Problem Solving – It’s What I Do.

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I ordered a number of books for my Kindle – nothing unusual here. When I’d finished reading one and went to download the next, I discovered something unfortunate: my Kindle did not play nice with the house wifi. Everything else in the house worked just fine with our network, so I knew I didn’t need to reboot the router, yada yada yada, or anything like that. I went for my backup: establish a mobile hotspot with my phone.

Nope. We made some adjustments in our plan recently to save a few bucks, and one of those changes meant that I needed to pay to set up a mobile hot spot. Damn. This would not work.

Last time I had this problem, I stuck my Kindle in my purse when I went to Petunia’s apartment. Her wifi and my Kindle were fast friends. Success! But I can’t impose on Petunia every time I need to download a book. Think. Think. Think. Where can I find free wifi for a few minutes to update my Kindle library?  Coffeehouse, maybe. Local fast food joint. Doc’s office? Convenience store?

We ended up in the parking lot at our credit union. Logged in easily, and then watched the downloads commence. Chatted a little, planned our evening, and when all the books I needed (five – don’t judge me, I read a lot) had finished, we headed home.

Thanks, credit union. If you notice me in the parking lot and I don’t come in, I’ll be downloading Kindle books. Nothing to see here, folks, just a reader who needed a creative solution.

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Football Season Begins! Again!

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The NFL season begins as usual at the O.K. Chorale. We get together on Thursday nights to do our picks for the week. The menu for Eating the Opponent comes up for discussion, and we’re set for the weekend. Mostly.

With the routines in place, we gathered the ingredients to Eat Chicago with a home made deep dish pizza. Thick crust from my breadmaker, Italian sausage, peppers, onions, olives, pepperoni, home grown oregano, fresh tomato sauce from garden tomatoes – are you hungry yet? It was delicious and filling. We’ll have leftovers for lunch for a few days, too.

I’m drafting this post midday Sunday (That’s 3:35 in the NFL world), and Amigo is in the lead so far with picks. He has 7, I have 4, and Chuck and the visiting bunny are tied with 3 each. I keep repeating my script “it’s a good thing I don’t do this for money!”

Meanwhile, our Milwaukee Brewers are in the 11th inning of a cliffhanger with a score on 1-0 over the New York Yankees. Any minute now we’ll hear an update on whether they held the Bronx Bombers to a shutout and swept the series  – or not.

Now it’s time to put the computer down and enjoy the Packers competing with their arch-nemesis, Da Bears. Go! Pack! Go!

 

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Memorial Day and the backyard

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Ah, Memorial Day. Ceremonies, parades, and somber reminiscence.

And maple seeds. The helicopters have arrived! Chuck saw me picking up a handful and announced, “The Next Season of the Compostermom: Maple Seeds!” and well, he isn’t wrong.

I love the idea that there’s free food in the backyard. I cooked burdock roots a few weeks ago, just to say I did it. The smaller roots were more tender and tasty, so I’ll remember that in the future.

Now that the seeds are falling, I’ll pick up as much as my knees can handle, and I’ll roast them. These roasted seeds can go in anything that might call for sunflower kernels or pepitas or similar yummies. Trail mix, bread, cookies, you name it.

They don’t last forever. Maple seeds are seasonal, at best. I’ll roast as much as I can handle during the next few weeks, and we’ll be set for most of summer.

The Next Season of Compostermom? Probably weeding season. If I want tomatoes (and more!), I need to weed.

Say, readers, do you have a backyard in which to forage? What do you find there?

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Rhubarb galore!

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Rhubarb thrives in a cool spring. A snowstorm on the first of May qualifies as cool, if not cold, right? My rhubarb sure thinks so. It’s sending out shoots right and left and center, and going to seed, too. I keep pulling the stalks that are flowering, and the next day I ask myself, “Self, did I miss that one yesterday?” Truth is, the plant wants to reproduce, and it keeps trying.

Yesterday I spent much of the day picking, cleaning, and chopping  rhubarb. I filled the sink with stalks, topped the compost heap with those huge leaves, and ran two batches through the food processor. Eventually, I dumped all the chopped rhubarb into a big bowl and covered it up for the night.

Today I tried three new recipes: Rhubarb Slush, Rhubarb-Ginger Jam, and Rhubarb Pie Filling. The slush was pretty easy. It’s in the freezer now, and I take it out and stir it about once an hour to prevent it turning into a block of rhubarb-flavored ice.

The Jam and the Pie Filling should have been easy. After all, I’ve made jams and jellies for years, and pie filling is just like a chunky applesauce, right? Right – sort of. I managed to print both recipes with metric measurements. Our stubborn United States insists on using the old fashioned “customary” measurement system, so I had to work to interpret the amounts on these two British style recipes. Fortunately, I have a scale that can measure in grams, and my glass measuring cups have metric measures on the side opposite the customary.

The end results were excellent. I’ll definitely make these again. In fact, I may need to do it again in a few weeks if the weather continues and the rhubarb continues to grow like a bush. The metric recipes, in fact, were for small batches. I will probably double them – or more, if the rhubarb plants keep thriving.

Readers, I wouldn’t mind hearing your rhubarb stories. The plant (a vegetable, not a fruit, I’m told) can be legendary.

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The Garden Begins!

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My knees hurt.

Why do my knees hurt? We had a couple of really nice days – warm, dry, sunny days – and I knew there would be rain and cold on the weekend. I pushed myself to work outside as much as possible, and now I’m really achy and sore. It’s a good kind of achy, though. It’s the kind that makes me say to myself, “Hey, self, you’ve really accomplished a lot. You’ve earned a rest.” A rest, and a little ibuprofen, and coffee, and peanut m&ms. Right? Right.

During those two nice days I got outside and dumped compost on several sections of garden. I pulled up a lot of creeping ivy (Jenny or Charlie? Don’t know, don’t care), and spread the compost where the ivy had been.

The barrel near the garden edge is planted with spinach now. This barrel, scavenged from my old office before it could hit the dumpster, has grown kale, parsley, and more. This year it’s spinach. Lettuce is ready to grow in a long and thin planter that hangs off the deck railing. That’s an easy location; we can step outside and gather a little for a salad or sandwich any time we want it. Fresh lettuce: yum!

I have some larger pots ready to host peppers (jalapeno, mainly) and cherry tomatoes. The weather isn’t consistent enough to put them out yet, but when it warms up mid-May, I’ll be ready.

Meanwhile, I’ve left Earth Month recommendations behind, but I’m practicing what I preach by preparing to be a little more sustainable every day. Hey, readers, have you started playing in the dirt yet? What are you doing outside?

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Earth Month Continues – catching up

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From Earth Month Challenge: 30 Easy Actions:  

Spring Show weekend wore me out, and I didn’t even perform. Let’s catch up on Earth Month actions.

Day 15: Try cold water for laundry. I wash in warm and rinse in cold; I could make the switch for a weekend and see how it goes.

Day 16: Buy an item locally instead at a big box realtor. Sometimes a franchise is locally owned. Hardware stores are good examples. The Ace Hardware on the north side of our fair city is a small but fabulous source when we need to shop there. Their garden center is my favorite place to buy seedlings in May and June, and they always sell out. Nothing from that greenhouse goes to waste.

Day 17: Save or analyze all your garbage for the day. We take pride in the fact that our city garbage bin is the smallest size available. It saves us a few bucks and reminds us to divert whatever we can to recycling, reusing, and composting. I’ve noticed that our wastebaskets fill up mainly with tissues (it is spring allergy season), and the kitchen garbage is scraps that can’t be recycled or composted. If we switched to handkerchiefs or bandannas, we wouldn’t waste all that tissue. Think. Think. Think.

Day 18: Check the thermostat on your water heater. Like washing laundry in cold water, this saves energy.

Day 19: Consider the tea towel. This reminds me of the Swedish dish cloths mentioned earlier this month. I saw a feature on the Today Show with the specialty dish cloths, and I’m almost ready to try them. I could buy a pack for myself and one for La Petite and her fabulous green-freak husband – that is, if they’re not already using them.

Day 20: What to do with old CDs? I’ll be honest, we don’t have many anymore. Remember the olden days when the AOL CDs would arrive constantly in the mail to invite people to join? Not today. But if I find a few CDs past their usefulness in the house, I might attempt a scarecrow and hope it will deter the deer.

Stay tuned for more eco-friendly actions throughout April – or go to Treehugger yourself!

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Spring Show Weekend!

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Let’s take a weekend off from Earth Month and look at what’s going on around the O.K. Chorale. Chuck’s spring model train show is done, and we were all focused on the barbershop chorus’ spring show. This is a Big Deal. Pre-pandemic, the guys would put on two performances – an afternoon and an evening show, often selling out one or both. Then came Covid19.

Covid19 cancelled everything. Shows, rehearsals, social gatherings, and the works. Singing was a super spreader event, so in-person anything was off the calendar completely. Eventually, Zoom rehearsals and social events began. After a long, long stretch of rehearsing through their computer screens, the guys were able to gather and sing – as long as they wore masks. Vaccines became available. Virus numbers went down. Concerts became possible once again.

In 2022, the spring show came back. Yesterday, the 2023 spring show came back with a full crowd and a great concert. They had a James Bond parody theme called James Blond; Anyone Does it Better. The bumbling James staggered his way through a casino, totaled the Aston Martin, and gave an excuse for lots of songs. The audience loved every minute.

It’s a post-pandemic relief to have the chorus on stage again. This is a bunch of amateurs who love to sing and do it pretty darn well. Amigo thrives in the group, as do many, many others. We are all very grateful to have this part of our lives back in place.

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And more Earth Month! Go, Green Freaks!

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From Earth Month Challenge: 30 Easy Actions:  

Day 14:  Read the Directions on Products

By reading the directions, you can avoid overuse. For example, you probably don’t need as much detergent in the laundry as you think you need.

But I’m not focused on reading packages (or manuals) right now. We are having a rare streak of warm, very warm days, and I’m getting outside every chance I get to do yard work and garden prep. So far today, I’ve loaded up a few large containers (five gallon ceramic crocks, for example) with yard waste and compost. This fills each one about half way. The rest will be potting soil, and I will transplant pepper plants and cherry tomatoes into these containers so they’re easily accessible for cooking and salad-making.

On that note, I wish I could find the manual for the worm farm set-up sitting in my garage. It’s a perfect example of good intentions being the way to you know where. In a handbasket, no doubt.

Stay tuned for more eco-friendly actions throughout April – or go to Treehugger yourself!

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Earth Month: No Food Waste Today

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From Earth Month Challenge: 30 Easy Actions:  

Day 13: Have a Zero Waste Food Day.

This one will take some focus. I’ve never insisted my family “clean their plates” if they’re not hungry, but I can still address Zero Food Waste. Come to think of it, my habit of using the last drops of leftover coffee to water my plants prevents dumping it down the drain. That counts. A few more suggestions:

  • Serve realistic portions.
  • Save leftovers to eat or add to another leftover later.
  • Serve carrots scrubbed, not peeled.
  • Save odd scraps for broth.

It’s all fairly practical. We can do this.

Stay tuned for more eco-friendly actions throughout April – or go to Treehugger yourself!

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Earth Month Continues with Non Dairy Milk

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From Earth Month Challenge: 30 Easy Actions:  

Replacing dairy milk with non-dairy milk in my coffee could cut my carbon footprint in half. However, I drink my coffee black. Chuck has been using oat milk since he developed a strong lactose intolerance, so I could dip into his carton for my cereal to give it a try.

Stay tuned for more eco-friendly actions throughout April – or go to Treehugger yourself!

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