survive and thrive friday: making yogurt, podcasts, paleo diet, stacking wood

Survive and Thrive Friday is hereby and thus and whithertofore a new post series!!

It's so easy to start something new. Why, look. I just did it with the above sentence. Now then, ongoing maintenance of new projects and also punctuality aren't my strong suits, but, oh my, it's Saturday already. Well, how's about we all just concentrate on the fact that I'm here to introduce the pilot post to this new series? Yay!

By way of introduction...

Jason's and my conversations and dreams have for about a decade centered around or touched on the ideas of learning the old, basic skills necessary for self-reliance, self-sustainability (or more accurately, small community-reliance and sustainability), reducing our need for large entities whose people we're totally disconnected from (for food, clothing, shelter, electricity, etc.), and living more simply to have time for what we want to be doing each day. Any of you who we've spent more than a day with know we're dead set on "getting out" of mainstream culture someday soon and building a small community with like minded folks. Maybe every now and again I can pay Jason in shiny rocks and funky sticks to post a guest blog, but meanwhile I'll probably often say "we" as though I have multiple personalities; it's just the influence of Jason chiming in. On these subjects specifically, I don't know any more where my thoughts begin and his end. 

This series is about survival, yes, but also thrival, which is a made up word just for the sake of rhyming. We've been wondering a lot how much the dissatisfaction and disenchantment of our nation's inhabitants are because most people don't know how to do anything basic for themselves or their close communities any more. Total reliance on faceless entities can't be good for us, especially when we're not reciprocating to said faceless entities other than by handing over green, rectangular strips of paper. Know what I'm saying? There are so many steps between going to a job for The Man in the morning and then eating food around the table at night. So! I am excited to post the things we've been talking about and learning, as well as websites, books, friends' ideas, and other resources we're running across.

End of introduction. Beginning of cool stuff:


1. I've been making yogurt in the crock pot! Today I'm on my fourth batch, and so far I give it a huge thumb up. It is wildly simple to do, and I think it tastes better than any other plain yogurt I've had. We buy raw milk from a local farmer here, but you can make yogurt from store bought milk too, just not ultra-pasteurized milk. Here's the recipe I've been following.  How this falls under surviving and thriving is that yogurt is unbelievably great for the digestive system and thus working toward optimum health, and it has been valued as such by people as far back as four thousand years ago, if Wikipedia is to be believed. It's sustaining in the sense that you only need about 1/2 cup of store bought yogurt one time, or someone else's homemade yogurt, for a starter, and after that, you continue to use your own yogurt to make more (well, by adding it to milk). That's the beauty of housing weensy little fast-producing bugs in your own heated crockery. Side note: I myself have had to buy new yogurt starter 3 of the 4 times, because I neglected to set aside 1/2 cup of the homemade stuff, and a certain unnamed individual (but whose name spelled backwards is nosaJ) ate the last of it before I'd started a new batch.

2. Jason has been listening to podcasts by a guy named Jack Spirko over at www.thesurvivalpodcast.com, which covers an unbelievably diverse range of subjects, from permaculture to bee-keeping to nutrition to fuel-making to hunting to home security measures. Jack interviews folks in person or by telephone, anybody who has helpful, relevant material to offer to the community: doctors, gardeners, bloggers, hippies, militiamen. Last week on our road trip, we listened to a conversation he had with a blogger named Courtney Clay about the unschooling principles she raises her son with; it was great! As with every topic he covers, there are so many points of interconnectedness, and if you're listening with someone else, you may have to pause the broadcast several times to go down your own rabbit trails. Along with the interviews, Jack gives a fair amount of monologues with his loud, strong voice, and at first that took me some getting used to, because I am generally not a fan of rant-and-rave one-sided talk radio and thought he might fall into that category. But we've been impressed that his interviews are very respectful and open. I also get a kick out of his liberal use of the word "frickin.'"

3. We've been significantly cutting grains from our diet, and somewhat legumes, eating what is known as a Paleo diet. It isn't a "diet," per say, as it's known today, but rather a lifestyle whose food is close to what our pre-agriculture ancestors would've eaten. We've gone low or no wheat a couple of other times, and just as before, within a day or two, Jason's back and joints feel so much better. I think I sleep better too, though that's a little hard to judge in my particular life situation, having a baby, a toddler, and a husband whose ideas of proper waking times are all different from each other. And in case any of you are the smart alecks that my family members are, I'll go ahead and answer you now: sure, we"ll take boxes of pomegranates for Christmas in lieu of other presents, and yes, we intend to continue building fires and using the common wheel. Speaking of fire...


4. Family wood stacking is one of my favorite activities from childhood forward. I am not a work out at the gym type of girl, but I love incorporating exercise into whatever else I'm doing. Wood stacking is THE thing for getting exercise, being outside, and doing something useful all at once (as well as brushing up on Tetris skills). 

Fortunately, there are dead trees around the property that need cleaned up. Jason says,
"This time of year, you tend to look around the forest for death to take advantage of."

making a quick, sturdy, wood shed

Okay, that wraps it up for today. Hope to hear YOUR thoughts on these things and more. 

Survive!
Thrive!
Rah rah rah!

milksharing

For all new moms or new moms to be, are you aware of the concept of milk sharing? That is, if you are unable to feed your baby breast milk (or enough break milk), for the variety of reasons that can occur, there are very possibly women in your area who are willing to pump and share their extra milk FOR FREE. This is for no other reason than that the milk sharers believe in the health benefits of breast milk, even for babies not their own, and will put their boobies where their mouth is. Or rather, where the baby's mouth is. Okay, babies' mouths, plural. 

Anyway, I just love stuff like this, where we go at it old school. 

World Milksharing Week was in September, so I'm a little behind the curve, but I suppose it's always the right time to pass along a good idea, just in case it helps somebody. There has been quite a bit of discussion about milksharing at my sister's blog these days, so I am going to direct you that way. The posts you're looking for (if you don't get side tracked by all the other hilarious and interesting things she writes about) are from late September, early October 2011. She supplemented with donor breast milk for her son, Bennett, as she wasn't able to supply him with 100% of what he needed. She has recently been working on the other end of things, helping to find donors for our friend, who was at her wit's end with formula (and who wrote this moving post at her cool blog).

If you have extra milk or need milk, you could start at this link to find a recipient or donor in your area. I also saw some face book pages that were U.S. state specific. Others of you more in the know, feel free to mention further resources in the comment section.

white on black on white on black

strolls and rolls - late summer and fall

 

 

We debated: leave Z in the backpack in an obviously uncomfortable position,
or put her in bed at the risk of waking her. We opted to leave her.
Half hour later we heard a crash. She had fallen over and bonked her head on the desk.
A Plus, Number 1, Professional Parents right here, folks.

"Just keep watching that blinking camera light,"
thought the hungry wolf as he crept closer to the unsuspecting family.

 

We're wondering if this pic represents more life to come.

 

 

(photo credit to Monsieur Jason for the shot of Kaladi up on the hay bale)

9/11 memorial

We attended the 9/11 memorial this year at the International Peace Gardens. On the way there, we listened to radio interviews of people involved in ongoing memorializing efforts. A poet, whose name I am sorry to not be able to find, wrote a poem that became famous in the aftermath of 9/11 and then wrote one this year specifically about steel workers - those who built the towers and those who, some 50+ years later, dealt with the wreckage. These guys involved in the clean up, she said, knew which pieces of wreckage belonged throughout the building, where people would've been in their last seconds. They knew that the large numbers written across beams were floor numbers, marked back at their initial installation. They have an understanding of the building, a skeletal knowledge of it that lends a different heaviness to the events.

Also interviewed was the creator of the new memorial at ground zero, the reflecting pools. It was especially moving to me to hear some of the thought and intentionality that went into the plan. Around the pools are name placards of everyone killed in the attacks, and the designers spent a year discussing with families the idea of adjacent placard placement - names placed next to friends' names, etc. There were all kinds of considerations and connections, more than you'd ever think, and the designers wanted to accommodate all requests. As a small instance, one woman lost her father on one of the airplanes and her best friend in one of the towers (!). The names of those two victims are beside each other.

Here are a few pics of the service.

an unidentifed batch of U.S. Border Patrolmen and Royal Canadian Mounted Police

 

some of the tower wreckage, I assume from the 58th floor (??)

I am not clear on why the Scottish/Irish bagpipe and kilt thing is so heavily connected to funerals and memorial services in our country, and to the military and law enforcement. Tradition brought by Highlands type immigrants, no doubt, but why has it stuck? Don't get me wrong - the bagpipes are rad. In fact, we knew a bagpiper in Montana, and he could've totally played at Jason's and my wedding. Dad and I were all for it (rad, right??), but Jason and Mom voted it down. That's tough - bride and father of the bride against groom and mother of the bride. Somehow they won. Total side note.

*    *    *

A week later, Zoralee asked more about the events of 9/11. It sure is hard to know how much to say to a two-year old. I've continued with the philosophy that seems most right to me - tell the truth, even if I leave out some of the scariest or most confusing details. I told her there were people who were mad at our country and decided to fly airplanes into tall buildings in New York City. But even in plain, over-simplistic language, that's a pretty weird and scary notion. Never the less, that's what I told her. And we looked at her map to see where NYC is. 


As an afterthought, so that she could make geographic connections, I told her that now cousins Taylor and Dalton are going to college in NYC. She went to her play room for a few minutes, then came out and asked me if Taylor and Dalton died in NYC. I explained that no, the 9/11 things happened a long time ago, and Taylor and Dalton were in NYC now. She then wanted to know the names of the people who died. So we looked it up online, and I found lists of the deceased. I must've said aloud (though I didn't realize it) that oops, this particular one is a list only of those who died in the towers, but we would go ahead and read it anyway. Then I read aloud a dozen or so names, and she said, "Oh" after each one. I went to something else on the web, and a few minutes later, Zoralee asked for the names of the people who were in the airplanes.

Later that day, Jason suggested I watch Loose Change, a provocative documentary that purports there's a lot more to the events than what we've been led to believe. Of course, I'm familiar with this notion, but haven't read or watched a whole lot on it. If I do take time to hear ideas, get better informed, etc. and develop a more complex narrative about 9/11, hopefully Zoralee won't ask about it until next year, at least... Some of you who have had seven, eight, nine years to explain this to your kids, what have you opted to say?

apples

Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall

If I can't have you all the time, I won't have none at all
      - Gillian Welch, "Wayside / Back in Time"

Zoralee has loved picking and eating apples from the property here. There are two varieties of small apples (one is a crab apple we didn't know was strictly decorative until late in the game, but it doesn't appear to have hurt anyone), and cute mini plums. By now the apples are pretty mushy because of the night time freezes, but Zoralee's still gung-ho. She likes to pick a bucketful and graze out of it for several days while she plays or lays around; I find partially eaten miniature apples in the weirdest places. She even takes that bucket to the bathroom and to bed. Today we set up apples to site in a .22 rifle Jason got from his granddad. Between shots, Zoralee and Papa walked downrange to set up more apples, and she had the impression that any un-shot apples were sitting up on the boards specifically for her to retrieve and nibble.

 

from the prairie's edge: road kill, finding girls, mickey mouse watch man, the coming winter

Why did the chicken cross the road?
   To get to the other side.

Why did the frog cross the road?

   He was stapled to the chicken.

- elementary school

While we're in North Dakota, I think I'll call these long, varied updates, as well as region-specific posts, "from the prairie's edge," eh?
 

My mother-in-law, Barb, was amazed by the quietness and isolation each of her nine days here. She lives and works near D.C., where the traffic can keep you for an hour from your destination two miles away. We shook our heads whenever we saw on the road a dead gopher or bird, who would've had like 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds of the day when no vehicle would've crossed its path, but instead chose one of those rare, fateful seconds to make a run for it.

This snake doesn't qualify as road kill, really, because it was still alive.
It was real slow, probably a victim of road glancing.
I wouldn't post actual road kill on my blog. Sheesh.

Jason is having a blast teaching Kaladi to "find the girl." Kaladi seems to love search work, and she's kicking tail with very little training. She naturally ground tracks, which means she follows the scent someone has left behind while walking. Some dogs naturally track by sniffing the air, which isn't as good for a lost person, because they're reliant on wind conditions. Maybe they're better at sniffing out drugs. Anyway, Jason shuts Kaladi in a room in the house, and he has Zoralee walk to some location on the property and hide behind a garbage can or a building or a bale of hay. Then he lets Kaladi out and tells her to "find the girl" or "find Zoralee." She puts her nose right to the ground, gets on the trail, and RUNS to her. Zoralee then drops a treat for her and says, "Good girl! Good girl!"

Blue. Every day at my house, six blue eyes look back at me. Eight, if you count Little Lamb, Zoralee's favorite stuffed animal.

Mickey Mouse Watch Man. We first encountered him at Walmart a few weeks ago. A jovial grandfather type, he walked up to Zoralee and put his wrist right in her face. He stared at her intently with a huge grin, practically bursting with anticipation at her response. He was showing her his Mickey Mouse watch. And she was a deer in the headlights. She doesn't tell time yet and isn't super familiar with Mickey Mouse; anyone else in the store would've been more impressed with that watch than she was. But it was no matter. He was delighted. Laugh and laugh did he. Then last week, he saw us again - by the meats at the local grocer, and just as eagerly showed her his watch. We saw him again near the spices. Then at produce. Each time, he said hello to Zoralee most cheerily and laugh laugh laughed. This time she laughed too. But things turned serious, DEATHLY SERIOUS, over at produce, when his wife, Janet, said she'd heard about a melon recall on the news. Best to avoid melons, we all concurred, at least for a little while. Lots of serious head nods and squinted eyes. No joking around about that. 

And speaking of local flair, when we were driving through one small town, we picked up their local newspaper. A couple of the highlights are as follows. The front page news was that the paper will not be printed in color for some time; the guy who did that has quit. Very cute, and sad. Also, the reports from the surrounding towns are mostly who went to whose house for supper. I quote (with names changed): "Donald and Edna Verhorn were Friday visitors of Pete and Joann Sanders." I'll tell you one thing, I better not hear these old-timers moaning about privacy lost via social media. Hello. These are totally status updates, but put into print, albeit several days later.

*   *   *

Fall is upon us, no question now. Last week we woke up to a downright chilly house, and it lit a fire under each of us independently to shape up and get ready for winter. The voice of Elephant from Mo Willems' I Am Invited to a Party! keeps haunting me: "WE MUST BE READY!" So I bought canning jars in town for putting up the crab apples in the yard. Aaaaand, that's it. That's the only canning plan I have; if we get stranded out here, it's apple pie 'til spring, baby. Unless I send Jason out on snow shoes to fetch a can of cool whip. Then, it's apple pie and cool whip 'til spring, baby. Oh. And while you're at it, honey, grab some Cream Soda - that's what I'm talking about. That same day, Jason took off work early to come home and cut wood. Little update: we have now had freezing weather a couple of nights, so the apples are mushy. I missed the window to can them. Ridiculous.

The thing is, Jason and I are actually excited for winter. We don't say this when the locals lament the departing summer, but since we had that stint in south Texas before this, we're basically coming off a whole year of summer. We both like power outages and crazy storms and having to cancel plans and hunker down, so a winter here on the frozen plains could be fun! It feels like, if we're going to avoid a Donner party type situation, we better know what the heck we're doing.

At this juncture, I'm going to enthusiastically recommend a children's book called, Ox-Cart Man. It'll get you excited to stack wood and can beans for winter, as well as plan needlepoint projects to sell next summer in nearby villages. Not the catchiest title ever, unless you're in a sarcastic mood, but Ox-Cart Man is a right dandy story! We have it from the library now, and it is definitely one I'd like for my kids to own. Ahhem, Grandma or Nana, givers of Christmas presents. Even now, I feel like a dimwit spending time on the internet instead of dusting off the old loom and spinning out a few shawls.

While we were in Montana last month, Jason got a wood stove, which we hauled here to ND, along with the 800 pound beastly upright piano I inherited from my great-aunt Wilma a few years back. Mom and Dad cried and cried to see that dust collector leave their basement, but boy was it a nice wagon trainy feeling to bring it and the stove to our little house on the prairie. Jason finished installing the stove a couple of week ago, and we've been enjoying it so, so much. We've been disappointed when the weather pendulums back to warmish. I know - we should be slapped.

from the prairie's edge: big, deep day

"O bury me not on the lone prairie."
These words came low and mournfully
From the pallid lips of the youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.

- old cowboy folk song



This day, the day of which I now write, happened almost a month ago, but it felt like enough of a doozy to lay down on Blogville. It was while Barb was here, and it was extra thick with profoundness. We sloshed through the realms of theology, history, the cycle of life and death, and physical survival against wild animals, walked on the border between two countries, and closed out our day with a tradition as old as man. By day's end, my head was spinning and my heart heavy, so it must've really been something for a two and a half year old. I should record it in Zoralee's baby book as "The Deepest Day Ever." That is, when I [cough] start working on her baby book...

The first thing happened while I was sitting on the porch with the kids. I was holding Ziah in my lap, and Zoralee was ahead of me by 10 feet. Out of the woods at the edge of our yard jogged a coyote, straight for the porch, straight for Zoralee. I told Zoralee (firmly, but I thought pretty calmly for the circumstance) to come to me, which she inexplicably did at warp speed, though she hadn't seen the coyote. He was gray white, so fluffy and healthy. My first thought was how beautiful it was. He heard my voice, looked straight at me, turned, and jogged back down the path. He was within 25 yards. As soon as Kaladi caught a whiff of the coyote, her hair went up and for 10 minutes she alternately ran around the property and back to check on us. The wind was so strong, loud and swirly, that I don't think the coyote knew we were there until he got that close. And Kaladi had a hard time with his scent because of the wind. He may have been coming to her food dish, so we now keep that inside at night. 

Jason was sleeping and Barb was running an errand in town, so we were the only witnesses. That was event #1, certainly the most startling. Also on the porch during that couple of hours, we observed and talked about a dead dragonfly caught between two boards, and we watched a butterfly struggle in a spider's web, knowing the probable ending to that particular predicament.


When Jason woke up, we all took a road trip into the Turtle Mountains, up to Lake Metigoshe to see all the little lake cabins and dwellings. It was a busy weekend, so all the restaurants were full. We ordered food at a drive-in and sat by the lake to eat. Then it was back down to the plains, where we visited an old historic church, then the long drive home. 

on the shore of Lake Metigoshe - sand castle in the background created by Z and Papa

Zoralee asking, "Where is God?"

We spent quite awhile wandering around the graveyard, again talking with Zoralee about death, and about remembering the dead. Families were buried near each other, some members born a century or more apart, never to have met, some making it into old age and others living a single day. To walk so lightly on the grass above their graves, to read their names and try to fathom the same fate befalling us, even our precious tinies, is frankly too much to bear. My eye is on the Eternal, but dang, those old gravestones seem to hold hope down by the chest, hold her strong to the cold, wet mud.

Then we came home and made fire. Fire is good. Little fires don't suggest that you ignore the cold world all around, but they offer a space to get warm, quiet yourself and regroup.