Another “anyone who knows me knows” post – anyone who knows me knows that I’m an anti-green person. Basically, I think that the green movement is just the fad of the times and I’m resistant to it. I’m not going to pay someone extra for recycling services, and I’m not going to pay more to avoid certain ingredients in paints or cleaning supplies, etc., and I’m not always going to use a reusable shopping bag because sometimes we need to have some plastic bags from Wal-Mart around the house. I’m also not going to use a clothesline and avoid using my dryer, because I don’t like how clothes dried on a line make my clothes feel crispy, and my neighbors really don’t want or need to see our underwear.

That being said, I told Robert the other day that we needed a new name for some of the changes we’re making in our lives, because I refuse to be “green.” His answer – Self-Sufficiency.

I like it. We’re all about personal responsibility and not blaming the government for our woes or giving it undeserved credit for our blessings. We’re on board with Dave Ramsey and the “I’m not participating in the recession,” movement, and since Dave’s method of money managing is “God's and grandma’s way,” it seemed we could take that school of thought and apply it to other areas in our lives.

Here are some of the things we’ve started doing: 1) Making our own laundry detergent and using vinegar as fabric softener. Not because I give a rip about it being "environmentally friendly", but because it’s really easy and it’s extremely inexpensive.

2) Planning the garden to grow some of our own food. At this point, we’re thinking lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, broccoli, and some herbs. I’m sure that plan will fluctuate as I read and learn more about gardening.

3) We’re planning on getting a couple of rain barrels to help water said garden. Again, because rain is free.

4) Robert’s a big proponent of doing what we can to “get off the grid” as much as possible and is learning a lot about alternate energies such as passive solar and wind energy. I laugh a little when I see people building energy efficient homes now, because they’re building with first generation technology. It’s only going to get better and cheaper, and there’s already some things in research and development that will be available in a few years that we can retrofit on our current house to greatly reduce or eliminate our energy costs. We’d talked about buying land and building, but at this point in our lives, we’re wondering when is enough enough? We have a very nice home that will be fully paid for in a few years, and unless the neighborhood completely goes downhill, I really don’t want to move. I think it’s a good thing to be content. Besides, I really don’t want to raise sheep or alpacas, or even chickens or goats, and I don’t want to worry about having to have a tractor or hire someone to brush hog land.

The last thing we’ve started doing is another fad, but it makes sense. We’re baking our own bread. Again, it’s partly about self-sufficiency and partly about being cheap. I’m definitely not a Martha Stewart/Susie Homemaker kind of girl, but I do like not being dependent on others. Besides, why would I pay $6-8 for a loaf of Asiago cheese bread from Panera when I can make it myself?

I think if my grandma were alive today, she’d agree.

“Give us this day our daily bread . . .” Matthew 6:11

Posted by Tammy at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Anyone who knows me knows that summer is my least favorite season. I don’t like hot weather. I don’t like my sunglasses sliding down my face from sweat and then being blinded by the bright sun. I don’t like having to water the yard to keep it from looking like Death Valley. I do like air conditioning. And I like that fall is coming up next.

I’ve had so many things on my to do list around the house (partly because I think I’m trying to distract myself from other things going on in my life), but I think we’re going to be stalled because of summer. It’s too hot to do much more work in the yard, and poor Robert is still trying to reinforce the deck to keep it decent for another couple of seasons until we can rebuild it, and it’s too hot for him to be out there for more than 30 minutes at a time. It almost makes me wish we still had a pool – LOL! He worked on it quite a bit this morning, though, so it's almost done.

I’m still knitting, but nothing particularly blog-worthy. The On Hold Socks are, well, on hold, as I set them aside

for my second Hey, Teach sweater. It’s been cruising along, especially after I finally got back into the rhythm of the lace section.

I’ve been spinning some, too, but again, the heat just seems to zap my energy. So, I’m staying inside, staying cool, and working on revising my to-do lists for things we can accomplish in the fall. My WooLee Winder finally came today, so I'm excited to try it out. Thank goodness spinning is an indoor project!

Posted by Tammy at 7:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We spent the greater part of last weekend working around the house. When we moved in, our front yard was very plain with a couple of rosebushes under the window and the small evergreens (unfortunately, I can't find a before photo). We spent a lot of time, money, and some muscle power landscaping around the front and planting some trees, and afterward the yard looked like this:

Fast forward a couple of years, and we're enjoying the fruits of our labor in the front yard, which now has definite curb appeal.

Sadly, the back yard was neglected. We tried to enjoy and salvage the monstrosity of the above-ground pool, but finally decided it wasn't worth the effort and the cash to keep it decent, so we had it torn down in February leaving the giant hole in the middle of the yard.

My last post showed the pile of dirt we had brought in, and after another pickup truck load plus another full dump truck load, the hole now looks like this. Some Kentucky Fescue seed and regular waterings, and we should have some good grass filling in this spot in a couple of months.

That actually ended up being just a "little" too much dirt, so since we'd talked about putting in a small garden at some point, we found some railroad ties and got the rest of the dirt moved to make a nice raised bed. (It's too late for most garden stuff, but I'll probably plant a fall harvest of lettuce and spinach just to break it in.)

Meanwhile, we tried to ignore the pink elephant in the back yard, and put in some landscaping along the fence line as I talked about in this post. We also power washed the deck and our bistro table, bought some new cushions, painted the back door, and now our deck has transformed from this:

to this:

I still need to get some plants set out on the table and planters, but we've been enjoying snacks out here in the evenings (when it's not been raining, of course!), and once we get another grill (our old one bit the dust), I see many nice summer evenings spent out here - for me, probably envisioning more things to do, like finish the fence, build a shed, do some more landscaping, put in a patio . . . oh, and knitting.

Posted by Tammy at 9:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

But somebody's got to do it, right? After a lot of research, and help from our friend Eddie (who knew it was so hard to find decent fill dirt at a decent price), I came home from Knit Together last night to find this in my backyard:

alt="Hooray! We have dirt! on Twitpic">

Both Eddie and the dump truck driver (who I credit with amazing driving skills because he was able to maneuver that truck between our neighbor's shed, our deck, and our redbud tree to put the dirt at the hole instead of dumping it on our driveway) seem to think that there's enough dirt there to fill the hole. Robert and I are concerned it's not quite enough, but we'll see how it looks when we get home tonight. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Posted by Tammy at 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

While at the Spring Fling, as I was standing in line to check out with my bag loaded down with fabulous yarns and fibers, another Flinger was fondling a gorgeous skein of yarn. "Oooh, that's pretty," I said. "What is it?" The Flinger responded, "It's HazelKnits in the Olympic Rainforest colorway. Sheri and Cookie were both knitting with it last night - there's more left, want me to get you one?" Of course, the answer was yes, and after paying for it, I immediately went back to TLE's ball winder and swift and wound it up into a cake. By that point, I knew that the other projects I'd brought to work on weren't happening, and some stockinette socks were in order. Of course, when I got home I resumed my other projects, but I finally finished them this past weekend.

Speaking of the weekend, I had grand plans for us to complete some yard work. We'd removed the hideous above-ground swimming pool back in February, and are still searching for a reasonably priced option to get the hole filled, but in the meantime, I wanted to start the landscaping in the back. When we moved in, there was the pool and no trees, not one. We planted a little redbud we'd dug up on a friend's property a couple of years ago, and it's doing fabulous. So to start, we marked off the bed along the fence line and used a couple of gallons of Round-Up to kill the grass, and Robert used the weed-eater to knock it down almost to the dirt.

Saturday morning, we thinned out some of our pompous grass, separated and thinned out our bamboo plant from the front yard landscaping, and dug up a baby Crepe Myrtle that started off of another large bush we had. We got those planted in the new bed just barely before it started to rain again, which led us to indoor activities, including assembling the bargain Adirondack chairs I found at Ace Hardware for $29.99.

Sunday after church, we took advantage of an hour without rain and quickly thinned out our ferns at the side of the house, discovering that we still did actually have hostas planted there as well, and got the ferns into the new bed again, just moments before the rains came again.

Monday morning, the cloudy skies were again ominous, so we slogged our way to the bed that was now really mushy and waterlogged, and while Robert dug a couple of trenches, I pulled up the Gladiolus bulbs that were in a raised bed we're going to tear out. Once those were safely underground again, we attacked the irises in another raised bed we're tearing out, and divided them and got those in the ground right as it started sprinkling. I still have a large clump of irises to move, but nowhere to put them for the time being.

But for now, where there was nothing, we have landscaping, and since we used plants we had elsewhere, it was entirely free, and just required hard work. We'll be buying some mulch, soaker hoses (because someday, the rain has to stop, right?), solar lights, and probably a couple of urns for annuals to add some color to the green of the bed, but all in all, it's a pretty inexpensive project. We've got plans to get a couple more small trees from our friend's property, another redbud and dogwood, and once the huge hole is filled, I think it's going to look really nice.

Now, if only it would stop raining so I can sit on the deck in my new chair and enjoy it.

Posted by Tammy at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)