One Man's Shame

William Elliott Whitmore...

Don't alter my altar
don't desecrate my shrine
My church is the water
and my home is underneath the shady pines

More uses than an iPad

 Travel Stove Creates Electricity While It Cooks 

... BioLite, a portable and fuel efficient cookstove that uses half as much fuel as a camp fire, and heats food and water faster than a petroleum fueled camp stove. But what makes it really stand out is that it is capable of generating electricity. The heat from the fire powers a small fan which improves the cooking efficiency and leaves 1-2 watts to(very slowly) charge an electric device like a cell phone or gps unit.


...this one is ready to hit the market later this year for about $80.

Can an iPad boil water, cook soup, power itself, provide heat? I don't think so. And the BioLite will be around $80. Cannot wait!

This weekend's adventure

Image by Vegan Dog's Life via Flickr

Smoked Tofu Jerky
Time to break out the smoker and try this recipe.
The prep...

Freezing and Defrosting the Tofu


Freeze the tofu at least overnight.
The next morning, take the tofu out of the freezer and place it in the fridge to thaw.
By dinner time (8 hours or so later), the tofu should be thawed. Remove tofu from the packaging and gently press some of the water out.
Marinating the Tofu
Cut the tofu across its short end into slices about ¼” (1/2 cm) in thickness.
Place the tofu slices into a container or clean plastic bag that seals tightly.
Add the dry spices (Tex-Mex, black pepper, spicy pepper flakes) to the tofu first.
Shake the bag/container to distribute the spices.
Shake about 1-11/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce into the bag/container.
Add soy sauce.
Shake the bag/container gently to distribute the wet ingredients and spices, massaging the tofu through the bag if necessary.
Add additional wet ingredients if they have been completely absorbed by the tofu.
Marinate overnight, for up to 12 hours.

After smoking for 3 hours or more...yum!

Roasted potatoes this fall

My crop is planted in a compost pile and will be earthed up. Next year I think I'll try the bags. Makes harvesting much easier.

Window Farms

Wish I had a window with the right exposure!

Early summer?

Warm temperatures, early blossoms on pear trees, dandelions growing like crazy...around here an early spring/summer is very evident. The impact?

Warmer Temps Mean UK Flowers Emerging Earlier Than At Any Time in Past 250 Years

BBC News reports that new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B show that plants in the UK are flowering earlier than at any time in the past 250 years. In particular, the trend is most notable in the past quarter century.
All in all, BBC News also reports that on average spring in the UK now arrives 11 days earlier than in did 30 years ago.

Sure I love the warm weather effect on the seeds I planted in the garden. Love to see those seedlings come up. But will this warm weather last? And if it does, what effect will this have on the insects, birds, mammals?

Time to build my own little biosphere.

Greenbutt

Image via Wikipedia

No not your pants after sitting on grass but...
Cigarette Filters Create Garden of Flowers from Discarded Butts

New patent-pending technology could turn cigarette butts into little flower pots. Or at least a seed dispersal system. Cigarette butts are a huge pollution problem, with people flicking there filthy filters all over the place. So what if those filters grew flowers? A new "all natural" cigarette, sporting filters packed with flower seeds so it can be either composted or literally planted to grow plants, hopes to counter the harmful effect cigarettes have on the environment.


Gizmag points us to Greenbutts. The company states, "Organic cotton and natural de-gummed hemp form the filter body. Wheat flour and pure water bind the filter elements as they are spun together. No chemicals or hidden additives.... Our filter is made of an all-natural hemp and cotton blend that can be combined with a wide variety of grass and flower seeds. Partner our product with additive-free tobacco and you have a true all-natural cigarette."

As the artiocle points out we don't know the impact of tar, nicotine, heat, etc. on the seeds. But this is an interesting new product. But where will those filters thrown on the asphalt roads grow?

Basic skills are good for you

DIY Build and Repair Culture Makes for Healthier Planet, Happier People

While we don't have some new study saying so, a little common sense analysis shows that learning how to build rather than buy, and repair rather than recycle, is key to not just making a lighter footprint on the planet, but also lightening up your heart. Think about it - weigh the pride and confidence you get from repairing the kitchen sink's leaky faucet yourself, versus paying a plumber to come out, fix it, and leave you $100 less rich and mumbling about how that was so darn easy how could it have possibly cost $100? That's the idea behind a great piece on Financial Times called "Practical Stress Relief."

Examples from the article of highly satisfied DIYers include Allison Taylor, who rather than spend $300 to get the phone company to add a jack in her house, she got a few tips from the maintenance guy at her work and went home to install three jacks that night.

It's hard to say this is a "movement" but more of a return to practicality and a slower way of life - something Mark Frauenfelder discusses in his book Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throw Away World. To get away from the stress of fast-paced life - the appointments and kids' lessons, the fast food and quick consumption - it all boils down to just doing it yourself. The weekly process of making yogurt, or whittling a new wooden spoon out of a branch from the tree in your back yard alters your whole outlook on life and reminds you just how capable a person you are.

Save money. A feeling of accomplishment. Building survival skills. All good reasons in my book.

Something is happening

From James Howard Kunstler:

In a place like upstate New York, north of Albany, where April is more generally known as "mud season," and the wait for "ice-out" on the big lakes takes forever, and on frigid nights the windigos steal through the tops of the tall pines -- it would seem foolish to complain about perfectly beautiful weather.
We just had a week in the 70s, with more to come. The grass went from ochre to bright green in about thirty-six hours. The buds are popping like mad. This is usually what the first week of May is like around here, and that fact alone may explain New York state's relentless population drain over the past forty years.
I was out on my bicycle, naturally, taking it all in -- like, why sit inside and sulk because the weather is strange in a pleasant way? -- and I ventured into the outlands east of town, where an impressive number of gigantic new houses had landed like alien mother-ships in the former cow pastures and wood lots. Of course, the aesthetics were an issue apart from the socio-economics of it, but nonetheless interesting....
Personally, I look at these houses scattered around what was only recently a dedicated farm landscape and I am quite sure that the denizens within will be marooned in their great rooms, and that very probably many of them will have no job to go to -- in the conventional sense of what we think a job is, in some corporation or institution -- and that in a surprisingly short span of years these buildings will be ruins or squats....
All these lovely mild days, I was not unconscious of the eeriness of the weather and the possible insidious effects of it on the local ecosystem in everything from the added generations of deer ticks carrying Lyme disease and the death of the honeybees to the fate of this year's apple crop. I confess: it made me very nervous. Something is happening... out there.

Weather-wise, politically, economically...something is happening! are we ready?

Evolution?

I am ahead, I am advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher
2010, watch it go to fire
It's evolution, baby
Do the evolution

Shame on Starbucks Shareholders

Starbucks Shareholders Reject Recycling Initiative

The idea that Starbucks seems to be the last to jump onto the recycling bandwagon sort of blows my mind. Especially when their contribution to the problem is so massive. Currently, 3 billion of their paper coffee cups sold each year in the U.S. market alone end up in the landfill. The sheer volume has a huge impact. But according to the Seattle Times, still no action, last week shareholders at the annual meeting voted against proxy 3, the company's recycling initiative.

While 11 percent of Starbucks shareholders were in favor of a proposed recycling initiative, it was far from enough support for the measure's passage. The proposal asked the board of directors to adopt a comprehensive recycling strategy for beverage containers.

Why? Cost of the program will lower their dividends?

One Pot Pledge

Brits Take the One Pot Pledge to 'Give Growing a Go': "

Beginner gardeners show off their bounty. Photo by Tim Sidaway via One Pot Pledge.

The many U.K. residents who reportedly lack the confidence to grow their own food are being encouraged to start small by the nationwide One Pot Pledge campaign, which is asking Brits to sign up to grow just one edible plant this year -- and recruiting 'gardening gurus...Read the full story on TreeHugger

It's a start!

Too late?

Image via Wikipedia

35.5 MPG By 2016

The Obama administration set tougher gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks Thursday, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines and electric cars.
The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency signed final rules setting fuel efficiency standards for model years 2012-2016, with a goal of achieving by 2016 the equivalent of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.


In addition to the fuel economy standards, a minimum for the amount of CO2 a car's tailpipe can emit has been adopted as well: it'll be 250 grams per mile by 2016.
These standards mark a pretty significant jump forward, and send a clear signal that fuel efficiency had better play a major role in automakers' model designs going forward. And instead of resent the standards, the auto industry is glad that such a clear signal is being sent:

With Peak Oil - too late?

Band of Horses for your Ears