Autumn, where are you?

Here it is, the end of September and we are having a heat wave. Anyone who knows me, knows I loath the heat or any temperature extremes. Winter and summer are both too intense for my delicate sensibilities and I could live happily with just spring and autumn year round. Maybe a week of snow around Christmas for ambiance and a week of heat in the summer for beach going. Other than that, I could do without the extreme seasons. By the end of August, I feel like a wilted flower and have had more than enough of summer. Once September arrives, I happily looking forward to the cooler days and chilly nights of fall and wait with great anticipation for the changing of the leaves.

Autumn brings even more delights as the cooler days mean I can turn my oven on again! During the dog days of summer, my kitchen seems to go on hiatus with the exception of salad, sandwich and iced tea making. The oven sits idle and even cooking something on top of the stove is avoided for fear of making the house hotter than it already is. Even with the ceiling fan running full tilt, it still seems to be too hot to do anything but open the fridge. In this hot, non cooking state, ice cream suddenly seems to be an acceptable dinner entree!

Eventually though, one does grow weary of the no cook, pick something out of the garden or eat a Popsicle diet. Even ice cream looses it's appeal once you have eaten several gallons of the stuff. I grow weary of cleaning the ice cream maker and I am tired of making a gallon of tea each and every day.

The onset of autumn is a welcome relief because it means fully cooked meals are on the menu again. Things we haven't tasted in months are suddenly appearing on our plates. Meatloaf, stews and casseroles are bubbling away in the oven. Zucchini and bananas are magically transformed into delicious breads and tomatoes are baked up into pies. Beans and other garden delights are canned and put away for later. Hot tea in the tea pot replaces the gallon pitcher in the fridge and ice remains in the freezer for more than a few hours. In the fall, the kitchen seems to suddenly spring back to life!

Cooler autumn nights mean throwing a blanket or quilt on the bed and digging out that nice fuzzy bathrobe that has been in hiding for many months. That chill in the air as you rise in the morning is invigorating. Sleep is much more comfortable and the pugs are content to snuggle up in their doggy beds with their blankets instead of walking around most of the night constantly trying to find a cool spot under the ceiling fan.

As you make your way to the kitchen, you know that first cup of hot coffee or tea is going to taste so good. It is a bit chilly and don't break into a sweat by the walking into the kitchen. Instead of cold cereal, you can actually entertain the thought of cooking something for breakfast. What could be better on a chilly autumn morning than coming down to the kitchen, turning on the oven and baking up a batch of cinnamon rolls or biscuits? The heat from my 1950's O'Keefe and Merritt oven takes the chill off the house and the smell of coffee perking in the percolator and cinnamon rolls baking in the oven permeates the air. It is on these mornings that I know why I moved to the hill and why I love autumn so much. So Autumn, where are you?

Customer Appreciation Day

Hopefully everyone had a fun filled Memorial Day Weekend. It seemed there was lots to do from yard sales to BBQs. The weather was beautiful so no matter what activities you chose to participate in, it should have been enjoyable!

Now that it is June 1st, it is time to remind you about our annual Customer Appreciation Day, complete with a BBQ lunch. It will be held at Dutch Flats again this year and all Pine Cove residents are welcome to come. It is a wonderful opportunity to come out and meet some fellow Pine Covers, have a wonderful lunch and find out what is going on with the water distict.

The BBQ will start right after the Pine Cove Property Owners Association meeting. Jerry Holldber, General Manager of the Pine Cove Water District will be giving a talk at the PCPOA meeting, so you might want to attend the meeting first and then head on over to Dutch Flats for lunch. Jerry and Stitch will be holding court at Dutch Flats and will be available to answer any questions you might have regarding the water district.

Due to their immense popularity, we will again be serving tri tip sandwiches. We will also have homemade salads and some desserts available. You don't want to be late because last year there wasn't a single bite of tri tip left. So make sure you get there early and get yours. You can enjoy the beautiful setting at Dutch Flats, tour the aeration plant or just enjoy having lunch in the great outdoors under the trees. Hope to see you there!

Hard boiled eggs

With Easter not too far off, and then summer, the old problem of peeling hard boiled eggs comes back onto my radar. Older eggs are easier to peel, but what do you do if you want to use fresh eggs? I personally have not found a solution to this problem. However, I found this online. I do not know if it works or not, but I am going to try it.

Julia Child's methold of alternately heating and chilling the eggs.

For a dozen eggs, choose the best you can find, preferably pasture-raised eggs. Place them at the bottom of a large, heavy pot and cover with 3 1/2 quarts of cold water. Bring the pot to a boil. As soon as it begins to boil, remove the pot and allow the eggs to sit, covered for exactly 17 minutes.

When the 17 minutes have elapsed, carefully remove the eggs to a large bowl of iced water. Allow the eggs to sit in the iced water for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, put the pot on the stove and bring the water back to a boil. Remove the eggs from the iced water after the 2 minutes are up. In batches of 6, return the eggs to the boiling water for 10 seconds only. Then remove again and place back in the iced water. If you will not be dying or decorating the eggs, crack each egg in several places. Let the eggs rest in the iced water until well chilled.

Now this seems like a lot of messing around to me, however, I am going to try it. It would be worth the extra effort during the cooking process to have eggs that peel easily. Nothing is worse than trying to peel hardboiled eggs that won't peel properly.

Sustainable Thursday

My apologies for being a day late. Some other writing had my attention for most of the day yesterday.

I was pondering what to write about this week and I thought since I talked about eggs and animal welfare in factory farming last week, I should talk about farming of fruits and veggies this week.

In a perfect world, all of our food would be raised locally, humanely and organically. I personally hope that some day that is how it is. But in the meantime, we are faced with dozens of choices on what to buy and what to put into our bodies each and every time we enter a supermarket.

There is also a lot of conflicting information out there about our food and it's sources and organic vs. non organic. Should we spend the extra for organic or not? That is always the question that I wrestle with. My mind is telling me one thing, but my checkbook is telling me something else. If I buy all organic I will get enough food for my family for about 3 days vs. a week if I buy non organic. So what is the average person to do?

Personally I try to go by the Dirty Dozen. You may have seen this list elsewhere as it has been published over and over again, but I think it is a really good place to start if you want to start switching to organic. I think dairy and the Dirty Dozen list are probably the easiest way to start. In case you haven't seen it before, here it is again.

The dirty dozen below have the highest levels of pesticides when grown conventionally. The thin skins on many of them make it easy for pesticides to penetrate to the food and impossible for us to wash away the chemicals. Opt for USDA certified organics of these foods and you're ensuring your salad wasn't raised using man-made chemical pesticides, fossil fuel or sewage-based fertilizers or genetically-modified seeds.

apples
sweet bell peppers
carrots
celery
cherries
grapes (imported)
kale
lettuce
nectarines
peaches
pears
strawberries

If you are unable to afford these items in your local grocery store,try going to your local farmer's market where the prices are often lower than the grocery store, and the farmers raise their crops using organic methods but don't opt to go through the costly and lengthy organic certification process. You can usually talk directly to the grower and get to know him and how he runs his farm. Making the switch to organic is possible if you just start slowly and shop around.

Sustainable Thursday-Solar Ovens

Even though it is only February and there is yet another storm on the horizon, my thoughts are turning more and more to summer. It is about this time of year that I think everyone here on the hill gets a good case of cabin fever. The nice weather of this past week just makes it worse. By getting a taste of nice weather again, it makes it even harder to go back to the snowy conditions we have been experiencing of late. Even though the moisture is wanted, needed and appreciated, there is an inconvienance of truding around in it that makes life just a little more difficult than when there is no snow.

For months now I have been baking bread, cooking stews and making meals in the oven without much thought. The extra warmth the oven brings to the kitchen at this time of year is a welcome delight. However, I started thinking of the hot summer months ahead when turning the oven on or even boiling water on top of the stove will make my little kitchen heat up like an inferno. Even though summer brings much lighter dinner fare, there are still some parts of it that need to be cooked. The pasta for pasta salad, water for iced tea, bread for sandwiches and so on.

I got to thinking about solar ovens. I have seen them for sale and I have seen plans on how to build them. Some can even be built out of cardboard boxes. I don't know anyone that owns one, so I have never seen one in action. But even so, I have decided that this summer, I will build myself a solar oven and see if I can use it to bake bread, boil water and cook simple meals. I get ample sunshine at my house and I feel that this could work.

My reasons for wanting to try this are many. First of all, it will keep my kitchen and house cooler, there by eliminating the need to cool it down with fans or air conditioners. That will save energy and help to keep my electric bill down.

Secondly, the sunshine is free, so why not? Building a solar oven seems relatively easy and cheap to do, so I might as well take advantage of the sun. Since I have a gas stove, I will save propane by not using it, so that is two ways I will be saving energy. Since the cost to make one is relatively low, I should re-coop whatever monies I do spend on the oven in energy savings.

Third, it would give me a way to cook when the electricity goes out. Even though I can use my stove when the electricty is out, I can't use things like crock pots. So I would be right back to square one. Cooking in my kitchen and heating it up with no way to cool it down. Talk about suffering. It is bad enough to be out of electricty, but then having to heat up your house on top of it is cruel and unusal punishment in my book. But using a solar oven, my kitchen will stay cool and hopefully, not heating up the kitchen will help in other ways as well, like keeping the fridge cool for a longer period of time, even though the electricity is off.

Even though this method of cooking seems very low tech, I see only good things coming out of it. My house will stay cool, I will cut down on my propane and electric use, I will be using free energy to cook my food and it won't cost much to set up. I think the only problem will be if the oven doesn't actually work. But I don't think that will happen.

As summer approaches, I will be trying this to see how it works. I will post how I build my solar oven and how cooking it in works out. In the meantime, I will keep working on my winter seed sowing project. It looks like I have peas coming up!

Sustainable Thursday

We have been hearing a lot lately about eating organically and sustainably. I think everyone knows what organic is but what exactly is eating sustainably? According to the website sustainabletable.org, it is about several things.

First it is about Conservation and Preservation. What is taken out of the environment is put back in, so land and resources such as water, soil and air can be replenished and are available to future generations. The waste from sustainable farming stays within the farm’s ecosystem and cannot cause buildup or pollution. In addition, sustainable agriculture seeks to minimize transportation costs and fossil fuel use, and is as locally-based as possible.

Second is Biodiversity. Farms raise different types of plants and animals, which are rotated around the fields to enrich the soil and help prevent disease and pest outbreaks. Chemical pesticides are used minimally and only when necessary; many sustainable farms do not use any form of chemicals.

Third is Animal Welfare. Animals are treated humanely and with respect, and are well cared for. They are permitted to carry out their natural behaviors, such as grazing, rooting or pecking, and are fed a natural diet appropriate for their species.

Fourth would be Economically Viable. Farmers are paid a fair wage and are not dependent on subsidies from the government. Sustainable farmers help strengthen rural communities.

Fifth is Socially Just. Workers are treated fairly and paid competitive wages and benefits. They work in a safe environment and are offered proper living conditions and food.

If you go to sustainabletable.org, you can read about each one of these topics in much more depth.

The one thing that really stands out to me though is the way factory farms treat their animals. Here is what sustainabletable.org says about that.


Every year, hundreds of thousands of animals raised for food experience terrible living conditions because the majority of meat, dairy, and poultry production in the U.S. takes place in industrialized or factory farms. These factory farms are large, profit driven companies which view animals as units of production, rather than living creatures, and exchange the animals' health and welfare for efficiency and profit. While views differ about the degree of comfort and freedom that farm animals deserve, most people can agree on a minimum standard of cleanliness and space, and that animals should not needlessly suffer.

The basic structure of industrial farms is at odds with the well-being of the animals they raise. Confining animals indoors as closely together as possible, rather than letting them graze on open land, exposes them to high levels of toxins from decomposing manure. To counteract the disease inherent in such conditions, animals are given constant low daily doses of antibiotics which are contributing to problems with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Though they are also exposed to pesticides, other unhealthy additives, and types of food they wouldn't normally eat. The animals can also be bred and given hormones only to increase production.

Life on a Factory Farm

Other common practices, such as debeaking chickens or cutting off cows' tails, are said to increase efficiency and safety, but they also cause discomfort, pain, and stress for the animals. Though these tactics may help "mechanize" the animals and can increase yields by causing less interference with production, this does not justify the resulting suffering. In every stage of development on a factory farm, animals suffer needless mutations and cramped, confined living conditions. Scientists have even linked animal stress to food quality and safety. When an animal is subject to stress and pain, it is more prone to disease and can produce lower quality meat, milk, or eggs.

Cows

The First Year
Calves born into dairy production are usually removed from their dam, or mother, after only about 12 hours. Once a male calf born into a dairy factory farm is weaned, he will be raised for veal, castrated and sent to feedlots to be fattened, or in rare cases raised for breeding. The heifers, or young female cows, will be raised as "replacement heifers" on the same farm or sold to another dairy farm. All calves born into factory farms undergo procedures usually unnecessary outside of a factory farm setting. They are dehorned, have extra teats removed (if a heifer), and are usually fed a milk replacer (a dried product made from cheese-making by-products or other sources of proteins like soy). The use of a milk replacer brings up concerns about the spread of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or Mad Cow's Disease) because some of the allowable protein content in milk replacers is derived from cow's blood cells. Common practice on dairy factory farms also includes tail docking, or the removal of approximately two-thirds of the tail. This painful procedure is conducted without anesthetic and is supposedly meant to keep the cow from developing infections caused by constant exposure to manure. Studies have shown that this process not only causes the animal a significant amount of pain and stress, but also has no benefit for the animal's health. In fact, tail docking has been shown to moderately increase stress for cows because they are no longer able to use their tails to swat flies. This results in a greater number of flies around the cattle and the use of other fly-avoidance behaviors. For these reasons, the American Veterinary Medical Association officially opposes the routine tail docking of cattle.

Breeding and Growth
In the U.S., dairy cows have been bred to produce higher and higher amounts of milk, and evidence shows this practice has led to a higher occurrence of disease. While the average dairy cow produced almost 5,300 pounds of milk a year in 1950, today, a typical cow produces more than 18,000 pounds. In addition to the breeding, in order to artificially increase milk production, a certain number (estimated around 33%) of dairy cattle are injected with rBGH, an artificial growth hormone.

For the duration of their productive lives, factory farmed dairy cattle are kept in one of three types of housing units: tie-stall barns, where they spend their life tethered by their neck to a stall; free-stall barns, where cattle are kept indoors and provided stalls for milking and rest; or dry lots, which is an area with no vegetation where the cattle are kept between trips to the milking barn11. Beef cattle are usually raised on dry lots, but so are some dairy cows. In all of these situations, cattle are in high concentrations and often suffer diseases of the feet and udder from standing in their own manure and being exposed to harsh weather conditions. Stripped of the ability to graze, cattle are given feed which contains some straw and grass, but also protein sources from "by-product feedstuffs", including meat and bone meal, an inappropriate food for herbivorous (vegetarian) cattle. The harsh living conditions, excess hormones, and inappropriate diet provide a perfect mixture for disease and injury.

Slaughter

Once beef cows have grown to an adequate size and dairy cows are no longer producing milk at an acceptable rate, the cattle are taken to be slaughtered. In August 2008, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will draft legislation completely banning the slaughter of any downer-cattle (those too sick or lame to walk) - though as of September 2008 no legislation or regulations had been passed. Before May 2008, USDA regulations stated that downer-cattle could be slaughtered for food if they passed the ante-mortem, or before slaughter, inspection at the slaughterhouse. This practice of slaughtering sick or injured cattle caused much pain to the already suffering animal, as they were pushed, prodded and shoved into the slaughterhouse by any means possible, since they were unable to walk. While slaughterhouses are required to meet USDA standards for cleanliness and humane treatment during slaughter, they are also in the business of killing animals: the faster the slaughter and butchering, the more meat produced and the more money made. Because of the pressure to slaughter animals quickly, mistakes that result in the violation of USDA regulations and lead to the mistreatment of the animals, unavoidably occur. In some slaughterhouses, almost 400 cattle per day are slaughtered, and at this speed it is "nearly impossible to guarantee each is slaughtered within the regulations". Cattle are ushered as quickly as possible from farm to truck to slaughter, sometimes resulting in injury. In addition, slaughterhouses have been reported as regularly failing to completely stun animals before the slaughtering process begins. This results in cows being hung and bled while they are still conscious.

Pigs

The First Year
On a factory farm, just before giving birth, a sow, or mother pig, is placed into a small crate on her side, completely limiting her movement, but still allowing the piglets to feed16. Sows will often spend their entire life encaged in the crates or in a cramped pen that encourages pregnancy17. The piglets' teeth and tails are clipped soon after birth. The practice of tail clipping or docking is done to prevent the piglets from biting each other's tails, but this phenomenon has only been observed in pigs in a factory farm environment.

Growth and Development
Once the piglets are weaned, they are separated from their mother and confined in pens with concrete floors. Rooting, or digging in the dirt and straw, is a natural activity for pigs; and when restricted from this activity, they show visible signs of stress and aggression, such as tail-biting. The concrete floors have also been linked to skeletal deformities of the feet, and the poorly ventilated confines have resulted in frequent lung damage and pneumonia.

Slaughter
The stress and mistreatment pigs experience during transport, in combination with illness and injury from the poor housing conditions, causes many pigs to die on the way to the slaughterhouse.

Chickens

Breeding
Broilers (chickens raised for meat production) have been bred to grow muscle at a rate faster than ever and now reach market weight in half the time than they did in the 1940's. This fast rate of muscle growth is often not matched by bone growth and can cause serious deformities and loss of the ability to walk.

Growth and Development
Approximately 98% of chickens used in egg production live in a cage of only about 48 sq. in. (about half as big as a piece of letter sized paper). Broiler chickens are often reared at similarly high densities in pens with concrete slatted floors or occasionally litter (straw) covered concrete floors. Because of this high density and a limited ability to forage, chickens often display aggression and can peck each other to death. In order to prevent this, it is common practice to sear off approximately half the chickens' beaks, which has been shown to cause severe and lasting pain. The close quarters is also a haven for the spread of disease.

I for one will be seeking out sources to purchase sustainably raise meat. Perhaps a co-op needs to be started!