Category Archives: Feats

Oh man, plum jam

August 20, 2009 – 8:42 pm

A few weeks back we dis­cov­ered another gift from 1011 12th Street, a plum tree, in our very own yard, laden with deli­cious tiny plums. Actu­ally no one knew what kind of tree it was for a long time. There were guesses that it was a cherry tree by the looks of the fruit. Some­one tasted an early fruit and absolutely didn’t like it. I think the unripened fruit freaked them out. We all avoided the tree. But then a nice man came and was pumped and picked hand­fuls and shared the good­ness with us. Now we know.

plum-tree

So, this week I decided to pick a few buck­ets before they were gone. Mar­got hung out with me the whole time. She finds solace in the shade of this tree. She is able to watch birds and remain aloof all day. But she was happy for me to come visit her in her zone.

cutting-plums

It took be about an hour to pick and pit. This I did alone. It was fun and ther­a­peu­tic. After­ward I had a bowl of pit­ted fruit and stained hands.

That is not to say I did all the work myself though, really I only did the easy part. Laura picked up some jars and sugar at the coop. We had a late night of mak­ing some decent tart jam. Exactly as I want jam to always be. Not too sweet, nice and gooey.

plum-jam

It was our first time can­ning and it was a real expe­ri­ence. I was extremely ner­vous and intim­i­dated by the process. Laura reas­sured me and told me that I was a geek for freak­ing out too much. Turns out, the process is really mel­low and now we have seven jars of extremely deli­cious plum jam. We are sav­ing some for the win­ter when fresh local fruit is scarce.

I’m really only writ­ing this post to boast. Sorry, but it is so deli­cious and I think about it con­stantly, like LOST.

By Matthew | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Saturday mornings are for…

February 7, 2009 – 7:48 pm

tenderness

  1. Spe­cial treats
  2. Sleep­ing in
  3. No shirts/pants
  4. Another round (of coffee)
  5. Writ­ing
  6. Catch­ing up
  7. Bak­ing if you want to
  8. Walk­ing before breakfast
  9. Week­end Amer­ica (RIP)
  10. Not feel­ing guilty
By Laura | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

We have a screen!

January 28, 2009 – 12:30 pm

window1

Our liv­ing room has two big win­dows. They func­tion as the main cool­ing ele­ment for our whole apart­ment. Last June, one of the screens fell out (and Mar­got went with it!). It is hard to describe the process of get­ting that screen back, but I will do my best.

But first! Let’s talk about the func­tions of screens and win­dows. Our apart­ment has out­side walls mostly on the South side of the build­ing so we get direct sun pretty much all day. And liv­ing in LA it gets fairly hot in the sum­mer, like really hot. So all sum­mer when we were less one win­dow, we were burn­ing up. And because we are energy con­scious badasses, we are totally decided against buy­ing an A/C.

But you may be ask­ing, why didn’t you just open the win­dow any­way? Well, let me tell you. We have a par­a­lyz­ing anx­i­ety about open­ing that win­dow. What hap­pened is, one night we were read­ing down­stairs and we were so hot that we had to open both win­dows. While we were read­ing a HUGE COCKROACH FLEW IN THE WINDOW AND INTO LAURA’S FACE. That’s real, a true story. It was deeply traumatic.

So, since open­ing the win­dow equals shep­herd­ing Mar­got and weird sub­con­scious anx­i­ety, we haven’t, for about 6 months. Well, that’s a lie. Some­times we have to, like one night when we were saute­ing chilies and couldn’t stop cough­ing. But it’s rare… and for < 5 minutes.

window2

But now, today, six months and a day from when the screen fell out, we have two screens again. Let’s hope this is a metaphor for our country.

By Matthew | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Agricultural Equality

January 20, 2009 – 12:38 pm

cnn-obama

To the peo­ple of poor nations, we pledge to work along­side you to make your farms flour­ish and let clean waters flow; to nour­ish starved bod­ies and feed hun­gry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy rel­a­tive plenty, we say we can no longer afford indif­fer­ence to suf­fer­ing out­side our bor­ders; nor can we con­sume the world’s resources with­out regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
 – Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, in his Inau­gural Address

Our new pres­i­dent men­tioned today in his Inau­gural Address sup­port­ing poor nations through farm­ing and clean water. I am very moved by this idea. It is sym­bolic to me of all the change that is hap­pen­ing. Giv­ing every­one access to their rights as human beings seems to be a pri­or­ity for Obama. It is good to see that food jus­tice is being rec­og­nized as a tac­tic for spread­ing peace and equal­ity, instead of start­ing wars with every coun­try in the Mid­dle East like our pre­vi­ous president.

“On this day, we gather because we have cho­sen hope over fear, unity of pur­pose over con­flict and dis­cord.” Hope over fear guys. We did it. Hope, farm­ing, equal­ity, peace. We chose this. We want to heal the dis­pro­por­tion­ate dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth in the nation and the world. And you know what the best way to start this is? Through clean water and sus­tain­able crops. Peo­ple have been try­ing to get the White House to join the sus­tain­able farm­ing train for a while, but it is very mean­ing­ful for it to be finally com­ing from the commander-in-chief.

And this is just the begin­ning, day 1, there is so much to do and so much that can happen.

By Matthew | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Eco-billing

December 19, 2008 – 1:38 pm

The truth is that I am a fairly cyn­i­cal guy. I try to be an upbeat opti­mist, but we all know the deep dark truth. As a rule I don’t entirely trust busi­nesses. I think they are look­ing out for them­selves and their profit first and fore­most. I think all of these “green” cam­paigns are based on half assed envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity and are ulti­mately just done to pro­mote the brand and not the environment.

For exam­ple, at a com­pany I once worked for, as part of their “green” month they gave every­one a cheap ceramic mug to replace paper cups. But they didn’t actu­ally get rid of paper cups. And the ceramic mugs were cheaply made in China at a fac­tory that prob­a­bly pol­lutes a ton. Nice guys!

With all of that being said, I really liked this mes­sage I got from T-Mobile when chang­ing to a paper­less bill:

restoration-project
Sign up for Paper­less Billing from T-Mobile, and you’re not just sav­ing a tree, you could be doing your part to plant one. As a thank you for help­ing us to be more eco – friendly, T – Mobile will plant a tree on your behalf with the Arbor Day Foun­da­tion. Your tree will be part of the Restora­tion Project, planted where it’s needed most — in dam­aged regions like South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and New Orleans, where trees aren’t grow­ing back on their own.

Maybe I’m a sucker, but I kind of believe them. Granted this is a ploy, but I am happy to 1) not get a bill in the mail and feel guilty about the paper used, and 2) for a tree to be planted on my behalf.

“But Matthew!” you say, “I don’t have T-Mobile!” Well, maybe you should pres­sure your mobile car­rier to fol­low suit. Stan­dards are cre­ated by demands.

By Matthew | Tagged , | Comments (6)

Today Laura is 23…

December 12, 2008 – 9:11 am

onemonth

And I couldn’t be any hap­pier. I’ve know Laura for 10 years now! Since I first met her, I thought she was the coolest, most intel­li­gent per­son I would ever meet. And did I men­tion that she is adorable too? Her freak­ing tiny hair? Man!

Laura, you are the most sin­cere, tal­ented per­son. You don’t f around, you mean busi­ness. You put 100% of your­self into every­thing you do. You laugh at my weird dances. You are made of good. You are always con­cep­tual and esoteric.

And this is for you (on your cañada):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Happy Birth­day Lover!

weirds

By Matthew | Tagged , | Comments (2)

MIY Tooth Powder

December 9, 2008 – 3:02 pm

I am a firm believer that most things are bet­ter for you if you make them your­self. I like know­ing every ingre­di­ent and it’s func­tion within the prod­uct, how it will effect my body… things like that. I am also a sucker for quirks. Unusual tastes or gen­eral cringe-factors? NBD. In fact, most of the time I will pre­fer said prod­uct to it’s far less endear­ing counterpart.

M is not as eas­ily wooed. I have a feel­ing some of you are the same way.

So, what’s wrong with reg­u­lar toothpaste?

1. Appar­ently store bought tooth­pastes block your enamel from recoat­ing itself while you sleep at night (which might explain my sen­si­tive teeth). What about organic ones? Glyc­er­ine is in all tooth pastes and is so sticky that it takes 27 washes to get it off. Teeth brushed with any tooth paste are coated with a film and can­not prop­erly re-enamelize.

2. If you are using a flouride-free tooth­paste with­out SLS and other yucky ingre­di­ents, you are likely pay­ing a lot for tooth­paste. (If you don’t under­stand why some­one would want tooth­paste with­out flouride, then you may want to check into it. When I found out that Swe­den, Nor­way, Den­mark, Ger­many, Italy, Bel­gium, Aus­tria, France and The Nether­lands have banned flu­o­ride, I fig­ured it was some­thing worth look­ing into. Here are a few arti­cles to get you started: Weston A. Price Foun­da­tion arti­cles and Dr. Mercola’s site .)

3. You didn’t make it!

The best part of about Make It Your­self Tooth Pow­der is cus­tomiza­tion through exper­i­men­ta­tion. Here is a basic recipe with a few sug­ges­tions for mod­i­fi­ca­tions. Got any other ideas or a fun story? Please share.

MIY Tooth Pow­der
1/4 cup Bak­ing Soda*

1 tsp Salt (we use Himalayan pink salt)

2 – 20 drops essen­tial oil (experiment!)

optional: coconut oil for creamy con­sis­tency, myrrh pow­der for super­pow­ers, ground lemon peel for flava, hydro­gen per­ox­ide to kill the bac­te­ria, ste­via for sweetness

Now all you have to do is wet your brush and dip it in your con­coc­tion, brush, and then feel like you just had a pro­fes­sional clean­ing. Easy enough, yeah? If you’re not into dip­ping, try using a scoop­ing device to brace and smear your creation.

While bak­ing soda cleans teeth and removes stains with­out dam­ag­ing tooth enamel, salt helps draw out agents that con­tribute to decay, lessen the reac­tions of sen­si­tive teeth from hot or cold, and curb gum bleed­ing. Bak­ing Soda also acts as an anti fun­gal agent and neu­tral­izes plaque acids.

Yes! We can now check off num­ber 3 of our ten things.

*Other cool uses for bak­ing soda

By Laura | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Where does our recycling go anyways?

December 8, 2008 – 6:43 pm

Although I would def­i­nitely call Laura and I avid recy­clers, I have for the longest time been very con­fused about how our recy­cling gets sorted (or if it even gets sorted). In Azusa, they appar­ently sort the recy­clables from the trash (which I’ve never believed). And I remem­ber in Florida, they had sep­a­rate bins for news­pa­per, cans, and bot­tles. But now we put all of our recy­clables in a big blue bin with our neigh­bors. What’s the deal? Well, I will tell you.

I recently came across a video by Recy­cle­Bank that answers all of our ques­tions. The video out­lines the process of how our recy­cling is sep­a­rated and processed. I sug­gest you click through and learn about it. It is as com­pli­cated as you would imagine.

By Matthew | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Ten Things

December 8, 2008 – 12:59 am

Inspired by These Days in the French Life, 40 steps on the per­sonal path to green, and 10 things we decided to cel­e­brate the rebirth of w.b.t.e.o. with some­thing we can all sink our teeth into. That’s right, folks, we’re givin’ you the facts. Ten of ‘em. It’s your job to think about the greater impli­ca­tions. Here’s a few to whet your whistle.

Fact: We live sand­wiched between Bev­erly Hills and the La Brea Tar pits.

Fact: We don’t own a car.

Fact: We walked through a crowd of peo­ple laugh­ing at us as when we were car­ry­ing a pack­age of toi­let paper home from CVS.

Ready for some more? Good. Here’s a list of ten things that we are doing and ten things that we would like to start doing (as the good lord tar­ries). Check it.

We do:

  1. Eat locally and sea­son­ally
  2. Buy thought­fully
  3. Use our legs
  4. Carry our load
  5. Make things
  6. Hang dry
  7. Not waste
  8. Buy in bulk
  9. Eat in
  10. Cut hair

We would like to:

  1. For­age
  2. Grow food
  3. Make tooth­paste
  4. Get our sewing machine fixed
  5. Assem­ble self water­ing containers
  6. Save and exchange seeds
  7. Com­post for reals
  8. Uti­lize pub­lic spaces
  9. Become experts
  10. Use net­work­ing resources to exchange and barter goods and services

They say that when an activ­ity is fun, good for the envi­ron­ment, and also affects per­sonal health or well being it’s much eas­ier to main­tain. We agree.

We do what we like. We do what we care about. It works. You in?

By Matthew | Tagged , , | Comments (8)