There's no place like home

Maybe it's a sign of impending old age. But we're really becoming creatures of habit. Disruptions in our routine are discomfiting in a way they haven't been before.  We like our small town life in the middle of a big rural county. We're settling into a rhythm much more in tune with the earth. It took us a lot of years to take this step back from the manmade stresses superimposed on the natural world, and it's too bad we were too busy running marathons in our hamster wheels to figure this out earlier.

But with our entire roof being torn off and rebuilt to accommodate a (small) second story, it seemed like a good idea to take a trip for a few days. So we boarded the cat, packed up the dog, and took a road trip to visit my sister. Who happens to live in the nation's capital, one of the most densely packed (in terms of people, vehicles, buildings, and white collar criminals) areas on the planet. It used to be fun to visit--the museums, the monuments, the restaurants, the cosmopolitan vibe--but after a while, the novelty has disappeared and the overall unhealthiness of the environment has become suffocating. DC is about as unnatural as it gets this side of Disney World, despite the small green oasis my sister has created in her back yard. It confounds me that people who have a choice would voluntarily reside in a city where anything not bolted down or barricaded behind triple locks is fair game for thiefs.  The roadways are so choked with vehicles (many with only one person in them) that a lane closure due to construction turned the last three miles of our departure from the beltway into a 90-minute crawl. How do you evacuate a place like that in the event of disaster? The answer is, YOU DON'T.

So after our short and sweet visit with people we still love anyway, we thought we'd head for the mountains and camp out. Well, camping in October is way more popular than we ever knew. Especially on a gorgeous holiday weekend, which we somehow overlooked in our plans. It's October, how hard can it be to find a place to pitch a tent?   The campgrounds in Shenandoah National Park were full.  Plan B was a motel room outside the park. We found a Red Roof Inn, a chain that is dog friendly.  Not the camping experience we had hoped for, but it worked. We still got to enjoy the beauty of the mountains and the Shenandoah Valley.  And free wi-fi!

We finally got to pitch our tent in Allegany State Park, almost in our back yard. It's an amazingly beautiful 65,000 acres open year round for all kinds of outdoor recreation-- boating and fishing, camping and hiking, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.  Proving it doesn't require a LONG road trip to get away. And the wildlife like it too. You can find deer crossing signs everywhere, and even this sign on I-86 between here and there.

The campgrounds are pretty well populated with people and dogs, not the kind of place a shy black bear is likely to wander into, but we know enough about raccoons  to know that you don't leave food lying around your campsite.  Heck, you can't trust the omnipresent birds and chipmunks. We keep our site clean. Even the dog food gets locked up.

We had a nice hike around Red House Lake.  Conor met lots of other dogs.  We prepared dinner, ate, cleaned up, and got settled around our cozy little campfire. It gets dark early in October, but we had a beautiful, clear, moonlit sky, and a fellow camper with a guitar kept us entertained until lights out.

We retired to our tent and drifted off to the soothing night sounds of the forest. Only to be jolted awake by a sudden sharp WOOF! in the dark, which was immediately followed by a direct strike on our tent. Alas! Nailed by the diminutive striped terrorist of the woodland.   Conor, responding as good dogs will to movement outside the tent,  had unwittingly given away our position to the enemy. The front corner of the tent took the brunt of the chemical attack, but within seconds, the odor molecules permeated everything inside with a gagging stench.  Who knew that military surplus gas masks should be required gear for camping in state parks?

We're back home. The new roof has been built, but we'll be dealing with the continued commotion of construction for a while yet. Our days are noisy, temporarily, and there are all these guys with power tools all over the place, temporarily.  But the dog and cat are getting used to them, and I can sit on my own couch, sleep in my own bed, and cook in my own kitchen.  It's quiet and safe here at night. Oh, Auntie Em...

Gas Facts Fall Fest

I'm posting this FYI, in case anyone is up for a trip to Buffalo on Sunday.

There is  a fundraiser from 2-5 pm for WNY Drilling Defense and Protecting Our Water Rights (POWR), two grassroots environmental groups, at the Buffalo Irish Center,245 Abbott Rd. in Buffalo.

Tickets: $20 at the door. (pre-sale tickets available at Burning Books 420 Connecticut St, Buffalo, NY.)

The afternoon will feature:

- Film Premiere of a short documentary about Western New York families affected by hydrofracking: "WNY Frack Chat".

- Informative presentations about how high-volume fracking in NYS could affect WNY.

- Live music by Babik.

- Pizza, soda and beer included!


Cosponsored By: WNY Peace Center, Veterans for Peace, Sierra Club Niagara Chapter, Arden Farm, Above & Beyond Tree Expert Company, Rezults Consulting, Body Glyphix Yoga Studio, For the Love of Toulouse: Shiitake Mushroom Pate de Faux Gras, Eco-logic Studio, Burning Books and Peace Education Fund.

I love this

I found this on the Unstuffed blog this morning and I have to share. I hope you find some little thing here that you can use.

Rainy weekend

It's cold, dark, and damp, and for the past two days, I have retreated into my cocoon, reading, cooking, and surfing the internet. It hasn't been completely unproductive.

I've been able to try some new recipes --a "dutch baby" apple pancake and a friend's slow cooker Italian beef. Today, I'll be roasting root vegetables...the latest local harvest.

By net surfing and reading my eyeballs out, I've learned a lot about other communities'  GO LOCAL programs-- something I would love to see happen here in Chautauqua county.  We have some unique locally owned businesses run by community-minded people. They are the ones who build a community and keep it humming. These places are far more interesting to out-of-town visitors than the usual ubiquitous chains. But where do you find critical mass for this kind of GO LOCAL program in a county whose Chamber of Commerce includes the  "local" WalMart in its version of a "shop local" promotion?  So much to ponder.

It's the "usual suspects" like Bellingham, WA and Austin, TX that have the most  fully developed programs up and running.  Sonoma county, CA also has some great ideas.  Feel free to explore these links and do your own brainstorming and dreaming of what could be.

And I WILL get out of the house this weekend.  On Sunday alone, there are choices like Oktobenefest at Southern Tier from noon till 4 to benefit the St. Susan Center; "Seed Saving 101" workshop from 3-4, led by Sharon Reed and Jim Wilmoth, Chautauqua County Master Gardeners, at Friendly Kitchen in Dunkirk;  and a 7 pm Music Salon featuring a JAZZ QUARTET at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Jamestown. 

Staying home and watching football is an option, but it's not the only one.

More changes!

We've decided to go ahead and add some square footage to our house by raising the roof to create an attic that can later be finished into upstairs living space. And now, in preparation for the assault,  I am having to undo the (slight)  illusion of  order I've managed to create here, taking pictures off the walls and securing other breakables. I am resigning myself to life in a construction zone for the next several weeks and convincing myself that the end result will be worth the mess and inconvenience.

It occurs to me that I have gone several years now without being able to settle into a natural rhythm and routine, and I am hoping that something like that will finally happen when the crew packs up their ladders and leaves.

The house is currently fragrant with apples. I have shazammed (with the aid of my handy dandy corer/peeler/slicer gadget) our backyard bounty into applesauce, apple pie filling, apple pies, apple crisp, and dried apple rings. There's still plenty more of the fruit on the trees, but we would have to call in the fire department with their hook and ladder truck in order to reach them. Guess we'll leave those for the wildlife when they eventually fall.

Speaking of pies, this week we met the guy who, with his wife, owns Portage Pie.  They're up in Westfield, but they're a locally owned business that makes and sells yummy pies using only locally grown fruit, so they deserve a shout out, as well as your patronage if you happen to be in the area.

We expect to be spending more of our days hanging out in local coffee shops and other businesses while the work on our house proceeds. When the weather is nice, we'll also be out on the greenways, which is one of the top reasons for living in this county.

News you can use!

I'm working on those goals I said I'd be writing. At some point I will share them. It's humbling to realize what a novice I remain.

In the meantime, I've added a link (in the right hand column over there) to an upcoming event that is definitely worth a road trip to Buffalo.  Daemen College will be hosting the 8th Annual World on Your Plate Conference October 14-15.  Clicking on the graphic over there will take you to their website for more info, and you can register online (although pre-registration is not necessary).  Some of the workshops and speakers look outstanding, but I am especially excited about the screening and discussion of The Economics of Happiness and keynote speaker Judy Wicks, co-founder of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). 

So now it's apple time here. The Busti Apple Festival is this weekend, and we've harvested a couple of baskets full from our own trees (it doesn't get much more local than that!), which I'll be turning into applesauce and pie filling today.  We had planned a trip out to the farm to help dig up potatoes, but it looks like the weather has other ideas today.

Random thought: I've decided to start thinking of dandelions as food. I will even share recipes.

A year goes by

I've been away visiting the Massachusetts branch of the family tree and getting great advice from my three-year-old grandson on how to hide myself and keep safe from prowling lions and dinosaurs.

But we're back home now, and I wanted to take a look at where we are, a year after I started this blog, on our journey towards a more sustainable lifestyle.

The good news is that we're moving in the right direction. But I'm glad that we have the luxury of time. Recent events (tropical storms that cause damage far from the tropics) have highlighted vulnerabilities in infrastructure we (perilously) depend on. But our typical response is to slap on a few bandaids and get right back to business as usual. Till the next time. I'll say it again: we (myself included) should all be better prepared for emergencies that can cut off our electricity, our access to fresh water and food, medical care,  shelter from the elements. We can't assume that FEMA, State Farm, or Superman will be there for us.
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But, in seeking to find or build a sustainable community, we're looking for something beyond a disaster kit to see us through the next emergency. And there will be emergencies. Climate change, rising energy costs, and incompetent governments guarantee it.

So how far have we come towards our goal of positioning ourselves, our family, friends and neighbors to weather the storms and protect our common security?

NOT FAR ENOUGH.  To begin with, we've defined the goal in the most nebulous of terms. So, its time to clarify what exactly it is we're trying to do and come up with a task list for measuring our progress.

In a very general sense, we're moving along by downsizing our home and our stuff, thereby using less energy, creating less waste, recycling more, and driving less. We've located some local food sources (including growing some of our own) and local businesses and made them part of our habits. We're getting to know our neighbors and others in the greater community who share some of our concerns.

So, what if a cluster of storms or a major solar flare took out the power grid tomorrow? Oh man, would there be trouble.

Time to start writing those goals.