's eye. This happens about once a month anyway, but it sure enough had to happen this weekend.

We ate a decent motel-provided breakfast, and then Jason and Ziah headed to a junk yard in hopes of finding an electrical light dealy for the Subaru, while Zoralee and I went to the thrift store for sweaters and jeans. The potential for savings that our family had right then was out of control, right? I found some sweaters, but the jeans weren't happening. My post baby hips and belly can't get together and decide what size I am. But we got a couple cute decorations for Z's room. We had only made it through one store when Jason and Ziah wheeled in to take us to Red Lobster for lunch. No lobsters in the tank. Not a single one. And then, you know, I can't remember the last time I ate at a Red Lobster, but I'm thinking the servings aren't super substantial. Like, I scarfed down everything on my plate in about 5 seconds - hey, 3 shrimps and 3 scallops don't take long - plus the extra tidbits on everybody else's plates, plus the complimentary warm rolls. And I could've totally eaten that much again. Oh. Maybe that's why I was having a hard time finding jeans to fit. Heh heh. 

This probably sounds like a Debby Downer post, like I was looking for the bad in everything. At a certain point, I think I actually was, because it got to be so downright hilarious. Jason and I were laughing our heads off, and hopefully Z had some moments of fun too. As my dad texted, it was just like the pioneers. Yep, we could totally relate to the types of disappointments the pioneers must've encountered as they made their way across the prairies in covered wagons. Yep.
 
Anyway, nothing could dampen our spirits too much, because IT WASN'T RAINING, so there was still the pumpkin patch, with its hay rides, hay bale maze, fall treats, and of course, pumpkins to browse and pick! Oh, what fun pictures we would get with the children in a pumpkin patch, red nosed from the crisp fall air. Here's what the sign said, after all:

But nope!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not a car in the parking lot.
CLOSED.
We learned later from their website it was due to the mud from yesterday's rain.

Now, I am a patient woman. I am. But I seriously wanted to punt a Pumpkin Patch owner across a field of rotting pumpkins. Jason had that scene from National Lampoon's Vacation in his head, the one where they pull up to Wally World after their whole travel ordeal, and it's closed. Chevy Chase punches the moose. Well, if I'd have had a can of spray paint, you can bet your bippy I would've sprayed a big X over each of that scare crow's starry eyes. And if that weren't a message enough, I would've sprayed below the red letters, "Open?! Ha! You call this OPEN?! Ha! You bunch of hippocrites. This place isn't OPEN! And it's not even RAINING. And what's more, YOU SHOULD UPDATE YOUR PHONE NUMBER, CUZ THE ONE FROM YOUR WEBSITE IS DEFUNCT ON ACCOUNT OF YOU MOVING LOCATIONS. DAAAAAARN YOU!!!!!!!"  


So we found a fruit stand instead.

brimming over with gratitude

letting Z control the tunes - she chose "Hey, I Love You" by Michael Franti

Well, when the going got that tough, the tough decided to go for coffee. Or, as Jason called it, "The Cure for Disappointment." It made sense to finish off two Starbucks gift cards that had been rattling around the dashboard from two Christmases ago. Zoralee was asleep again, so Jason and I each ordered a $27 drink for ourselves and pulled up to the pay window with our gift cards. The young man informed us that one card had zero dollars and zero cents on it, and the other had 85 cents. Oh, real swell. [Shuffling about the car for loose change.]

As our final stop before we planned to screech our tires real hard on the fast road out of Bismarck, Jason ran into Menards to grab supplies for a window replacement project, and he was only gone for 45 minutes or so, during which me and two kids sat in the car instead of being at another thrift store finding jeans to fit. No bitterness for me though. Yay! Fun times in a parking lot!

Just so you don't fear Zoralee hoarded all the disappointment to herself, here's this.
I was nursing Ziah and must not've been what you'd call "present." Suddenly his fidgets
caught my attention, and I looked down to see him being power-squirted.
Hey, it happens.

HOWEVER. The drive home included a pretty sunset and the rest of a good podcast. Zoralee did great in the car both ways. Ziah, not so much, but this is the paragraph about redeeming things. We loved each other. We laughed. We cried. I found sweaters. The coffee beverages were delish. Zoralee learned about disappointment in life, and then learned it again. And again. And again.

Right, soooo, we're pretty much gonna just chalk that one up to a bust.

:)