Not every domestic art thrills me, believe it or not. I have always loathed doing the dishes. No idea why, I can just think of 20 other things I’d rather do first. So I’m not sure why it took me 35 years to figure out that paring down to just the dishes that we need and use most often could provide ambition and save me time overall. I know how I think, if there are only four bowls in the house, then I am motivated to wash said bowl immediately after use rather than setting it aside, confident of the ready availability of other bowls, and eventually ending up with a sink full of dishes that I really, really don’t want to do and the more dishes there are, the less I want to do them.

So I’ve been packing up the unnecessary dishes for the next trip to Value Village and it’s been very satisfying to watch them go. Even more satisfying is seeing my dish cupboard looking less cluttered in a small kitchen where every inch of space is precious.

I think I may need to approach every room in the house this way. I’ve taken many loads of things to Value Village over the past year, but I still feel like there are plenty of places I could make cuts that would most likely make my life easier and my house less cluttered. It’s a winnowing process that seemingly takes several passes.

In the outdoor compost pile, we had cherry tomatoes and millet volunteer this year. The harvest from the tomato plant has been meager though the quality has been very good. I think that the millet is foxtail millet. It has soft, feathery heads and tiny seeds that would actually look nice in a vase with some fall flowers. I picked a handful of the seed heads that were drying on the stalks to save seed. I brought them inside, laid them on a paper towel that I’d set on a wire rack, and the seeds should finish drying, then be easy to strip from the stalks without damaging them. Once they’re dry and off the stalks, I’ll package them in an envelope to plant next year or to trade with other seed savers.

We don’t have enough millet for hulling and eating at this point but because it has proven to be so hardy, I definitely want to keep the seeds. I think that home grain production is an important and almost forgotten art.

I’ve been doing further experiments with the solar oven. Today I baked some bite-size spinach tarts by laying a silicone baking mat on the floor of the oven and setting the frozen tarts right on it. They cooked all the way through in about three hours. They didn’t brown quite like they would have in an electric oven but they were perfectly edible. I warmed tomato soup in a small pot on the side for an electricity-free dinner that was quite tasty. The more I use my solar oven, the more I like it. Someday I’d like to build a stand for it to sit on with an electric eye that would move it to follow the sun for longer cooking times and less time spent turning the oven for maximum sun.

I’ve been spending so much time on creative projects lately that I realized my house is in need of some attention. Oops! I guess this is a cleaning weekend.

If I rearrange my upstairs storage space, I think that I could make room for a few super pails (roughly 50 lbs. each) of dry goods. But trying to decide what to buy is the trick. My first impulse is to buy lentils and rice since we already eat a lot of those anyway. Wheat is also tempting, but I still don’t have a grain mill, so a purchase of whole-grains would necessitate an additional purchase to make full use of the stores. Funds aren’t quite so flush, so I look at what else is available. Rolled oats are very useful and nutritious, alphabet soup base with mini noodles and split peas also good, black beans are probably the second most consumed legume in our house since we love them in a variety of ways.

Hmm, better to buy a few 50 lb. pails or several smaller but more diverse items? I could take that same money and buy not only staple grains and legumes in smaller quantities, but add dehydrated or freeze-dried fruits and veggies to the mix. Broader nutrition is attractive, especially since I’m only generally feeding 2 humans and the dog. Also a reminder that even though I’m not eating meat, I should be stocking up for the dog. I have lots of chicken broth on hand, but otherwise our stores for the dog have been depleted this year since I’ve had to use them up to be able to afford to keep putting fresh food on the table for the humans.

Aside from dry pantry staples and a grain mill, I’ve been thinking about adding a Reliance Luggable Loo Portable Toilet to the stash of gear, along with Reliance Double Doodie Toilet Liner Bags 6-pk. and a few bags of enzymes. In an emergency where the water is cut off, you’re not going to have much water on hand to make your built-in toilet flush, so a portable toilet and bio-gel bags would be a much nicer option than having to just head outside (remember, I live in the suburbs). In a long-term situation, I’d probably make a worm toilet once the bio-gel bags were gone.

To make a worm toilet, you need a big, deep bucket and a few shovels’ worth of soil filled with red compost worms. You use the toilet as usual, then toss in some handfuls of dirt, sawdust, or peat moss after each use to keep smells and insect activity down. Of course, composted human waste shouldn’t be used around food plants, but can be buried at the base of trees or in a ditch well away from groundwater sources and edibles. Not a nice topic, but definitely something to consider well before you need it.

I’m not sure how anyone over the age of twelve can get through life without a good multi-tool, my Multi-Plier Suspension by Gerber Blades 22-01471 goes almost everywhere with me because it’s so useful.  It has needle-nosed pliers, a wire cutter, a knife blade, a serrated blade, a saw, three different screwdrivers, a can opener, and a bottle opener.  It even has a lanyard hole if you want to wear it around your neck, though I prefer to stash it in a bag or carry it in the nylon belt-loop carrying case that came with it.

This versatile tool is practical for pretty much any urban or wilderness situation.  The tools are sturdy and even I, with my very small hands, can open it one-handed if need be.  Sounds silly, but this is a major concern for me since I’ve owned other brands in the past whose tools were so tightly set into the frame that I had trouble opening them with two hands, which seems stupidly dangerous to me since it WAS a bladed tool I was attempting to open.

It’s nice-looking, too, with an open frame that is not only decorative, but helps provide a bit of grip while you work.  I like the little sliding “unlock” feature on each handle, too.

I paid $29.99 for mine at a major retail chain and it’s more than paid for itself in practicality and versatility.  If you’re looking to add a multi-tool to your kit, the Gerber Suspension is definitely one to consider.

I had to go to the pharmacy and the grocery store this morning to pick up a few things before our big cooking day started and I noticed that the pharmacy had a lot fewer items on sale than it normally does and prices had gone up pretty much storewide.  There was also a narrower selection of some items.  This isn’t the first place I’ve noticed such a trend, the warehouse club store that I belong to has raised prices and shrunk packages.  The giant bags of nuts that I used to buy and freeze for baking are smaller, more expensive, and no longer a great bargain, just a good one.  I find this worrisome, though probably not nearly so much as the people who don’t know how to prep and store basic foods at home.  I’ve had a whole lot of panicky friends calling me up asking for pointers on getting by.  Seems everyone is feeling the economic pinch these days.

The family has been contemplating ordering bulk foods as a group and splitting them or storing them at my house with definite plans for shared cooking that would benefit us all.  Flours, nuts, dried fruit, beans, and the like.

The grocery store was a little better, though they took out their bargain bins and that’s a real shame.  With my clipped coupons and their store coupons plus a frozen foods sale, I still managed to shave $60 off of my grocery bill, but it wasn’t as easy as it was before, it took a lot more searching of the circulars for good deals but I did find them on some staples: oatmeal, cooking oil, butter, and cheese.  I’m going to make some homemade granola bars soon to use up some of my odds and ends of dried fruit.

When I got home, Ken started on making homemade catsup (the smell of it is currently filling up the house and making me dream of french fries).  I also made blackberry applesauce with some frozen wild berries we’d picked in August and some of the bland applesauce left from juicing; it was a bit too tart, so I sweetened it with a small handful of sugar probably about a quarter of a cup.  Half of the puree is turning into fruit leather in my oven right now.

After starting the fruit leather, I made spicy apple chutney flavored with red bell peppers, raisins, serranos, and loads of ginger, allspice, and mustard seed.  It also smells fantastic and tasted pretty darn good raw so I’m looking forward to the end product to pour over rice and Indian delicacies.

I also started some organic, free-range chicken thighs in a homemade teriyaki marinade of soy sauce, canola oil, ginger, sake, brown sugar, and garlic.  They’re marinating in the refrigerator and I just need to pop them into the oven or onto the grill half an hour before we want dinner, then reheat the onion rice from the other night and chop some fresh veggies.

Ken has been grilling corn and peppers for salsa, which we’ll put together after a short break.  We’ll make some raw salsa to enjoy now and some cooked salsa to can.  I still have about ten pounds of apples left to process and I’m running out of ideas.  These aren’t the best quality, they require a lot of cutting to get the good parts out, but I bet there’s still 6-7 lbs. of raw fruit to be had there, I just need to figure out what I’m doing and get to it.  It’s tempting to start another batch of that apple chutney, though steamed juice would be easier and take less work on the front end.

We’ve been talking about making or building a dehydrator so that we could do larger batches of fruit leather and dried fruits than we can in my oven.  I’d really like something along the lines of the Excalibur 2900 Dehydrator, which has 9 large drying trays plus fruit leather inserts that come with it rather than as a separate purchase.  I have a quart jar of the apples we dried in the smoker and finished in the oven last weekend but they’re going fast.  They’re a favorite snack for my daughter, who eats them by the handful.  I could also use a dehydrator for making salsa and tomato leather (great for the backpack), the aforementioned fruit leather, and, my favorite, dried pineapple slices.

The other big family purchase we’ve been contemplating is a set of grain mills: manual, electric, and a roller/flaker.  All in all about $500 worth of merchandise, but it would allow us to buy our grains whole which stay fresher longer than flour, and to grind them to our specifications right before use for optimum food value.

However, before we get to all of that, we decided that our next big project is to inventory my pantry and cupboards to get a better idea of what we have on hand for preserving so that we don’t go buy more needlessly at the store.

One of the things I most look forward to when we find the farm of our dreams is the kitchen that we’re going to build.  Loads of prep space, walk-in cooler, and a pantry built for bulk food storage.  It will be fantastic to have enough room to do everything because the kitchen in my condo is tiny and inadequate for the level of cooking that we do.

We’ve been hit with some early hot weather the past few days, so today I dusted off the Sport Solar Oven and loaded up one pot with some turkey kielbasa and the other with some sliced potatoes, carrots, sweet potato, broccoli stem, and leeks tossed with garlic and herbs for a nice veggie roast that I’ll garnish with some shredded parmesan at dinnertime.  That and a nice, cool green salad and we’ll have a yummy dinner that used no electricity to make and won’t heat up the house.

I think my solar oven was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.  It allows me to cook healthy, warm meals all summer.  I just load it up before I go to work and dinner is done when we get home.  And I’ve never burned anything in it.  I’m planning to use it to cook and can jams and syrups this summer and I have plans for turning it into a dehydrator with an inset screen and a solar-powered fan.  But I do need to acquire some small toaster oven baking trays and small, dark-colored pots for making fruit leathers, sauces, and all of the other things that I’m contemplating trying in the solar oven.

The garden is doing well.  The sage is blooming, the poppies are about to.  The blueberry plants, peppers,, strawberries, and tomatoes are all drinking in the sun.  My daughter’s mini-meadow is full of clover, grasses, yarrow, and candytuft – though the johnny-jump-ups took a beating from the sun even with the watering they got both morning and evening.

I wish that I liked hot weather more but us fair-skinned girls don’t do so well in the heat.  At least once we’re on the farm, I’ll be able to get up early to do my chores or work late in the evening.

Now that the CFLs are in all over the house, I find that I really like them.  The light from my bedroom lamp is now much better for crocheting in the evenings when I’m trying to relax enough to get to sleep.

Today I’ve been researching low-flow shower heads online, trying to find ones that I like.  Currently mine are 2.5 gpm, which isn’t bad but now they have fixtures that are as low as 1.59 gpm and that’s a significant reduction in water usage.  I think I’d probably like an aerator model since I like a very brisk-feeling shower.  Seems that a trip to the hardware stores are in order soon.  I need to replace my old and rather inefficient water heater as well.

My other thought on water saving has been the idea of purchasing a solar shower to heat outside while I’m at work, then bring in in the evening for a pre-measured hot shower with zero use of power.  That would probably work well unless I wanted to wash my hair, which is rather long and thick and takes some time to wash thoroughly.  Once we’re on the farm I’ll probably just get a solar shower to hang from a tree for washing in the great outdoors after my chores are done.  I’ve always enjoyed showering with a view during camping trips.

I’m trying to bake potatoes in the solar oven using the reflectors since it’s a cloudy day.  I should go turn the oven and check the potatoes soon.

Doing work from home today and I’m close to giving up for the day since I’ve been at it since about 8:00 a.m.  I love working from home but it can also be a drag on days when you have a lot of work to do and still plenty to do around the house.

Actually, I saw a coupon for compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) and I was making a trip to the store anyway to pick up a cooler for my CSA deliveries so that I can start adding milk and eggs to my biweekly order, so I decided to replace a bunch of my regular bulbs with CFLs rather than waiting for the current incandescent bulbs to burn out.  The removed bulbs are going to get painted as snowmen, elves, and santas to get hung up next xmas.

I was able to replace all of the normal-sized bulbs in my house for under $40 with CFLs to spare, but I’m still recovering from the near-coronary over the cost of candelabra-style bulbs (two ceiling fixtures use that type of bulb in the house).  I’m thinking it would be cheaper to replace the ceiling fixtures than to pay $9-18 per bulb for a lamp that takes five bulbs and isn’t too aesthetically pleasing anyway.

Thankfully, the recycling depot out here will reclaim CFLs and other hazardous waste, but you have to take them to the site.  I need to take some paint cans and a coffee can full of batteries out that way soon so that I can make more pantry space in my shed and move the worm bin to a better location.

The garden is coming up well.  My grape tomato plant has grown several inches in the past few weeks despite the hail and cold weather.  All but two of my strawberry plants have flourished, though I still need to get that bird netting.  We’ve been cutting bunching onions and garlic greens for stir fries and soups, so much so that I need to sow some new bunching onions to keep up with my daughter’s growing appetite for them.

Strawberry season starts in early June and the family is scouting for places to go do some U-pick since my little strawberry plants are probably not going to keep up with the demand for preserves, muffins, and strawberry cloud pie.  I’m hoping we’ll get out for U-pick blueberries, blackberries, and other goodies as well.

Farmer’s markets are starting up, too, and I’m looking forward to looking for fresh cheeses, artisan breads, and bushels of just-picked goodies.  I can’t wait until we have our farm and can hopefully have a little booth selling our own excess produce and goods.

I’ve been prioritizing tools and items to add to the home arsenal, but it’s been a tough job.  I’d like to have a grain mill as much as I’d like to have some solar panels, which don’t lessen the desire for a good hatchet, a treadle sewing machine, a rug loom, or more half barrel planters.  I guess it’s a buy what you can afford at the moment sort of situation.

I belong to several alternative medicine groups online, always searching for new treatments and methods that can be added to the battery of knowledge in case the world ends tomorrow and someone needs some tending to.  A lot of people have been raving about the neti pot for relief from nasal and sinus problems.  A neti pot looks like a small teapot, usually made of plastic or ceramic, though I remember at least one person mentioning a metal version.  Into this little pot, you pour lukewarm water, then add a bit of salt and baking soda to make a nice saline solution that you then pour in one nostril and out the other to clean out your sinuses.  Sounds pleasant, eh?

However, I don’t like to take medications or medicinal herbs needlessly, so I thought that I would drop the twelve bucks and try it myself to see if it was as great as everyone said.  I bought my plastic pot with pre-mixed saline packets at the neighborhood pharmacy and brought it home figuring that I’d give it a try at some point.  Just so happens that I woke up with the beginnings of a bad cold today – nasal congestion with a sinus headache that was making me feel nauseated – so it was time to try anything to make the pain stop.

I followed the package directions to the letter.  The first nostril didn’t go so well, I snorkeled a little saltwater into my mouth and throat, but by the second one I had the proper head tilt down.  It wasn’t painful, it reminded me of when you’re a kid and you snort a bit of water at the swimming pool.  I admit, I looked into the sink, the washout wasn’t pretty.  I sneezed a couple of times immediately afterwards and had a runny nose for a few minutes, but it’s half an hour later and, not only can I breathe through my nose, but my sinus headache is completely gone.

I can’t see myself doing this every day like some people do, but I’m definitely adding this to my collection of tried and true medical equipment and I plan to use it as needed because a few moments of slight discomfort and some sneezing is nothing compared to the skull-crushing pain I was dealing with all morning.

Oh, and the pot is easily small and light enough to add to a medical pack.  Good product if you’re not the squeamish sort.

Last year, flush with tax refund money, I purchased a ‘Sport’ Solar Oven from the Solar Oven Society.  I’d been wanting a solar oven for some time after having experimented with recycled box ovens and liking how well they worked.  I just wanted something sturdier to cook in that was small enough for me to move by myself and didn’t get dangerously hot to the touch on the exterior.  The ‘Sport’ met all of my requirements and the food I’m able to turn out in it is top quality.  I’ve baked brownies, cooked soups, lentils, chicken, and vegetables, all with great results.  Even on the coldest days, it can produce enough heat to keep a pan of water warm for tea and cocoa.

The oven came with a water pasteurization indicator, two black enameled cooking pots, an oven thermometer, and a reflector for low sun conditions – all for under $200.00.  I tend to use it the most as a solar slow cooker on hot days when I don’t want to come home and heat up the house, but still want a healthy, satisfying meal at the end of the day.  It’s also good for baking dessert or biscuits while your oven is already in use.

After talking online with other solar oven users, I’ve found that my oven has more uses than I’d imagined.  It can be used as a dry autoclave, water pasteurizer, canner, dehydrator, and drying box for firewood.

My only complaint about it is that it isn’t easily packable in a bug-out situation unless you have room in the car or on the horse or some similar large mode of transport.  It’s not heavy, but it’s an awkward shape and size.  I might still try to drag it along because it’s so incredibly useful.

All in all, it’s a great piece of survival equipment.  Cooking in it takes some getting used to because you have to reduce the amounts of liquids in a lot of recipes, so read the directions thoroughly before you start using it, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a valuable addition to the home arsenal of equipment.  It saves energy and money; fascinates children (my daughter loves telling people, “The sun baked our bread!”); and offers an intriguing array of potential uses in a crisis situation.