4 posts tagged “sustainability”

November 17, 2008

Last winter was an especially cold and icy one in Vermont, and a plague of cabin fever raged across the land. “Never again!” my yoga teacher/herbalist/painter/gardener friend and I swore when it was over. (My friend's name is Dona Friedman, and you can see her work at artistseyestudio.com)

When the days started getting shorter this fall we began casting about for ways to keep ourselves and our friends lively and amused in the dark days ahead. We wanted something easy, basically an excuse to get together with people we like on a regular basis and with a minimum of fuss.

Just about everyone who moves to Vermont—or is born here and decides to stay—has an interesting story. People around here invent their lives and themselves in the best existentialist sense of the word. They blow glass, raise sheep, dry herbs, give massages, run for office...and there's never enough time to hear their stories when you meet them at a party or the post office.

Why not, my friend and I said, ask one of these interesting friends and neighbors to talk informally about his or her life and passions, and invite other friends and neighbors to drop in and listen? In a word, why not have a Salon?

So we did. Yesterday, Sunday, was the first one. There were nine people in all. Joanne Smith told us of her transformation from knitting aficionada in Connecticut to serious shepherd in Vermont. She was eloquent and witty, and told us amazing and intimate things about sheep. She let us feel the soft, lustrous yarns spun from the prize-winning wool of her Romneys. She spread out a sheepskin that would have made Jason and the Argonauts set sail for Vermont. She told us about Toby, her sheepdog, more of a friend and colleague than a dog. (You can see Joanne's farm, her sheep, and Toby at bearmountainfarm.com)

Joanne's Wool

We drank wine, ate cheese, asked Joanne questions and talked about whatever came into our heads. There was a fire going in the stove, and our little living room rang with talk and laughter.

It was way more fun than a movie, or a play, or a cocktail party. It was a salon, i.e., people turning to each other for stimulation, companionship, and that mysterious something that humans have been getting, since time immemorial, from sitting around a fire, talking.

October 30, 2008

That's what my dogs are. Ever since I fed them their first home-cooked dinner, Wolfie and Lexi have had nothing but food on their minds. With two intense German Shepherds following my every move day and night, I'm starting to feel like my Cro-Magnon ancestors when they heard the howling come closer, and saw pairs of glowing eyes staring at them just beyond the firelight.

I don't know how to interpret this new food fixation. Does it mean they adore my cooking (and it does smell good, if I say so myself), or are they truly hungry? Lexi's veterinary chiropractor/acupuncturist (one of Lexi's favorite people in the whole world; see doctorstephanie.com) did warn me that feeding a home-cooked diet would require a larger volume of food than feeding commercial kibble. But I wasn't prepared for how much larger.

In the good-old kibble days, Lexi would get two cups and Wolfie four cups of kibble every day, for a total of six cups. Bearing in mind Dr. Stephanie's advice, I increased the amount to eight cups a day for both dogs. I made up my first big vat of rice and chicken livers and sardines and kale and apportioned it neatly into seven freezer bags, each containing eight cups.

I laugh a bitter laugh at my naivete. Those bags are leaving the freezer at a much faster rate than one a day. For the moment, feeding TEN cups a day is barely sufficient to keep my toes from being chewed off. I've been told to watch my dogs' weight to judge how much to feed them. That's easier said than done. Day-to-day, my dogs look pretty much the same to me. That is how last winter Lexi somehow put on ten pounds, which we've been struggling ever since to get off her.

As I write, there's another, bigger vat of dog food cooking on the stove. I'm going out of town next week, and my husband is not into canine—or any kind—of cooking (I'll freeze some bags of human food for him as well). I'm also leaving some emergency kibble in the pantry (for the dogs).

But I'm into this cooking-of-dog-food for the long run, I hope, and I have to find a way to do it efficiently. Over the decades, I have mastered the art of producing a decent, nourishing dinner (though not one that would earn Michelin stars) for my husband and me in thirty minutes max (twenty is preferable). With that in mind, how big a deal should I make of my dogs' meals?

Is life too short to cook for dogs? Would the cooking time be better spent playing with Lexi and Wolfie? Keeping up with friends? Cooking for my husband? Doing yoga? Life on earth is a zero-sum game. What matters most?

What do you think?

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Dog Cuisine

October 25, 2008

I've decided to start cooking for my dogs. This was not a major, life-altering decision. However, in my efforts, such as this one, to save the world by living more sustainably, locally, organically and simply, I often end up in a morass of alternatives, possibilities, unintended consequences, and their attendant feelings of dread and apprehension.

O.k., I told myself, cooking for the dogs is a good thing to do, and not a big deal. It is good because everybody, except for dog-food manufacturers and some conservative veterinarians, agrees that home-cooked food is better for dogs than even the best industrially produced food. It is good because the kibble I presently feed my dogs (it has the word “gold” in the name, and the price of gold on the label) costs more, pound per pound, than what my husband and I eat for dinner most nights. It is good because I can buy the meat and rice at the nearby grocery store—the veggies and eggs will come from our garden and chickens—thus avoiding a 25-minute trip to the pet store to purchase the gold food, which will save time and help to avert global warming.

And it's really not a big deal. I can buy the meat and rice in large quantities. And cooking for dogs is a snap (I've done it before): you just brown the meat in a big pot, bung in the rice and enough water to cook it. Then you add the roughly chopped veggies and anything else, like eggs, sardines, or powdered milk, that you feel inspired to include. When the rice is done you stir the whole mess, ladle it into containers that will hold a day's ration, and freeze.

On the other hand, I may be fooling myself. I'm going to be cooking for two German Shepherds, who together total roughly 180 lbs of dog. In the store, I'll have to hunt around for the cheapest source of protein available—ground beef, cottage cheese, canned fish or whatever. I'll be lucky if I can fit a single week's worth of dog dinners in my huge stock pot. And not only will I have to find a way to store these huge amounts of food in our freezer but, even more difficult, I'll have to remember every day to take out the next day's ration so it has a chance to defrost...and with our house temperature presently hovering around 60F, defrosting takes a while. In the face of all this, measuring out a couple of cups of kibble and pouring them into a dish seems like the soul of simplicity.

Nor is cooking dog food at home free of ethical complications. Since there is no way I can afford to feed my dogs locally-grown, grass-fed beef, I will end up buying meat transported from God-knows-where (thus canceling out my gas savings), from animals fed ecologically harmful grain diets and confined in feedlots and slaughtered in ways that...but I won't go there. The cottage cheese won't be organic either, again because of cost, so I'll be supporting industrial dairy farms where cows are pushed to the limits of their productivity and are spent and slaughtered by age four, and where week-old male calves are shipped off to...I won't go there either. As for the fish, with every canned sardine they swallow my dogs will be participating in the rapid depletion of the oceans.

Now can you see what I mean by dread and apprehension?

But I'm still going to do it, because: 1. it's good for the dogs; 2. they LOVE home-cooked food; and 3. I love it when somebody loves my cooking.

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October 18, 2008

When I first heard of “voluntary simplicity” several years ago, the movement comprised  well-meaning, well-off people who were feeling burdened by their affluence. Their McMansions overflowed with toys, clothing, and appliances. SUVs, station wagons, motor homes, racing bikes and riding mowers spilled out of three-car garages. Every new object brought with it a responsibility (if only to find a place in which to store it) and between work and family duties, these people were too exhausted to enjoy the fruits of their toil. “We don't need all this stuff!” was the battle cry of the time. Occasionally a small voice could be heard murmuring, “and we're hurting the Earth by the way we live.”

That, less than a decade ago, was voluntary simplicity. Apparently we didn't do a good enough job of it, because here we are now, white- and blue-collar, democrat and republican, urban and rural dwellers, cringingly wading into the chilly waters of the new, involuntary simplicity. Foisted upon us by the economic catastrophe, simplicity, willy-nilly, is our future.

Thoreau must be delighted.

Already, signs of change are everywhere. Highway traffic is decreasing, and so are accident rates. The hardware stores around here are sold-out of outdoor clothes lines. My friends and I car-pool to book group and to art openings, and we're all talking about lowered thermostats for the coming winter. Laying hens are in short supply.

Granted, in Vermont these practices don't seem too exotic. Everyone grows a vegetable garden in summer, and in the fall we all play the north-country game of “the first one to fire up the furnace is a chicken.” But this year promises to be different, and battening down the hatches takes on real meaning even in our land-locked state.

I have noticed, however, that for those of us who are not in immediate danger of eviction or hunger, the challenges of the present situation are not without a certain exhilaration. It's hard not to feel excited by the sense of invulnerability that even a small measure of self-sufficiency affords. People are making extra large woodpiles in their yards. I grew winter squashes for the first time, for the chickens to eat when the real cold hits. A friend is experimenting with fermented foods, pickling cucumbers and cabbage to preserve them without need of electricity.

Involuntary simplicity is not without its delights. Witness my simple Saturday. I got up early and went to a nearby village's fabled fall rummage sale, where I bought, for less than two dollars apiece, a number of large wool sweaters that I plan to wear over my regular indoor winter clothes. This, I hope, will enable me to feel comfortable with the thermostat set at 65F, which is our plan for the next six months.

Then my husband and I went down our front field to the wild apple tree that has been loaded with fruit since summer. The apples are small, hard and sour, and we figured that they would make great chicken food. We didn't have to reach up for a single fruit: the ground under the tree was carpeted with apples. In just a few minutes we filled our tub with about sixty pounds of apples, and lugged them to the house.

I put a handful in a pan, covered them in water, and boiled them for a few minutes. They quickly turned soft, and smelled divine. I drained them and carried them to the chicken coop, where they were received quite favorably. I plan to boil the rest of the windfall, bit by bit, and store it in small bags in the freezer, then pop them in the microwave and serve them warm to the chickens on frigid January mornings. I wonder if the dogs too would like them?

At dusk, I picked the last of the broccoli—there was a hard freeze forecast for that night. I steamed it, then sauteed it for supper along with scrambled eggs and some grated cheddar. Soon I will pull up the broccoli plants and take them to the chickens, who will eat every leaf. The kale and chard will continue producing for a while. Then it will be trips to the basement freezer every night before supper.

I find a childish pleasure in all this. It's not unlike going camping and making do with what you have at hand. It's not unlike playing under the table as a kid, saying, “pretend this is our house, and this potato is a loaf of bread....” There are infinite sources of entertainment within the confines of our own yards, if we look closely. The trick to sanity and happiness in this new world is learning to want what we have. If we can manage that, we'll be richer than ever before.