A Whirled Yarn

You know its darn cold...

...When snow won't melt on a cow...

Do you enjoy unusual weather patterns?  Last evening I was watching "Ask Your Legislator" from KCPT public television.  The 3 old, white men legislators were blabbing about how Kansas needs the new Sunflower Electric coal fired power plant. (Go here if you've never heard of this before).  A caller asked why Kansas needs this plant if over half of the power generated will be sold to other states?  The OWM legislators calmly explained to us simpletons that Kansas can make money exporting energy to other states as a product, just like we export beef.  They also pointed out that coal plants can be built to burn cleaner than they have in the past.  Never once did they say that the particular plant in question will be built that way. In fact they carefully avoided saying that (and cleaner, by the way, in no way means clean!).   I wanted to know if Kansas will be exporting the health and environmental problems and pollution to other states as well?   ...Or do we get to keep that all for ourselves?

I did email...but they apparently didn't have time for my question.

Do you live in Kansas and believe they should find other options to building a new coal-fired power plant (and, as an aside, don't you think we've had enough of old, white men running, and ruining, the world?)  Go here and find your legislator...

....let them know we are watching them carefully...

My Favorite Things...

[Prologue: Okay, I know, I've already slightly failed on my Project 365 resolution.  But since this is MY blog, and I make the rules... I am now... MAKING A RULE.  As long as I take a picture everyday, I do not have to post it everyday.  For example, say I and one of my sons spent the whole weekend with the stomach flu, then I can save all those pictures until Monday.  Then on Monday, I can sit,... pale, wan and huddled in an afghan while my preschooler and still sick son fight over sofa space...and post my pictures as pledged.  Just a hypothetical example ...but expressions of sympathy will be accepted.]

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Snowflakes on ponies...

Whiskers on kittens...

Hot, steaming kettles...

And lots and lots of mittens...

My apologies to Julie Andrews.

Happy Boxing Day!

Yes, despite my earlier post... horrible crap made by starving children in foreign countries made it into our house this Christmas.

And what is actually played with?  This lovely box... (which I'm sure was also made by starving children in foreign countries from old growth forest trees and petroluem by-products).  Sigh....

Santa needs to attend Kyoto...

Happy Holidays!

Friends don't let friends buy crap...

Face it...I don't care how cool you think it is, but that little trinkety Christmas thingy was made in a sweat shop in a foreign country.  You may be in denial, but you know it's true.  Your purchase allows corporations to work women and children to death for pennies a day.  They work in factories that follow no pollution guidelines and regularly dump toxins into the water and the air.  Your lovely bit of whatever takes jobs away from Americans and took a ton of oil to just get it to this country and into the store.  I won't even mention lead paint.  Really, is it worth it? 

Instead demand quality, beauty and safety.  Buy lovely trinkety thingys that are handmade with care and skill.  Keep artists, crafters and just darn clever people in business.  Pledge to buy handmade and make the world a better place.

Hint - Check out local art and craft galleries (check out mine if your close!) and try Etsy.com.  You'll feel so good!

Come on everyone...freeze your buns!!!

  One of my favorite bloggers, Crunchy Chicken, has begun a thermostat challenge.  The challenge is very simple...just turn it down.  It is not a contest to see who can be coldest, just to reduce your own energy bills and subsequently help save the world.  It's your classic win-win situation.

All the friendly pep talk being now said, I have to now climb up on my wobbly soap box and gasp that people are asked to turn their thermostats down to 68 degrees.  Down to 68 degrees.  I don't think I've spent a winter my entire life with an indoor temperature of 68 degrees.  After all,...drum roll please... it's winter.  It's cold.  It's time to wear sweaters and socks and put the down comforters on the bed.  It's just plain wrong to be able to run about your home in short sleeves!  It's an example of how people try to live their lives totally insulated from the environment.  No one is the slightest bit inconvenienced by the heat of the summer or the cold of the winter.  The interiors of houses are completely climate controlled.  All dirt, bacteria and viruses are wiped clean by no end of anti-bacterial cleaners and elaborate air filters.  All bugs, insects and weeds are removed with harmful chemicals.  Children spend all day in school,  at after school activities or daycare.  Kids hardly ever even get dirty!  And we are paying a horrible price for this environmental insulation.   Children are growing up with out exposure to the germs that actually make them healthy.  There are more and more children with all sorts of allergies and asthma because their bodies haven't been able to build up any natural defenses.  And of course, our planet itself is suffering...  and we are entering into all sorts of global conflicts over the need to stuff our country with oil (come on, deep down you know it's true)...it goes on and on.

So, come on, be a little inconvenienced and save the world!  Despite my personal 68 degree shock, the actual degree temperature doesn't really matter.  Every one has their own version of what cold is.  Just turn the thermostat down enough that you need to wear a pair of slippers in the house.  Turn it down enough that you can wear that sweater you have in your closet that you previously determined was way to warm to wear indoors.  Turn it down enough that you actually need to wear warm winter pajamas to bed (I recently was told by a sales girl at JC Penney's that she couldn't imagine why children would need footsie pajamas!  Eeeek!). You become more tolerant to temperature with time (I know this for a fact, as I now can survive the Kansas summer heat without death!).

Good luck, you can do it!  After all, it's really important.  We can all do the really important things.  And the financial savings alone should warm you down to your toes.

Ramble, Ramble, cluck, cluck, cluck

I Just rambled on and on  in the comments section of someone else's blog about chickens ( at least the blogger had mentioned chickens...it could have worse!  It's not like she had been discussing personal finance or anything).  I tend to ramble on about chickens, I just can't help it....I love them.  I truly do!  I mean, I'm not one of those crazy "I hypnotize my chickens and teach them tricks" sort of people or anything(not that many tricks anyway...just your normal "sit", "stay", "whistle Yankee Doodle" sort of thing.)   Definitely not crazy...just a healthy, obsessive love.  Why do you love them you may ask (or you may not...in which case,...go away).  There are many, many, many reasons to love chickens, ...well at least three.

Okey dokey, first of all, and the most obvious, they lay eggs.  Yeah, yeah...you think you know all about eggs.  You've been eating them since you were too small to use a fork...or avoiding them with absolute revulsion (if you're one of those people).  But, if you've never had an organic, truly free-range chicken egg, your life has been meaningless.  Trust me.  Chickens that are allowed to wander and forage to heart's content produce eggs with a large, deep yellow, almost orange yolk.  (If you are buying "free-range" grocery store eggs imagining a flock of happy chickens wandering around a farmyard, check the color of the yolks.  If they are the regular, anemic yellow, that chicken is eating nothing but prepared grains.  She is never even laying (Hey, a pun!) her eyes on a blade of grass or a cricket.  How "free-range" could she possibly be? ) According to Mother Earth News, truly free-range chicken eggs are also lower in bad cholesterol than regular eggs and higher in Omega 3's.  And the taste...it's astounding.  It's like difference between a tomato from the grocery store and a fresh, warm, sun-ripened tomato from your backyard.  Yup, it's that good!  It's also a whole different level of freshness.  Did you know that a fresh egg will slip completely from it's shell with a neat little plop?  None of that snotty stuff left trailing from the shell to slime around your fingers.  I've kept our homegrown eggs for 3 weeks before the whites start to cling to the shell.  Three weeks...can you imagine how old those grocery store eggs are? 

Okay, second...they are wonderful pest eaters and fertilizer...ers.  They eat a tremendous amount of ticks, grasshoppers, maggots, flies and who knows what else.  They hang around when I'm gardening because I always flick them the grubs that I come across.  I'm sure if they could see a chigger, they would eat those too!  We even throw them the leftovers from the kids plates (once it's been handled, mashed and basically drooled on by a kid...DH and I can't stomach finishing it ourselves).  And all that good foraging comes out the other end after a while.  A lot of fertilizer drops directly from the chicken right into the garden.  Nothing like eliminating (ooh, another pun!) the middle man!

  And last, but not least, they are just so darn pretty!   Their shape, their feathers, the silly way they walk, all the colors they come in...they are the perfect lawn ornament.  All the expensive landscaping in all the world cannot make up for the lack of chickens strutting across the lawn.  Sorry, I'm not a crazy chicken lady,...it is just true. 

The more astute of you (or at least those whose eyes haven't glazed over in boredom) may have noticed that I left out one rather important aspect of chicken ownership.   You can eat them too.  SHHHH!  Don't say that very loudly around here!  We are a chicken sanctuary (and a goat sanctuary, and a sheep sanctuary) much to Mr Whirled's aggravation. 

It's a good thing I don't like pigs...

Yay... He's gay!

Albus Dumbledore has come out of the closet!  Posthumously even! It is true.  I heard it on NPR and they never lie.   I am so proud of him...I'm sure it is never easy, no matter when or how you do it.  And I think it's hilarious that Dumbledore's sexual preference is causing controversy.  It just proves how bizarre and insane the world can be.  There are children starving in Africa and being blown to bits in Iraq...but people are going to waste their anger and energy on a fictional character.  Hello...he doesn't actually exist. 

I spend an inordinate amount of time driving home to my children that homosexuality is a normal variation, like blue eyes or dark skin.  I feel I need to lay it on thick...we do live in Kansas.  So yay for Dumbledore (and J.K.)...a respected and beloved character is exactly what I need to help teach respect and love. Yay!

Rainy Day Blues

Yay!  It's been raining, which means no late evening, mosquito infested watering...but it also means I have no good excuse not to clean my house.  Now we don't live like P-I-G pigs, but I ain't no Martha Stewart either.  And Settlers Farm is no suburban dream home.  It is an authentic farmhouse, with doors that won't shut all the way, mismatched floors, and apparently a flashing, neon, fly-sized sign that reads "COME ON IN, WE'RE OPEN!".  But we do our best,... as time allows,... with somewhat cheerful faces ...and armed to the teeth with fly swatters. 

One day, in church, during our "Sharing of Joys and Concerns", a small, tweedy woman stood up and encouraged us all to check out Flylady.com because it changed her life.  Changed her life!  Now, we are Unitarians (Yes, recycling is actually part of my religion, how cool is that?!), and we are used to people standing up and sharing the most amazing things, like "We have just returned from a year in Guatemala teaching villagers how to make goat cheese AND we adopted four teenage orphans!'' or "Feel free to call me Linda now, and please wish me good luck on my surgery".  So of course I had to check out FlyLady.

Oh_my_God(dess, ...insert Deity/Being of choice...I AM a Unitarian).  Apparently, unknown to me, my house is Filthy, Cluttered and...gasp...Unorganized!  Who knew you were supposed to launder your bathroom curtains once a month (in case company stops by) let alone scrub your kitchen sink with your toothbrush?  Meanwhile you are to throw out 37 of your things once a week (Do NOT sell them or have a garage sale, it takes too much time ...clutter the landfill instead!) until your house is empty of all personal effects.  It will then be a joy to clean with your big, purple, $50 (plus shipping) feather duster that makes you feel like a princess!  (Which princess exactly...pre-bibbitybobbity Cinderella?).  And don't forget to record it all in your Control Journal!  (Type A anyone?)

And this is how you "Finally Love Yourself"!  (F.L.Y,.. get it? Clever!)

If that is how one learns to love oneself, I need some serious therapy!  Not that I am fundamentally against clean organized homes.  I just think children, sheep, chickens, spinning, knitting, gardening and kissing my husband come first ...and not necessarily in that order!  I love myself most when I'm scratching a woolly neck, finishing a project or rubbing my cheek on silky baby hair.  When I have a clean house?  Not so much.

So are you curious what my home must look like?  Check out Kristin Nicholas.  She's an incredible designer and has an old house with chutzpah!  My house looks just like that...just with a lot more books, children, dogs, spinning wheels, wool, pet hair, half finished knitting projects, and dust.

Yah, right.  Please excuse me, I have to go put some curtains in the wash...