I moved on to watering my garden, picking up puppy shred for the third time this morning, then I started a veggie broth from scraps that I'd been stashing in the freezer and put the corn cobs left from canning yesterday on to simmer. Weird, right? When I finish my coffee and writing this morning I will grind up the tomato skins that I dehydrated. I will also start on celery salt.
My celery plants need to be completely harvested, this heat is just too much for them and they are getting a very strong flavor. I could toss them out, let the wild critters either eat them or leave them to compost. Or... I could make that salt.
See, that is where my mind went today. As we are living a more and more sustainable lifestyle I am giving a lot more attention to things like that. My friends and I joke about the garbage we are stashing in our freezers, each time we have vegetable scraps. Or the piles of frozen bones from cutting away the usable meats. All of that ultimately becomes usable. Either in broths, pet food, or who knows what.
As I was canning the tomatoes the other day, I saved all of the bits and pieces. The cores will go into broth. The skins get dehydrated and ground up. The flavor that gets added to soups and stocks when I am cooking is unreal. That also doesn't count all of the vitamins and such that impacts the nutritional aspect of everything.
That batch of corn cobs will simmer for about an hour, the liquid that is left makes a yummy jelly that tastes pretty darn amazing on anything you chose to use it for. And if I end up with too much (is there such a thing?) I can gift to to the people in my tribe, the ones that appreciate the older things. The cobs will then be given to the wild critters to finish off.
I am also starting to look closer at the "weeds" surrounding my yard. It's amazing the uses of many of those so called weeds. Even more amazing is the benefit of many of them medicinally and the nutrients that they supply to the daily diet. Kind of makes me wonder if that isn't the real reason for things like Round-Up and pristine green lawns, can't have the serfs having access to things that will keep them healthy and nourished. Instead lets demonize it all and make it something they despise so they do away with it all themselves and are forced into only using the poisons we create. I could almost hear an evil laugh in my head as I typed that line.
It ranks right up there with the demonization of good old marijuana. Forever and a day, I believed the hype that surrounded how bad it was, I was one of those humans that lived in fear. I am still not a user, for my own personal reasons, but I 100% support it's use. Because I am no longer blinded by the hype and rhetoric, I have learned so much that was not available to us before.
This morning while pressing Hubs' work clothing, I carefully trimmed any stray threads, I looked to see if there were any repairs needing to be done. That might seem silly, but those clothes will last longer because of the care they are receiving. Because I have taken the time to learn the skills needed, if they do need repaired, I can do it. Why should I waste my dollars buying things we simply don't need?
Have we ever needed malls and huge stores filled with things? Have we ever needed to work to simply own massive amounts of stuff? How much different would life be? How much more enjoyable and fulfilling?
I used to believe all the hoopla about zero waste. I used to really buy into all of the environmental juju, until March of 2020. I was the queen of reusable items. I bought the laundry cleaner that was flat sheets (FYI - they do not work well at all!), because I was concerned about the abundance of waste we create. I was convinced that I was doing my part to save the environment. I used my own jars and reusable baggies when I bought bulk. I carried enough reusable bags in my car at all times that I could have given them away to you if you forgot your own.
All of that changed dramatically in 2020, when I started to see more and more disposable masks thrown all around (if this was toxic why were there not hazardous waste containers literally on every corner?), disposable latex gloves were clogging drains and literally everywhere. Suddenly you couldn't bring your own bags, containers, etc... but you could accept plastic bags that literally everyone had touched and breathed on.
Too much simply stopped being understandable, it stopped making sense. It became incomprehensible. I don't buy it any longer. Are they bad practices? Yes. But the solutions are not to limit your ability to get the things you need. The solutions are for those major corporations to stop doing the destructive things that they do all in the name of profits. We the people are not the ones that are creating these huge plastic jugs that aren't even filled all the way, we are the ones being pushed to purchase them in the name of a conglomerate making a huge profit.
I'm still about low waste. The truth of the matter is that the big corporations are not, our government is not, there is no profit in it for them. Want to solve the issues, then force those companies to recycle their own products, never going to happen - kick backs to the politicians to look the other way is the name of that game. But now that I've been doing my homework, learning the old ways and taking time to fully understand so many things...
Well, sustainability to me looks very different. It means I am learning to use every single usable bit of everything we use. Forever I have saved my yarn scraps, fabric scraps, wood scraps etc. I am very frugal with all of it. I was always accused of being cheap. Hubs is the first one to tell me I'm not cheap, I'm frugal.
I have no idea where I first heard the concept of use it up, use it out, make it do or do without. It is from the depression era in this country. Or maybe even further back than that. But to me, it has always been a guiding principle. I slacked off a lot when I worked outside of the home for a ridiculous number of hours a week. Back then, I focused purely on survival. If I had a day when I wasn't exhausted, most likely we went and played. I was just too worn out to focus on the important things in life.
It was all about easy. We wasted so much time, energy and money on easy. I am sitting here with my house holding a comfy 73°, even though outside the heat index is over 100°, there was a time I would have freaked out at that temp. Mainly because I worked all day in an office that often topped 80°. I was suffering heat exhaustion daily. Back in the day, I could have done the things that I am doing now, putting up heavy drapes to block out the heat, closing the blinds tightly, etc. I didn't, because I was too tired to fuss. I just wanted easy.
This morning I got a call from Ameren, they installed another smart meter on my home. They were wanting to share with me all the great benefits I could reap from it. I didn't get a say in the meter, I got a note on my door. If asked, I would have declined. Although a friend of mine declined and they are simply charging them more money each month for not having it. Talk about control freaks. At any rate, I went and looked at the options on their site out of curiosity. Evidently... They would like my home at 78° at the lowest temperature and they would like me to shift all electronic usage possible to the hours of 10 pm to 6 am. And would only charge me the higher rates for anything I use outside of those hours.
So... basically they are trying to create a completely nocturnal society? Sorry... but, WTF?!? In fact my current bill would be $60 less if I were to agree to those terms. Interesting. And last night I got a notification that the police station had no electric or phones at about 9:30 pm. Not surprised given that most of that part of our community was without power off and on all day yesterday. Anyone want to guess why? But hey, lets all buy electric cars and further overwhelm this electric grid, since that is the excuse being given out.
And what does that new meter give them the ability to do in my home? Every afternoon, I see lights start to flicker. Is it only a matter of time before they shut off my electric during the hours they don't want me to use it? I know that they can and will do that, we used to have a Nest thermostat, we got rid of it when I had my knee surgery. I was upstairs for most of the day, recovering, so I never moved through the main level. Too many days I would call Hubs because I would wake up sweating, the house was super hot, he would check the Nest setting on his phone to discover that even though we didn't have it set to switch temp, it had reset the temperature to 80°, it wasn't recording occupancy of our home. We removed it. Almost immediately our home was comfortable and more so, our electric bill dropped over $30 per month. Newsflash, it takes more energy to raise and lower your temperature in your home that it takes to maintain it at a steady level.
Is there anyone else that is questioning the insanity of all of this? As I continue to question the lists of chemicals on our food labels, the power outages (yep the sun is not in a cycle that is causing flares - it's actually very calm right now - check the information on sites other than the news), the increase in costs on ... well... everything! I started to list it, but frankly, I don't know anything where the price is going down, other than the games they are playing to make you think it is, the stagnation in wages... too much... it's all too much...
Well, I've traveled far enough into insanity today, it's time to back out of it. It's time to lean back into my homestead life. The one that feels like a soft cozy blanket and a cup of hot tea. Where I love working hard, because I know that the work is for us. Where I know the things that I am doing are for the benefit of my family and friends. I have a strong tribe, I want to be a strong part of that tribe.
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| they've got each other's back... |
love and peace everyone...
Good one! 381+
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