I went bicycling today. I rode to my Quaker meeting and then got on the bike trail behind Sadleir House and rode to its junction with the Rotary Trail along the Otonabee River. My bike basket fell off as I was crossing Water St but luckily I avoided running into it (I did that years ago on a gravel path and did it ever hurt!). A kind man walking his dog held my bike while I went to retrieve the basket. There were no further mishaps the rest of the sunny, blue-sky ride home.
That was definitely not a November sky, and it being warm enough to ride my bike is not the usual November day. We've had a lot of days like that. We've had days here in southern Ontario that were warmer than the second week of October in New Hampshire. The average temperature in November has been higher than what we had in October!
A week ago Thursday I went out kayaking on Little Lake. This is the first year here in Peterborough that I've kayaked so late in the fall. For some reason the water was really high. Possibly because the Trent-Severn Waterway keepers were dumping water into the lake in expectation of some heavy rain and snow/rain combo (which can really raise water levels in the upper section of the waterway). Or possibly because water had been dumped out of the lake at the end of October in expectation of November rains that never really amounted to much this year and the water level of the lake got lower because we had so many sunny days.
We did have one day and a half of heavy rain this past week. We had some frosty nights, but there's still lots of green in the yard and my lettuce, chard, and kale are doing fine (but not growing very fast).
The ground hasn't frozen up yet. I'm waiting for signs of that so I can mulch my garlic. I should mulch my lavender and thyme, but they're still thriving. My rosemary plant is in the greenhouse but it's not called to me yet to bring it in.
But this is the last week of November. Rosemary, you're coming in the end of this week! You need to keep the parsley and garlic chives (those have passed in the garden) company.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Beads and Things
I've been periodically going through shelves upstairs, downstairs, in the pantry and in the back room and pulling things out, saying "I don't use this", "I don't need this"... "But someone else might!"
So I've been listing things on Freecycle lately. I stopped for a while because I was responding to first responders (probably lurkers with email on their cellphones) who were never able to pick stuff up and then I had to go to a later responder anyway who would be responsible and pick things up. I'm usually going with the later responder right up front now (like the radio or TV show that say "7th and 9th callers get the prize") and I'm liking the dealing a lot better. I'll post at night and check responses the next morning.
Things I've Freecycled in the past month:
So I've been listing things on Freecycle lately. I stopped for a while because I was responding to first responders (probably lurkers with email on their cellphones) who were never able to pick stuff up and then I had to go to a later responder anyway who would be responsible and pick things up. I'm usually going with the later responder right up front now (like the radio or TV show that say "7th and 9th callers get the prize") and I'm liking the dealing a lot better. I'll post at night and check responses the next morning.
Things I've Freecycled in the past month:
- a microwave rice cooker/vegetable steamer (I use my thermal cooker for rice now)
- a waffle iron/sandwich griddle (older than our current waffle iron)
- a bag of cookbooks that had been superceded by newer ones
- a bundle of computer art books
- a 50' length of garden hose
- two coffee urns
- a vanity top
- pink venetian blinds that don't go with our current decor but went with someone else's
- a mailbox
- a disassembled cabinet
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Latest Local Food Tally
I've been amazed at what has been showing up on my shopping radar and in the farmers market over the past year. These are the things I currently buy:
- mushrooms (usually cremini, though white, portabello, and oyster are availabe at the same price as well)
- goat chevre and goat cheddar
- ground goat meat
- grass-fed beef (ground, stew, round steak, cross-rib roast)
- free-range eggs
- free-range chicken
- apples (Empire, Cortland, and Russet are my favorites)
- organic whole wheat flour (Red Fife wheat and Canadian Red Winter)
- carrots
- rutabagas
- spaghetti squash
- leeks
- hemp nuts
- honey
- peanut butter (via a friend travelling to south west Ontario)
- beeswax
- hand-made soap
- sweet potatoes
- zucchini
- sweet peppers
- pears
- tomatoes (usually cherry or other varieties I don't grow)
- potatoes
- pork
- ground buffalo and buffalo sausage
- tomatoes
- tomatillos
- lettuce
- chard
- carrots (colored variety only)
- peppermint
- yarrow
- spearmint
- lavender
- thyme (lemon and creeping)
- oregano (regular and yellow)
- sage
- garlic
- parsley
- rhubarb
- black raspberries (jam, frozen, liquor, med, sauces)
- green beans
- red potatoes
- sugar pod peas
- calendula
- dandelion greens and dandelion wine
- cucumbers
- dill
- alfafa sprouts
- mung bean sprouts
- rosemary
- green onions
- bread stuffs (English muffins, pizza, loaves, buns, pot pie crusts)
- wine
- specialty vinegars (for salad dressing)
- tomato sauce
- stir-fry base
- mixed vegetable stock base
- tomato stock
- poultry stock
- dried herb mixes for cooking
- relishes and salsas
- fruit spreads
- chili-garlic sauce
- Thai dipping sauce (for spring rolls)
- cookies and cakes
- kefir
- almond milk
- mustard
- ketchup
- milk (cow, soy, and goat)
- whole grain bread (for my husband)
- sausage (usually a bulk buy)
- cold cuts (for the husband)
- tofu
- vinegar (a gallon at a time)
- sea salt (bulk buy 2 or 3 times a year)
- unbleached flour (bulk buy 2 or 3 times a year)
- yellow sugar (bulk buy 2 or 3 times a year)
- white sugar (bulk buy once a year)
- non-hydrogenated margarine (usually 2 lb containers, usually on special)
- yeast (bulk buy)
- shrimp (usually a bulk buy on special)
- soy sauce (two or three times a year)
- black bean sauce (twice a year)
- Thai curry paste (bulk buy)
- occasional citrus (lemon, lime, or Clementines)
- coconut milk or cream
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
This Consumer Isn't Buying It...
There are a number a things that I still do buy:
- insulation, insulation, insulation (this year of Energy Audit retrofit anyway)
- construction materials for the retrofit
- construction materials for garden stuff (when I can't find something to reuse)
- gasoline (only 2 gallons for the mower this year; less than 10 liters a week for the car except when we do a road trip vacation)
- seeds (but I'm starting to save my own and swapping with other seed savers)
- garden supplements
- local meat and speciality foods I can't grow/make myself
- brand new outfits
- commercial tomato sauce
- weekly purchases of citrus fruit while in Ontario (we've bought Arizona citrus when in Tucson)
- the latest computer
- the latest cell phone
- i- Anything
- a newer car (we may die before the Honda CRV does)
- a bigger house (we spend enough to heat what we have)
- a different house (we'd never be able to afford the yard we currently have)
- brand new furniture (we bought good and it's aging well)
- magazine subscriptions (go to the library or Chapters and browse while having a coffee)
- a bigger TV
- electronic game systems
- more and newer appliances (only replace what breaks that we use frequently)
- makeup
- chemical cleaners (for house and body)
- pre-baked goods
- boxed cereal
- pre-made dinners
- just about any processed food
Local (Ontario, Canada) Peanut Butter!
A couple of weeks ago my friend Tracy told me about getting freshly ground peanut butter from a farm in south-western Ontario where the peanuts were grown. She was visiting the area soon so I put in a request for a 4 lb container, crunchy preferred.
Well, yesterday she delivered. She also had some local honey that I was glad to take off her hands. The peanut butter was scrumptious. My husband really liked it too. But we decided to use up the open jar of commercial peanut butter that we had on hand (I made some peanut butter cookies today).
The peanut butter has only peanuts and peanut oil in it. She had watched them grind it that weekend. A further miracle was that it was $2 a pound. The place was a Picard Peanuts store in Talbotville, Ontario, one of eight branches in the province. More info about the company and peanut growing in Ontario here.
Well, yesterday she delivered. She also had some local honey that I was glad to take off her hands. The peanut butter was scrumptious. My husband really liked it too. But we decided to use up the open jar of commercial peanut butter that we had on hand (I made some peanut butter cookies today).
The peanut butter has only peanuts and peanut oil in it. She had watched them grind it that weekend. A further miracle was that it was $2 a pound. The place was a Picard Peanuts store in Talbotville, Ontario, one of eight branches in the province. More info about the company and peanut growing in Ontario here.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Local Business: Reggie's Hot Grill
I woke up this morning, noodled on the net for a while, and then decided to go to Reggie's Hot Grill for breakfast.
Reggie's Hot Grill is on Hunter St. in East City. It was opened up this summer by the guys who own the Reggie's chip-and-burger stand out by Trent University on the shores of the Otonabee. They get business the fair months of the year from users of the Rotary Trail (bikers, hikers, roller-bladers, and strollers) and visitors/students to the university. They serve great burgers and some of the crispest fries anywhere.
Their East City branch will run year-round. They serve burgers, hot sandwiches, regular fries, sweet potato fries, and basic salads. The place is really busy at lunch time since the only other places where you can get lunch on that part of Hunter St. are a sushi place (another locally owned place), Tim Horton's and Subway. Tradesmen working in the area stop in as do groups of ladies doing lunch, senior couples, and groups of teen-agers. They're also open in the evening. My husband and I had supper there one night.
They started to serve breakfast in October. They had a free coffee day last week and I enquired about the breakfast. They didn't have a printed menu yet. Today they still didn't have a printed menu, but they did list their breakfast choices on a couple of blackboards. They were offering free coffee and a hashbrown potato patty with their breakfast sandwiches and wraps and there was also a basket of local apples on the menu counter. They get their coffee from a local roaster, so it was quite good. A lot of their sandwiches had cheese in them, which I can't eat, but I got their BLT on a bagel which I liked. The lettuce was a firm green Romaine and the tomato was thick and ripe. No way that Tim Horton's can compete.
Reggie's Hot Grill is on Hunter St. in East City. It was opened up this summer by the guys who own the Reggie's chip-and-burger stand out by Trent University on the shores of the Otonabee. They get business the fair months of the year from users of the Rotary Trail (bikers, hikers, roller-bladers, and strollers) and visitors/students to the university. They serve great burgers and some of the crispest fries anywhere.
Their East City branch will run year-round. They serve burgers, hot sandwiches, regular fries, sweet potato fries, and basic salads. The place is really busy at lunch time since the only other places where you can get lunch on that part of Hunter St. are a sushi place (another locally owned place), Tim Horton's and Subway. Tradesmen working in the area stop in as do groups of ladies doing lunch, senior couples, and groups of teen-agers. They're also open in the evening. My husband and I had supper there one night.
They started to serve breakfast in October. They had a free coffee day last week and I enquired about the breakfast. They didn't have a printed menu yet. Today they still didn't have a printed menu, but they did list their breakfast choices on a couple of blackboards. They were offering free coffee and a hashbrown potato patty with their breakfast sandwiches and wraps and there was also a basket of local apples on the menu counter. They get their coffee from a local roaster, so it was quite good. A lot of their sandwiches had cheese in them, which I can't eat, but I got their BLT on a bagel which I liked. The lettuce was a firm green Romaine and the tomato was thick and ripe. No way that Tim Horton's can compete.
Adventures with Plumbing
Our house is over a hundred years old. As such it came with some knob-and-tube wiring, 100 amp service, two bathrooms with one sink between them, and a mix of galvanized and copper plumbing. The first few years were heavy reno years where we expanded the upper bathroom to have its own sink and a bigger tub with proper shower, put in a proper kitchen sink with a standard height counter, and put in a 200 amp service with circuit breakers rather than fuse.
My husband replaced the knob-and-tube wiring and put in proper GFI outlets in the bathrooms and kitchen. For the upstairs bath reno, we took showers the day after Christmas and then tore the room apart to studs and joists. While the guys reinforced the joists that had been improperly cut through when the upstairs plumbing was first run, I played with 3-D thinking, ABS pipe, and pipe solvent. We used CPVC for the water supply. That was easy to join to copper, but not to the galvanized. We always had a minor leak where the new supply lines joined the galvanizied cold water supply.
The supply lines in the basement were a maze. I dreamed some day of replaced the galvanized with copper. We got some replacement a few years back when we had to replace iron drains that were being clogged with tree roots. The plumber that did that job that entailed jack-hammering through the basement floor also replaced our main valve and a lot of the galvanized that was attached to it. That valve never really turned completely off. He had to have the water turned off at the curb. The valve he took out was a mass of corrosion that would have soon given way and flooded our basement.
Now that we could really turn the water off we were in the position to get the galvanized replaced. My husband was working with an unlicensed plumber named Mark and he agreed to do it. So a little over a year ago I bought a bunch of copper pipe on sale. It sat on a high shelf for a year.
Finally Mark was able to come over to do the piping change early this fall. We were in the process of getting a tankless water heater and knew where it was going to go. He routed new supply lines there. Over the course of the day he and my husband took out a lot of galvanized pipe. The short pieces went to metal recyling the next week; the long pieces I'm keeping for plant supports. Mark does not get along with plastic pipe, so I had to secure the one supply fitting that went from the new copper to my bathroom plastic system. We had one full length and two partial lenghs of copper left over. Some will go from the new supply ends to the new hot water heater; the rest will probably go into the garden.
A couple of years ago we had problems with the kitchen drain. We were able to take apart the drain system where it met the main iron outlet and clean it out. We started to use strainers in the kitchen sink drains (these trap coffee grounds and up) and had no more problems until this past month. First the sinks drained slowly. Then more slowly. But the dishwasher discharge drained fine. Then it didn't. That's when we called Mark the plumber again.
My husband picked him up the other night (he was currently without a driving license) and then an hour later he was off to a music jam down the street. I was to get him if there was a problem (something that involved more brute strength than I and Mark could muster). So I started to hang out with Mark as he dismantled the kitchen sink drains. The sink drains themselves needed replacing and we were missing a washer. So off to Home Depot we went. We talked a lot lot, trading reno war stories.
He got the new sink drains in and increased the drop from them to the P-trap. But the sinks still didn't drain. He ran his snake through but it didn't quite reach the main iron outlet. It came out of the cranking case he had for it, so I fetched a garbage bag he could put the withdrawn snake into. He ran more water and listened. There was still a blockage and the running of water through the system didn't sound right. We have a cheater valve on the sink drain system so he took that off and found it was no longer working. I happened to have a spare in my plumbing supplies so we didn't have to make a dash to Home Depot, hoping to get there before it closed.
The sinks still didn't drain. We went into the cellar and he found a maintenance outlet along the long horizontal length of drain. He took his snake outside and got it threaded back into its cranking case. I listened by the main iron outlet and let him know when the snake began clanging in it. There was nothing on the snake when he withdrew it, but the blockage would have just gone down that 4 inch pipe once the snake pushed it there.
I went up to run the water and he listened. The drain was flowing again. Upstairs he listened again. We both listened as we heard the chug-chugging of air coming into the cheater valve and helping the flow of water downward and out.
I drove with Mark to an ATM machine to get his $40 bucks. It was worth it.
We still have to get that tankless water heater in and the old one out... But Mark doesn't have a gas certificate and the utility company owns the old water heater. But we do have that high tub we want to replace with a shower that's easier to get in and out of as we get older!
My husband replaced the knob-and-tube wiring and put in proper GFI outlets in the bathrooms and kitchen. For the upstairs bath reno, we took showers the day after Christmas and then tore the room apart to studs and joists. While the guys reinforced the joists that had been improperly cut through when the upstairs plumbing was first run, I played with 3-D thinking, ABS pipe, and pipe solvent. We used CPVC for the water supply. That was easy to join to copper, but not to the galvanized. We always had a minor leak where the new supply lines joined the galvanizied cold water supply.
The supply lines in the basement were a maze. I dreamed some day of replaced the galvanized with copper. We got some replacement a few years back when we had to replace iron drains that were being clogged with tree roots. The plumber that did that job that entailed jack-hammering through the basement floor also replaced our main valve and a lot of the galvanized that was attached to it. That valve never really turned completely off. He had to have the water turned off at the curb. The valve he took out was a mass of corrosion that would have soon given way and flooded our basement.
Now that we could really turn the water off we were in the position to get the galvanized replaced. My husband was working with an unlicensed plumber named Mark and he agreed to do it. So a little over a year ago I bought a bunch of copper pipe on sale. It sat on a high shelf for a year.
Finally Mark was able to come over to do the piping change early this fall. We were in the process of getting a tankless water heater and knew where it was going to go. He routed new supply lines there. Over the course of the day he and my husband took out a lot of galvanized pipe. The short pieces went to metal recyling the next week; the long pieces I'm keeping for plant supports. Mark does not get along with plastic pipe, so I had to secure the one supply fitting that went from the new copper to my bathroom plastic system. We had one full length and two partial lenghs of copper left over. Some will go from the new supply ends to the new hot water heater; the rest will probably go into the garden.
A couple of years ago we had problems with the kitchen drain. We were able to take apart the drain system where it met the main iron outlet and clean it out. We started to use strainers in the kitchen sink drains (these trap coffee grounds and up) and had no more problems until this past month. First the sinks drained slowly. Then more slowly. But the dishwasher discharge drained fine. Then it didn't. That's when we called Mark the plumber again.
My husband picked him up the other night (he was currently without a driving license) and then an hour later he was off to a music jam down the street. I was to get him if there was a problem (something that involved more brute strength than I and Mark could muster). So I started to hang out with Mark as he dismantled the kitchen sink drains. The sink drains themselves needed replacing and we were missing a washer. So off to Home Depot we went. We talked a lot lot, trading reno war stories.
He got the new sink drains in and increased the drop from them to the P-trap. But the sinks still didn't drain. He ran his snake through but it didn't quite reach the main iron outlet. It came out of the cranking case he had for it, so I fetched a garbage bag he could put the withdrawn snake into. He ran more water and listened. There was still a blockage and the running of water through the system didn't sound right. We have a cheater valve on the sink drain system so he took that off and found it was no longer working. I happened to have a spare in my plumbing supplies so we didn't have to make a dash to Home Depot, hoping to get there before it closed.
The sinks still didn't drain. We went into the cellar and he found a maintenance outlet along the long horizontal length of drain. He took his snake outside and got it threaded back into its cranking case. I listened by the main iron outlet and let him know when the snake began clanging in it. There was nothing on the snake when he withdrew it, but the blockage would have just gone down that 4 inch pipe once the snake pushed it there.
I went up to run the water and he listened. The drain was flowing again. Upstairs he listened again. We both listened as we heard the chug-chugging of air coming into the cheater valve and helping the flow of water downward and out.
I drove with Mark to an ATM machine to get his $40 bucks. It was worth it.
We still have to get that tankless water heater in and the old one out... But Mark doesn't have a gas certificate and the utility company owns the old water heater. But we do have that high tub we want to replace with a shower that's easier to get in and out of as we get older!
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