On Not Being "Hard Core Psycho"

Recently, Ruchi posed some interesting questions about sustainable living, blogging over time, and finding balance. Her posts are sparking lots of thought-provoking comments and discussion. One of the bloggers mentioned that it can be hard to live sustainably if you get "all hard core psycho about it." This and several of the other comments on the two posts really resonated with me.

As I've considered the 98% Local challenge I posed for myself in this coming week, I have come to realize that, once again, I am going overboard. I have a tendency to do this, as regular readers know from past challenges, and it is always a difficult decision whether to stick with it to salvage my pride or back off to salvage my sanity. This tendency to bite off more than I can chew is nothing new. Way back in high school, I really put myself in a bind during my senior year.

One of my courses was Biology Independent Study. I had to come up with and carry out a research project, supervised by my teacher. Since there were regular fires in the nearby mountains, we decided it would be interesting to compare the recovery from fires several years apart in the same canyon. Initially the plan was to compare the plant life in small plots within each area. Pretty soon, though, I got carried away and proposed including far more: insects, reptiles, small mammals, and birds. My instructor, unfortunately, was thrilled. I soon realized that I was looking at way more work than was realistic for this kind of project; it would have been helpful if the instructor had reined in my enthusiasm.

As each day progressed, my anxiety level rose. My ego was unwilling to admit my error, though, and I kept plugging away despite the growing panic that I would be unable to complete any portion of the study because I was overwhelmed. How did I get myself out of this dilemma? Well, I lucked out. Due to some other circumstances, it proved best for me to drop out of school, take the GED exam to get a high school equivalency diploma, and head off to college a semester early. Whew, got myself out of that jam!

So, how does that relate to now? After a lot of anxiety and thought, I've decided I'm really not ready to jump into the deep end of 98% local eating. I'm not sure what percentage of my meals are currently comprised of local food but it's probably between 50 and 75%. To go from that level to 21 meals in a row that must be 98% local is getting all hard core psycho about it, especially when I'll also be dealing with jury duty this week.

Yesterday, I'd convinced myself not to even bother trying this experiment. I wrote and deleted three versions of a post to that affect. Today, I've decided I will proceed but with changes to my rules for the challenge. Instead of only allowing myself salt and spices from non-local sources, I will approach it from the other direction. The main components of my meals will be derived from local foods. Minor components will be local, if possible, but still allowable if not.

This will open the doors to a more reasonable approach, for me, to eating locally. For example, instead of having to eat my locally grown wheat berries whole or cracked, I can use the ground flour to make bread products. Tortillas need baking powder, bread needs dry yeast (because I don't currently have a sourdough starter), and muffins need baking powder, salt, and my flax seed egg substitute. None of those are available from local sources.

With this change, I am no longer dreading the next week. I think this is a more balanced approach in my attempts to increase the amount of my food that is locally grown. I plan to share my meals here throughout the week and will note what is local and what is not.

For those of you who strive to eat a local diet, I'd welcome hearing about how you choose what to include and exclude. How much local is good enough? What foods do you still eat that are not available locally? What non-local ingredients (such as baking soda) do you still buy?

Challenging Myself to Eat Locally

Locavore is not a particularly new concept. Anyone whose concerns include carbon footprints and food quality is familiar with the idea that eating fresh food produced close to home is better than food shipped from hundreds or thousands of miles away.

While I strive to make local foods an important part of my diet, I have never participated in a local eating challenge. Despite my best efforts, I often find that many of my meals include non-local ingredients. I'll make a wonderful stirfry using only produce from my CSA share and seasoned with a homemade stirfry sauce, only to pile it on top of Thai jasmine rice. Homemade tortillas with local wheat may wrap local beans cooked and seasoned with local dried red chile peppers but then be smothered in non-local salsa because I never have enough tomatoes to do the canning I want to do.

The coordinator of the Tucson CSA occasionally tells an inspiring story at his presentations about eating local foods. When he first started up the CSA, he decided to try eating almost nothing but the food he received in his share for six months. Back at that time, the shares did not include the wealth of starchy vegetables they do today and he ended up losing about 30 pounds, but he did it.

The farmer now regularly includes heartier fare in the shares. Along with the fresh green and yellow vegetables, we occasionally get starchy and more filling vegetables such as red potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squash. We are currently getting wheat berries from the new harvest. Once in a while, we also get dried beans. Fruit makes regular appearances in the shares and fresh herbs show up occasionally. It is entirely possible to build a well-rounded, nutritionally-sufficient, and tasty meal plan around the CSA share.

For those that do not choose to eat a vegan diet, the CSA also works with other local farms to get organic animal products such as eggs, goat cheese, chickens, turkeys (for the holidays), lamb, pork, and beef.

The CSA is, of course, not the sole source of local food in the Tucson area. There are a multitude of farmer's markets, local farms, and a couple of grocery stores that carry local produce. The farmer's market I go to every now and then offers fresh vegetables, preserved vegetables, jams and jellies, local meat and eggs, and local beans among other things. I can get local honey and even local olive oil there. For those so inclined, our weather is mild enough to garden almost year-round here, with community gardens available for those without yards.

In other words, there is no reason why I couldn't eat a more local diet if I really tried. I've decided it's high time that I did try. I am challenging myself to eat 98% local for one week, starting on Monday, February 1. If it goes well, I'll go for a second week. And then a third, and maybe a fourth, possibly making it up to the whole month.

I'm not willing to commit to the whole month right at the start because I have such a tendency to bite off more than I can chew, so to speak. Let me ease into this and see how it goes. Giving up some of the non-local foods is going to be a challenge as I enjoy rice and soymilk almost every day. I've gotten re-addicted to coffee and am not looking forward to having to drop it on Monday. I can buy fairly local coffee from Mexico and sweeten it with honey, but there is no local soy or rice milk so I'm out of luck there. And, for me, there's just no point in drinking coffee without the creamy stuff.

I am saying 98% local rather than 100% because I am going to allow myself to season foods with non-local dried herbs and spices. Per unit of use, these do not weigh as much as whole foods and therefore use far less carbon in their transportation. I am also permitting myself to use local foods that I have preserved in past seasons. These are locally grown fruits and vegetables but they may contain other non-local ingredients necessary for safe preservation, such as sugar, salt, and vinegar. As a total portion of my diet, however, the non-local ingredients will be minimal.


Update: as per this post, I have decided to take a more balanced and relaxed approach to this challenge. Non-local ingredients besides spices will be permitted so long as the major components of the meal are from local sources. For example, baking powder is fine when used to make biscuits with local flour, local honey, and local olive oil.

The Mess at Home

I have an elderly friend who thinks I'm an organizational genius. She thinks this because I am working wonders in her home, helping her sort through belongings that have hidden in closets and drawers for years. We've turned a messy spare bedroom into a lovely office with room to display treasures that are important to her. I've hauled multiple loads of donations off to the charity of her choice, giving her space to find and use the things she kept. I've sorted through all of her food stuffs, tossing dangerously outdated products and organizing the rest so she can put together a meal with ease.

One day last week, she asked me if my home was super-organized and neat. I laughed and told her that it was not, jokingly adding that it was a mess because I was spending all my time getting her house in order. That's not the real reason, though.

It is far more satisfying, for some bizarre reason, to organize or clean someone else's mess than to deal with my own. I walk into a disaster zone and leave beauty behind me when I'm done. Because it is someone else's home, I have no emotional attachments to the stuff, no set patterns for dealing with the clutter and dirt, and I don't have to maintain the newly organized or cleaned space after the transformation.

Unfortunately, that is not the case in my own home. I declutter and get organized periodically, only to have the house backslide as soon as I turn my back. You may recall the state my recipes were in almost two years ago. And that I began to do something about it. Since then, my drawer and computer files have continued to accumulate more recipes. Because it's not kept organized, I often can't find a recipe that I know I have made. This results in having to search for it on the computer, either online (sometimes on my own blog!) or in my Word files. Of course, then it has to be printed out again, wasting more paper and ink.

There are a multitude of peppers ripe in the garden, and I have carrots and onions left from the CSA. I want to make escabeche and need to know how many carrots and onions to reserve for this. My first thought was to just go find the recipe online (see link) and print it out, but I know I've printed it out before. I was determined not to keep doing this so I started sorting through my loose recipe drawer to find it.


I found the recipe but now look at the mess I've made. I don't have time to deal with organizing all the recipes today but I hope to at least finish sorting into piles. I can clip each group together to make it easier to organize them later. When later will come is anyone's guess. Even though it wastes a lot of time to keep looking for recipes in this mess, the task of organizing it all is pretty low on the priority list.

After all, I have other more important (and fun) things to do. I've got to harvest those peppers and make the escabeche. I need to read and review the book on the floor in the photo above. I've only begun to make a dent in my friend's house and she's got company coming in a month. And then there may be some other things on my schedule, but I can't talk about those just yet. I'm already dreading the next time I need to find a recipe.

How to Not Win Friends

We've all seen the suggestions for how to win friends. I would like to propose a list of suggestions that will likely have a different result.

• Dislike watching, listening to, or hearing about most team sports.


• Dislike whatever entertainment or entertainer is currently the fad - most TV programs, the singer du jour, slutty dancers, etc.


• Dislike small talk.


• Don’t participate in Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace.


• Have your cellphone's texting option turned off.


• Use a cellphone for emergencies only.


• Drink alcohol rarely and only in small portions.


• Turn down party invitations because you don’t like being around drunk people, no matter how nice they are when sober.


• Eat differently than the average person.


• Choose a different reason (health) to follow a vegan diet than most vegans (ethics).


• Have strong opinions.


• Share those opinions.


• Be intelligent.


• Question basic assumptions.


• Question authority.


• Be a perfectionist.


• Find better (easier, faster, more efficient) ways to do things.


• Share these improvements.


• Have integrity.


• Expect people to do the right thing.


• Give generously of oneself. Expect others to do the same.


• Do the best job possible, whether being paid for it or not. Expect others to do the same.


• Give the boss constructive feedback.


• Question why people do certain things or make certain choices.


• Be a cynic.


• Tell people what they don’t want to hear.


• Show people what they don’t want to see.

Spontaneous Heeling

During several months of dog obedience classes, the dogs became accustomed to receiving lots of treats while training on their daily walks. Now that the classes have been over for some time, and they are far better behaved, the training has decreased to maintenance levels. This, of course, means less treats.

Angel has decided this is not acceptable, despite the fact that she is receiving more food at mealtimes to make up for the reduction in treats. She claims to be experiencing treat deficit syndrome. She knows that simply begging for treats will not get her anywhere; treats have to be earned.

About halfway through the morning walk each day, she spontaneously begins to heel. No commands from me initiate this, she does it on her own. She will watch me to make sure that I'm noticing her good behavior. Her glance shifts occasionally to the treat bag on my belt in a not-so-subtle hint that she be rewarded for being so good.

I, of course, laugh and give her a treat. Lest she think she's getting the upper hand (paw?) in this relationship, though, I make her keep heeling for the rest of the block. She's happy to do it seeing as she gets quite a few more treats in the process.

I have a feeling she's taking a class in human obedience on the sly.

Make Your Own Kimchi

At this week's CSA pick-up, several of us got into a conversation about making sauerkraut. Fermented vegetables seem mysterious and people, intimidated by the process, are often hesitant to try it. Highly recommended by several of us was Sandor Katz's great book, Wild Fermentation. Check out his sauerkraut recipe and instructions posted on the website.

Sauerkraut is just shredded cabbage mixed with salt, pressed down, and fermented in its own juices. The salt and pressure causes the cabbage to release liquid, forming a brine. The cabbage is weighted down to keep it under the brine and the fermentation goes on until the cabbage tastes the way the individual likes it. I posted how to make sauerkraut a while back. For that instructional post, I used Tokyo bekana, an Asian green, rather than regular cabbage.

Are you wondering why I'm talking about sauerkraut when the post title is about kimchi? Well, the reason is that the process for making kimchi is very similar to that for sauerkraut: vegetables are chopped, mixed with salt and other seasonings, and fermented in their brine. This similarity occurred to me when I realized that the finer leaves of the Tokyo bekana really weren't quite right for sauerkraut. I don't know why I didn't make kimchi with it originally but I successfully converted it into kimchi later.


After draining and rinsing the fermented greens really well, I mixed in grated ginger, cayenne pepper, and a little sugar for kimchi seasoning. To complete the transformation, I re-fermented it for a few days. The result was satisfying, and the realization of the similarities in the process enlightening.

The seasonings are what make the difference. For sauerkraut, salt is the only seasoning. The traditional vegetable is cabbage, although you can also add grated root vegetables such as carrots and radishes. For kimchi, you add spicy and pungent seasonings such as ginger, garlic, and red pepper powder. Any red pepper powder will do. I've used cayenne and powdered locally-grown dried red chiles. Some recipes also include sugar and other seasonings.

One advantage of making your own kimchi is that you determine the spiciness by the amount of seasonings used. I've noticed that Korean restaurants tend to make their cabbage kimchi fiery hot. It's too hot for me to eat, but now I am able to make my own milder version at home by using less red pepper. Keep in mind, however, that kimchi is a condiment so a little more spiciness than normal can be good. The food it is eaten with, such as rice or noodles, will help temper the heat.


Kimchi and pickled vegetables go nicely with rice dishes. I served a radish kimchi in soy sauce with vegan bok choy fried rice last week. The other two condiments are Thai pickled carrots and a delicious Korean turnip salad.

Another thing I like about kimchi is that a variety of vegetables can be used, alone or in combination. The first kimchi I ever made was a very simple one with cucumbers. This quick recipe is not fermented so it can be eaten the same day. After some online research, I experimented with substituting Hami melon for the cucumbers (recipe here) and it came out quite nicely. When last winter came, I began making fermented kimchi using some root vegetables.


I continued making kimchi this winter. In the past week, I've made several different kinds using black Spanish radishes, carrots, and cabbage.


For the heavier root vegetables, like radishes and carrots, salting them first helps soften them up before fermenting them. This recipe from my CSA mixes diced daikon radishes and their coarsely chopped leaves with salt and sets them aside for at least 4 hours. The brine is drained afterwards and the seasonings are mixed in. At this point, her recipe says to put it in the refrigerator, but I talked to Sara about that yesterday. She did not include the fermentation step because she was concerned that members unfamiliar with fermentation would be too confused, especially if any scum developed on the surface.

If you decide to try this recipe, please be brave enough to let it ferment. It will develop much better flavors. To do this, reserve the drained brine in case you need to add some back to cover the vegetables for the fermenting process described below.

As with sauerkraut, after the shredded or diced vegetables are mixed with the salt and seasonings, they are packed tight into a jar, pressed down firmly to get the brine to rise, and then weighted down to keep the vegetables under the brine. Then, let it ferment until it's done. The time it takes for the vegetables to ferment depends largely on the temperature of the room. Fermentation is much faster in a warm place than a cool one, so it's smart to check on your veggies every day. When you are happy with the taste (usually about a week for me), remove the weight, cap the container, and stick it in the fridge. The preserved vegetables keep very well for quite a long time, although you'll probably eat them up quickly because they taste great!

Don't get freaked out about any scummy stuff that forms on the surface during the fermentation. Just rinse it off whatever you are using to weight down the kimchi. Your vegetables will not be affected since they are submerged under the brine and the scummy stuff is up on the top, as a result of exposure to oxygen. Sandor Katz talks about this in his sauerkraut instructions linked above.


Since I don't have a crock for making kimchi, I usually just use a half-gallon glass jar. A plate won't fit inside to weight down the vegetables, and a smaller jar would not weight them down around the edges, so I use a plastic baggie filled with a brine solution.


I toss a cloth over the top to keep any gnats or other flying insects out of my food. We seem to have more of those now that some of the garden plants are inside.


Most of the kimchi recipes I use can be found in several of my cookbooks.





There are also many kimchi recipes online, ranging from long, involved directions for making them that go into more detail than I did to more basic recipes. If you are more visually oriented, look for the videos. The best way to get started if you are interested in making your own kimchi is to just dive in and try it. Start with a pretty basic recipe and go for it. Don't blame me, though, when you get hooked and your fridge fills up with all kinds of fermented vegetables!

Dirty Little Legumes

When Heather wrote to let me know she would be heading my way in December, she asked if there was anything I'd like her to bring. I wasn't sure what might be growing there that we didn't have here so I went to her blog to read the most recent report (then) from her farmers market. Nearly every vegetable and fruit listed was also available through my CSA here or the Tucson farmers markets.

Peanuts, however, jumped out at me. I haven't seen them here, although a friend once mentioned he'd had success growing them in his yard. I emailed Heather to share my memories of getting peanuts for Christmas years ago. My uncle, living in New Mexico or Texas at the time, sent our family two HUGE bags of roasted peanuts - something like 50 pounds - one year. They were wonderful but we shelled peanuts for ages. As kids, we weren't allowed to watch much television but the restrictions were eased slightly for a while. If we shelled peanuts while the TV was on, we got to watch a few extra programs.

I asked Heather if she could bring me some locally grown peanuts, but please, PLEASE, do not get 50 pounds. She responded that this was the first year for the peanut farmer and he might not have many available to sell.


When she handed me a plastic grocery sack full of peanuts upon her arrival, I was rather surprised at how many there were. I'd expected just a little bag.



My second shock was that they were dirty. These were fresh, raw peanuts, just as they'd come out of the ground. Many still had the stems attached. (See one stem left for photo.) What the heck do I do with them?! We cracked one open and tasted it. It had a nice flavor but I knew it would be much better roasted....once I could figure out how to do that.

It was very strange, considering how much I experiment in the kitchen, but I was intimidated by these peanuts. I've processed fresh nuts before, way back when my folks had almond and pecan trees in our garden, and more recently when the CSA shares contained freshly harvested pistachio nuts still in their hulls. Tree nuts, though, don't generally have dirt on them. Peanuts are technically legumes, but fresh legumes (beans) are usually fairly clean, too. Who knew peanuts were such dirty little legumes?

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I shoved the peanuts on top of a shelf and put them out of my mind over the busy holiday season. Every few days, my eyes would land on the bag and it would remind me that I needed to figure out what to do with the nuts. As the weeks passed, I began to feel guilty for putting a gift, especially one so generously given, up on a shelf to collect dust. I worried that they might go bad before I did anything with them.

This week, it was time to do the research on harvesting, storing, and processing fresh peanuts. Should I have put them in the refrigerator or the freezer? Would they be rancid or moldy due to my neglect? Thankfully, raw, unshelled peanuts keep for months if stored in a cool place. My house is a cool place this time of year. Many sites had information on how to roast peanuts in the shell, but none mentioned anything about dirty shells. Had the dirt on peanuts been swept under the rug? Would washing the shells ruin the nuts inside?


Finally, I found a recipe for roasted unshelled peanuts that started with rinsing them under cool, running water. I rinsed all the peanuts and spread them out on several baking sheets to dry while roasting some vegetables for dinner. Although this recipe included coating the shells with peanut oil and salt before roasting, I'd seen other recipes for simply dry-roasting the peanuts without oil. That was my preference since I minimize the use of oil in my cooking.



It took 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees to roast the peanuts. The first batch took longer because I tried salting the shells by the method used for pistachio nuts: boil and stir 2 cups of nuts in 1/4 cup of water with 1 tsp salt until the water evaporates. This deposits the salt on the shells. With the moisture undoubtedly added by cooking the peanuts in the water, this batch took about 30 minutes to roast. The next two plain batches, on perforated pizza pans, were ready in just 20 minutes.

We now have a big container of yummy roasted local Texas peanuts. The only problem we face now is not eating the whole container in the next few days! You know how it is. You forget if something is really as good as you think it was so you have to go sample it again.

"Mmm, yeah, that is good. Maybe I better have another one, you know, just to help me remember a little longer.... Naw, I'm liable to forget in another half hour ... I'd best eat another couple of peanuts.... Whoa! How did this big pile of shells get here?!"

The Compost Ate My Friend...

...ship Starter.


My idea to turn my Amish Friendship Starter into a sourdough starter did not work. I love to mess around with recipes and experiment, and, surprisingly, it's relatively rare that I have a serious failure. Sure, there are times when a dish or a meal isn't great and I wouldn't bother to try to replicate it, but complete failures are uncommon.

The initial Amish Friendship Starter was good and yielded tasty bread, but I didn't want to go through six cups of sugar, flour, and soymilk every month just to keep it going (not counting the additional ingredients needed each time it's used to bake bread). Plus, I don't know enough people that would want starters nor do I want to bake that much sweet, rich bread every 10 days.

We'd be happy to eat plain ol' sourdough bread each week - a traditional sourdough without lots of added sugar. So, over the last week of December and beginning of this month, I gradually changed the starter's feedings to barely any sugar, water instead of soymilk, and kept the flour the same.

I noticed the starter didn't seem to be growing as well after its altered feedings but I hoped that it was alive. Over the weekend, I made a traditional sourdough bread recipe using the converted starter. After 24 hours, the sponge still didn't look like it had doubled but it had plenty of elasticity. I forged ahead and added the remaining flour, enjoying the kneading time and communion with the dough. After rising -which didn't do much over a long period - I baked some rolls in the solar oven and a French-style loaf in the gas oven.

The rolls came out pretty good, although they were fairly dense. I attributed that to the whole wheat flour used for half the flour in the recipe and to the solar oven's cooler temperature.



The loaf from the oven, however, was even more dense. After allowing it to cool, I sliced off a piece and we tried it. It seemed okay despite the weight of it, although the flavor wasn't great. Bread this dense was not going to work for sandwiches or toast. After pondering how to salvage it, I decided to try to make Melba toast. I sliced the entire loaf into very thin slices and put a batch in to toast. We sampled a piece before continuing on. Sadly, the flavor when toasted did not live up to our standards, even the ones we reduce to prevent food waste. The slices all went in the compost bin, along with the remaining starter.

I am now free of any bread starter, and I am okay with this. I have plenty of baking yeast on hand and plan to start using it to bake bread from scratch more often. The only problem now is finding a warm place to allow the dough to rise!

Power Down Report: No Water at the Tap

Preparing for No Running Water

Sometimes one gets notice that there is a planned water outage or a disaster that makes it look like water will be shut off. People are advised to fill their bathtubs with water which they can use to flush toilets and clean up. The finish on our tub is peeling and the drain does not hold water well, so that would not work for us.

However, we have lots of buckets available … although my sweetie uses many of them for the garden. My buckets come (free) from the bakery departments of grocery stores, a local sandwich shop, and from friends who buy their kitty litter in plastic buckets. Because we knew we’d be going without running water for several days, we filled a number of these with the hose to use for flushing toilets.


We used to have a couple of barrels set up to collect rain water. Unfortunately, when we headed off to Missouri, sure that we’d soon be moving there, I took it upon myself to start getting rid of bulky things we wouldn’t want to move. That included the rain barrels. They are still in use, just not at my house. Thankfully, I kept one spare barrel that didn’t get hooked up to the rain water system.

The barrels were purchased from the local bottling plant where they originally held the syrup for energy or soft drinks. The plant sells these for ten dollars, or at least they did several years ago. Plastic retains odors, though, so there is still a distinct syrupy smell from our barrel even though it has been washed out multiple times and left to air for several weeks. For emergency non-potable water, we decided a little smell wouldn’t be that bad, and filled the barrel with the hose. (For storing water, note that it is better to have opaque barrels rather than clear or white since light promotes algae growth.)

Because the water in the barrel had the syrupy smell, I wanted clean, fresh water in the kitchen and bathrooms. I put several 2 liter bottles of water in each bathroom and a 1 gallon jug in the kitchen. Actually, that jug has been there since summer when we finally figured out how to get cold tap water for washing vegetables. You may recall that I mentioned in the last power down report that our tap water comes out hot during the summer, even from the cold tap. This was a problem for rinsing salad greens since it made them wilt so I’d have to add ice to the water. One summer day, after going to scrub some clothes that had been soaking in the sink for an hour, it dawned on me that the water was now cold. By filling a jug with the warm tap water and letting it sit for a while, we could easily have plenty of cool water for rinsing vegetables!

From our camping days, we had two 5 gallon plastic water containers with convenient spouts. We filled both of these on New Year’s Eve so we’d have plenty for washing dishes since we really didn’t want to use syrupy-smelling stored water for that either. Unfortunately, the next morning, we found that one container had an irreparable leak and was half empty. I transferred the remaining water into additional bottles.

Another way I regularly store water is in the freezer, and sometimes the refrigerator. Since this major appliance operates more efficiently when full, bottles of water are a cheap and easy way to fill in open space. For a while, I tried using empty soymilk cartons but found that they were not very durable. It’s easy to scrounge up plastic bottles and they can freeze, thaw, and refreeze many times as long as sufficient space is left in the bottle for the water to expand while freezing. They are great for the ice chest instead of loose ice during the summer and, in an emergency, can come in handy either to keep foods cold or be thawed for the water they contain.

Due to water quality issues and the unpleasant taste of tap water here, we got filtered water at a nearby station in a refillable 5 gallon bottle. Any water we ingested – through direct drinking or in cooked food (rice, soups, etc.) – would come from this bottle. Things like pasta could be cooked in tap water, though, since they don’t absorb all the water like rice does.


What is our normal use of water?

As native desert-dwellers, we know we have to respect the limits on water availability. We don't have a rainwater cistern in our rental house, although half of the rain that falls on the roof is diverted to two citrus trees. Landscaping is heavily mulched to reduce evaporation and some of it is desert-adapted. Unfortunately, some of the landscaping needs more water and, as renters, we are required to maintain the yard. If we owned the place, we’d rip out all of the ornamental plants and replace them with edible landscaping! My sweetie's container garden now uses less water than when we tried gardening in the awful soil in this yard and we finally get to enjoy fresh homegrown vegetables occasionally.

In the house, we are conscious of our water use all the time. Some of the actions we take to save water include saving all tap water while waiting for the hot water to come out, using cloth wipes part of the time, taking sponge baths instead of daily showers, keeping showers short, washing laundry only when it really needs to be washed, and so on. (You can browse through posts labeled with the water tag to read more.)

Last year, our water use averaged 129 gallons per day for two adults and two dogs on a one-fifth acre lot. The daily water use ranges from 70 gallons per month in the dead of winter to more than twice that in the middle of summer when we are need the evaporative cooler to keep the house from sweltering and we have to water more to keep the plants alive until the summer monsoons begin in July. This past year, our annual rainfall was less than half the normal amount. Not surprisingly, my records show that we had to use 12 gallons more per day and the landscaping still looks stressed. Even the desert cactus species are looking worse for wear all over the region.

Luckily, we did this experiment during the winter season when the plants need less water and we aren’t using water just to keep cool. By watering the yard and garden well before we shut off the tap, everything was fine for several days.


What did we do without running water?

As soon as we started this experiment, the first thing that became very apparent was that cleaning without running water is more difficult. We are accustomed to the ease of having running water to rinse soapy hands, dirty vegetables, and food-speckled dishes. We had to adjust to doing these tasks without running water and also without wasting a lot of water.


In the kitchen

Since our produce mostly comes from the CSA or our garden, it comes with dirt. Store-bought vegetables are clean compared to carrots pulled out of the ground and bundled together immediately. With no running water and a limited quantity of stored water, I had to be stingy when cleaning veggies. I put about an inch of water in a large bowl in the kitchen sink and used that to scrub root vegetables. For a final clean rinse, I used a small water bottle with a sport top. I’d planned to save this water to use in the toilets but it ended up so brown and dirty that it went to the garden instead. For washing lettuce, I could not fill a bowl with water to wash a whole head at once, as usual. Instead, I put far less water in a bowl, tilted it to make a deeper section, and washed a few leaves at a time.

I was somewhat stunned at how little water I could use to get the vegetables clean. However, it also took about twice as long to clean them this way. Using dried, preserved, or canned food would have taken far less time during this experiment!

Since we knew that washing the dishes would have to be done with minimal water, it was imperative to not leave food sitting on dishes to harden for hours. We wouldn’t have the luxury of soaking them in a sink of hot water, and we didn’t want to heat and use water to do dishes after every meal. The solution was pretty easy: simply clean the food off the dishes after each meal. Putting just a little bit of water in a pot or dish and loosening all the food bits with the fingers left dishes fairly clean. One could even collect these flavored bits of water to make soup, if desired.

We were able to wash the day’s dishes in a much smaller amount of hot water than normally used. We also drastically reduced the amount of water used for rinsing off the soap. Instead of having a bowl full of rinse water, the water bottle with a sport top came to the rescue. It was an easy way to create a stream of water like that from the faucet, with the added advantage that you can make it go wherever you want.


In the bathroom

I soon discovered that trying to rinse soapy hands in the bathroom with a 2 liter bottle of water was impractical. It was heavy, soap was slippery on the neck, and it was just unwieldy. I complained to my sweetie who mentioned that Cody Lundin, in his book on disaster preparedness, When All Hell Breaks Loose, recommends filling a bowl with water and just a splash of bleach for rinsing and disinfecting hands in an emergency. In the comments of my preparation post, Knutty Knitter also recommended putting tea tree oil in water.

With no tea tree oil on hand and concerns that an antiseptic might not be adequate in the bathroom, we opted for the dilute bleach solution. The bathroom sinks were set up with a bowl half-filled with water plus a splash of bleach. This was replaced each morning with a new dilute bleach solution and the old water used for flushing toilets. It must have done an adequate job of disinfection because neither of us got sick. One drawback was it had a drying effect on our hands and we needed to use more lotion.

Cleaning ourselves up in the morning happened with washcloths damped in cold water. I used the 2 liter bottle to run water over the washcloth to rinse it while scrubbing up, making sure to do this over a bucket to collect all the water….which, of course, was used to flush the toilets. With the short period of time without amenities, we had no need to shower or wash our hair. For a longer shutdown period, we’d have to wash hair either with very little water outside or try the dry shampoo methods (which I’ve tried before with poor results). It's too bad we don't have a private area where we could set up a solar shower outside.

I never leave the water running while brushing my teeth, but I had to change my routine a little with no running water available at all. Again, the 2 liter bottle was too big and unwieldy for wetting and rinsing the toothbrush, and I also had to deal with rinsing out my mouth. A small cup did the trick. I could pour the tiniest bit of water over the brush to wet it initially and then sip and swish to rinse my mouth. I vaguely remember reading somewhere about dribbling this rinse water over the toothbrush to rinse it, too. Seemed a little weird but it got the bulk of the toothpaste foam off the brush so a quick final rinse with fresh water from the cup left it clean.

Flushing solids in the toilet turned out to be the biggest use of water of anything we did over the several days without running water. We didn’t have to flush for urination since I use cloth wipes for that. For solids, though, there was no getting around the need to flush. This made us really yearn for a composting toilet!

As a female, I should mention that I am grateful the timing of this experiment did not coincide with that time of month. While using cloth pads and the Diva cup is great for reducing waste, they do increase the amount of water needed for clean-up. Dealing with this without running water would be quite a nuisance and would definitely use more water.


In the garden

The garden outside required no water, thankfully. The seedlings inside used a nominal amount. During the summer, more than a couple of days without water would be devastating for the garden and landscaping. A rainwater cistern would help tremendously and is in our plans for setting up our own property for desert living. There are, however, months of dry weather without rain in late spring and early summer. I’m not sure it would be possible to store enough water in a cistern or other containers to make it through an extended period of water outages in, say, June when temperatures can be over 100 degrees and the humidity is in single digits.


How low did we go?

I was surprised when I calculated how much water we had used during our 2 ½ days of no running water. For drinking and cooking, we used 5 gallons of bottled water. For everything else, we used 46 gallons of water. This is a total of 51 gallons - just over 10 gallons per person per day - slightly less if you include the water consumed by the dogs.


What could we do differently to use even less water in an emergency?

In the kitchen:

Don’t use fresh produce. Rinsing the veggies used a lot of water. Using preserved and canned food would use less, although dehydrated vegetables need water to rehydrate. Leaving fresh produce in the refrigerator would be okay for a short water outage, especially if the power was still on so it would stay fresh in the refrigerator.

Make simpler meals. Fewer dirty pots and pans means less washing up. If power was still on, making one big dish and then eating leftovers would be ideal.


In the bathroom:

No toothpaste. Not using toothpaste would slightly reduce the amount of rinsing needed for mouth and brush. Brushing your teeth for 5 minutes without toothpaste or baking soda is supposed to get the teeth plenty clean. This would be a pretty minor water savings, though.

Use our camping toilet. When full, dump it in the regular toilet and flush, using a bucket of water to fill the tank. This would tremendously reduce the amount of water used for flushing. To do this, though, we’d need to use the special camping toilet paper that breaks down quickly in camping toilets to avoid clogging the regular toilet. Or, we could use wipes for everything, a transition we have not made yet, although I have done it for up to a week at a time during challenges.

Get a composting toilet. This is in the long range plans and will lead to ongoing water savings. Cost is the limiting factor at this time, as well as not having our own place in which to install one.

There are a couple of low tech options, too. As pointed out in the Liquid Gold book on using urine as a fertilizer, urine is sterile when it leaves the body. Provided there is sufficient carbon, such as mulch, peeing directly into a tree bed would save water. This would be easy for males, but a little trickier for females managing a cloth wipe outside. I also recently heard about someone who uses a bucket when camping in their RV. The gal puts kitty litter in the bucket and uses more to cover after each use. When she gets home, she just dumps it in her compost pile. (There are several organic kitty litter options evidently, made of such things as newspaper, wheat byproducts, or pine sawdust pellets.) While this is a neat idea, I would not be comfortable with including feces in compost unless the compost pile was managed properly, as recommended in the book, Humanure.


What changes will stick now that the water's running again?

I was impressed with how little water the squirt bottle method of rinsing dishes used. To continue this change, I’m keeping the one gallon jug in the kitchen to fill while waiting for the tap water to heat up for washing dishes. I use this to refill the smaller squirt bottle as needed. So far, I have more clean water than I need and the jug is still full when I need to wash the next batch of dishes. The surplus clean water can be used to wash vegetables, laundry, or water the garden.

I'm also continuing to pre-rinse the dishes with a tiny bit of water more often after each meal to make dish-washing easier at the end of the day.

After using buckets of fresh water to fill the toilet tank for several days, I started pondering where to get more used, but not really dirty, water that I could use to flush toilets. Since we only shower a couple times each week, that does not provide enough water from saving the water as the tap heats up.

How about laundry water? During the summer, I often haul the rinse water out to the landscape trees when they need more water. I generally let the initial wash water go down the drain since I don’t currently buy the low-sodium brand recommended for graywater use with our soils. The washer has three rinse cycles. For the past week, I’ve taken the first and second rinse water out to the trees and saved the third for flushing toilets. To keep from introducing lint into the toilet tank, I use a rubberband to secure some of my fine cheesecloth to the end of the hose. The cheesecloth can be rinsed and re-used.

So far, this seems to work fine. By the third rinse, I doubt there is much left in the water that could be considered a hazard. Although the water is sometimes darkened from the dyes used in clothing, it hasn’t seemed to affect the toilet. I don’t think it could stain the porcelain and it doesn’t sit in there all that long anyway. The only downside is we don’t do enough laundry to provide water for all the flushes needed with a high fiber diet.


That's it for the reports on our power down experiment. I hope you have enjoyed reading about it and are thinking about your own preparations for emergencies, as well as a future in which all of us may need to use less electricity, gas, and water in our daily lives.

The Lingering Smell of Christmas

Over the weekend, the city set out to deal with the masses of cut Christmas trees that people had left at the many drop-off places. All were hauled to one location to be ground up and the public was invited to pick up free mulch.

My sweetie hooked the trailer up to his bike and pedaled on over. He came home smelling like a pine forest, with several bags of chunky mulch. I was a bit disappointed because I thought "grinding" the trees would result in a fine mulch. Evidently they set their huge chipper-shredder on a really coarse setting.


I spread it around several plants that needed it. As I did so, I noticed there were quite a few sizable chunks of wood bits from the tree trunks. I picked those out, thinking they might work well as kindling in the rocket stove.


Since the trees were still pretty fresh, we're going to let the bag of wood pieces air out for a while before trying to use them. The yard smells lovely every time I pass by a mulched plant or the bag of wood chips.

There were only half a dozen other people picking up mulch while my sweetie was there. Hopefully more showed up. As the city does with the regular brush 'n bulky pick-up, I expect the leftover mulch was used at the landfill to help reduce erosion on the banks of the big covered piles of discarded stuff.

Power Down Report: What We Ate When We Had No Power, Heat, or Running Water

As I mentioned in the report on going without electricity, I decided it would be prudent for us to use up perishable produce in our emergency simulation. Because we get produce each week from the CSA, we almost always have something fresh on hand. And, because I am obsessed with food preservation, we usually have preserved food on hand, too. Initially when I thought about this experiment, I thought we'd also be dipping into emergency food stores, like canned peas and dehydrated potatoes, especially since the CSA shut down for two weeks over the holidays. Surprisingly, though, we still had some produce left over from the CSA and from some shopping I'd done for holiday meals.

I promised to keep an account of our meals to share with you. They are listed below along with the method of cooking (solar oven, camp stove, or rocket stove). Recipes follow at the end and are specific to non-electric cooking.

But, a couple of observations first. In many ways, it would have been easier to use only instant, preserved, and dehydrated food during our experiment. It certainly would have been faster and used less water. As you will read when I write up the water report, trying to prepare fresh food when you have limited water, and without running water, is a pain! Cooking fresh vegetables took longer than it would have taken to re-hydrated dried ones or simply heat something canned.

You'll notice that we seemed to snack a whole lot on the first day. We noticed that, too, and finally realized it was a reflection of our withdrawals from the computer and TV. It was also, I think, almost a nervous reaction to not having all our conveniences available at the flick of a switch or turn of a faucet. Others have noted that having some treats and comfort foods on hand for emergencies is wise. I totally concur!

Now, on to the food...


Friday (New Year's Day)

Snack (9:30 am)

• Apple & grain "coffee" (water heated on propane camp stove) with sugar & soymilk for me


• Ginger cookies & hot chai (water heated on propane camp stove) with sugar & soymilk for my sweetie

Breakfast (10:30 am)

• Amish Sourdough Bread (warmed in Tulsi solar oven) with vegan margarine or homemade pumpkin butter

Snack (12:30 pm)

• Peanut butter & pomegranate jelly sandwich

Drinks (1:30 pm)

• Herbal tea (Warm water in thermos reheated on camp stove)

Lunch (2 pm)

• Lentil & vegetable soup (cooked in Sun Oven) with crackers

Snack (4 pm)

• Last two limoncello balls for me


• Pretzels for my sweetie

Dinner (7 pm)

• Vegetable stirfry (cooked on propane camp stove) with rice (cooked in Tulsi solar oven; kept warm in retained heat basket)

Dessert (8 pm)

• Hot cocoa (soymilk heated on camp stove)


• Last of Prickly Pear Turkish Delight

Saturday

Breakfast

• Breakfast rice porridge with dates (cooked on camp stove)


• Fresh-squeezed orange juice

Lunch

• Macaroni (boiled on rocket stove) & vegan "cheese" (cooked on camp stove)


• Steamed beet greens (steamed in Tulsi solar oven)


• Fizzy lemonade

Dinner

• Soup with leftover rice & macaroni added (heated on camp stove), with crackers

Drinks

• Grain "coffee" (water heated on camp stove) with sugar & soymilk with a shot of coffee liqueur for me


• Hot cocoa (soymilk heated on camp stove) for my sweetie

Sunday

Breakfast

• Skillet toast (toasted on camp stove) with vegan margarine


• Hot grain "coffee" & chai (water heated on camp stove) with sugar & soymilk

Lunch

• Cold beets (roasted in Tulsi sun oven) with horseradish sauce


• Tossed salad with simple dressing


• Leftover mac 'n "cheese" (reheated in Sun Oven)

Dinner (Experiment ended at sunset)

• Take-out pizza!

Recipes

Breakfast Rice Porridge
Leftover rice (cooked in solar oven)
Sprinkle of sugar
Pinch salt
Dried dates, chopped
Water
Soymilk

In a saucepan, stir in just enough water into other ingredients to heat on a camp stove without the rice sticking.
Add soymilk for creaminess, using more if a soupy porridge is desired.
Heat, stirring constantly, over medium-low flame until rice is creamy and dates are softened.


Skillet Toast
Slices of Amish sourdough bread or mock stollen
Vegan margarine

Preheat heavy cast iron skillet on propane camp stove over medium-low flame.
Spread both sides of bread slices lightly with margarine.
Turn flame to low and place bread in skillet. Do not put any right in the center where the flame is the hottest unless that piece is watched very carefully to avoid burning.
When bread is toasted on first side, flip and toast on the other side.
Serve hot.


Beets with Horseradish Sauce
Beets
Vegan mayonnaise
Prepared horseradish
Salt

Preheat solar oven for at least 30 minutes.

Trim leaves from beets, leaving about 1/2" stem on top. Wash beets thoroughly, picking off any small root hairs.

Place clean beets in roasting pan and cover (with lid, not foil). Put pan in solar oven and re-orient the oven to get full sun.

Cook until tender. This can take 1-2 hours depending on the amount of sun, temperature of the solar oven, and size of the beets.

Remove from oven and set aside until beets are cool enough to handle. The skin and stems will come off easily. Grasp the beet tail firmly about an inch below the bottom of the beet (bulb). Pull firmly to remove center tough white root.

Chill beets.

Mix horseradish with mayonnaise and a generous pinch of salt. Slice cold beets and serve with sauce.


Tossed Salad with Simple Dressing
Spring mix
Carrot, shredded
Green onion, thinly sliced
Cilantro
Prepared mustard
Maple syrup
Vinegar (pick a flavorful variety, such as homemade peach-plum)

Layer vegetables in a pretty serving bowl.
In a small bowl, slowly mix maple syrup into some prepared mustard. I usually use about twice as much syrup as mustard. Stir in vinegar, about the same amount as the syrup. Add salt & pepper to taste.
Let each person dress their own salad.


Lentil & Vegetable Soup
* Vegetable from CSA share
** Vegetable from garden

Lentils
Carrots with leaves*
Red potato*
Sweet potato*
Onion*
Pimiento pepper**
Red wine
Pepper
Collard greens*
Dill**
Flat-leaf parsley**
Mrs. Dash Table Blend
Salt

Preheat solar oven for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat a pot of water in solar oven for at least half an hour.

Add lentils to water.

Cut leafy stems from carrots. Clean, peel, and dice carrots, potato, and sweet potato, saving peels and ends for stock.

Add diced vegetables to lentils. When adding ingredients to something cooking in a solar oven, be quick about it so the dish and the oven do not lose too much heat.

Clean carrots leaves by swishing in water and lifting out to leave dirt behind. Strip leaves from tough stems and mince. (Compost stems.) Set aside.

Dice onion and seeded pimiento.

Heat a cast iron skillet on propane camp stove. Saute onion and pimiento until just tender. Stir in carrot leaves. Deglaze with red wine. Dump skillet contents into small bowl. Rinse skillet with water and add to bowl, along with some ground pepper. Stir this into the soup in the solar oven.

Let cook for one hour.

Remove collard stems and reserve for another recipe. Clean collard greens and chop. Stir into soup.

Harvest herbs from garden and mince.

Before serving, use a fork to smash potato and sweet potato pieces against side of pot. This will thicken the soup. Stir in the fresh herbs, Mrs. Dash Table Blend, and salt. Serve with crackers.


Vegetable Stirfry
1/2 tsp oil
Onion*
Red pepper**
Carrot*
Hakurei turnips*
Collard stems*
Collard leaves*
Garlic
Ginger
Green onion
Soy sauce
Chile-mango vinegar
Sugar
Arrowroot
Cooked rice

Clean, slice and dice all vegetables finely for fast cooking.

Stir together soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and arrowroot for sauce.

Heat cast iron skillet on propane camp stove.

Put oil in skillet. Add onion and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, for about a minute until starting to soften.

Add carrots and cook another minute.

Add turnips and collard stems, cooking for another minute or so.

Stir in collard leaves, garlic, ginger, and green onion. Cook until leaves are wilted.

Add sauce and cook, stirring constantly, for a minute until it thickens.

If solar-cooked rice is not hot, add to skillet and stir into vegetables to reheat.


Fizzy Lemonade
Lemon juice
Sugar
Club soda

Stir lemon juice and sugar together in a glass.
Add a small amount of club soda and stir until sugar is somewhat dissolved.
Fill glass with club soda.
Garnish with a sprig of mint if desired.

Power Down Report: Shutting off the Gas

Natural gas is piped into our home for heat and cooking. Compared to the long list of electric appliances, our gas ones are minimal: clothes dryer, oven, furnace, and hot water heater.


How much do we normally use natural gas?

Our use of gas shoots up in the winter when the temperatures start falling. Monthly usage for December, January, and February runs about 20-30 therms. Even though this is a desert, it does get nippy - enough to need the furnace to help out with keeping warm. Unfortunately, the rental house we are living in also has no insulation and the windows are almost all single pane. The temperatures don’t get warm enough this time of year to heat the brick construction so the walls just radiate the cold inside. When we moved in, we put weather stripping around the doors and gaskets behind all of the outlets on exterior walls. Insulating or installing double-pane windows would be a larger investment than would be worthwhile in a house we do not own.

We typically keep the thermostat at 68 during the day and about 55 at night for the winter. We’ve tried lower but just haven’t been able to adjust. I keep the window coverings closed until the sun hits them, and then open them for thermal gain. This only makes a difference of a few degrees, but every little bit helps.


I rarely use the clothes dryer to dry clothes. Unfortunately, I do have to use it for heavy blankets, as my only clothesline is a small and lightweight affair that can’t handle the size or weight of wet blankets. When we find our own place, we will be able to install a real clothesline that can handle blankets and multiple loads. It’s amazing to see the jump in the gas bill during the months when I wash the blankets.


The hot water heater is set at a medium-low setting. Because I am frequently chilled due to the cool house temperatures, it’s always a struggle in the winter not to extend the hot shower just a little bit longer or maybe succumb to the luxury of a hot bath. Ironically, in the summer, we could take long hot showers if we wanted without impacting the gas bill. The tap water comes out so warm, even from the cold faucet, that we don’t even use hot water in the shower. Since we are now each showering approximately every 3-4 days – when it's necessary to wash our hair – we are using less hot water overall. A minimal amount is needed for sponge baths on the other days.

The only hot water used for laundry is to soak the wipes and to dissolve the laundry soap at the beginning of each wash. For washing dishes, we use no more than two gallons of hot water for a full load, usually washing all the dishes at the end of the day.


The stove and oven get used a fair amount, particularly in the winter when I enjoy baking. In the summer, I am able to move a lot of cooking outside into the solar ovens. This time of year, however, I only get four hours of good sun for cooking and the ovens do not get as hot due to the colder temperatures and lower angle of the sun.

Stovetop cooking often involves quick sautéing of food, which does not use as much gas as long-simmering dishes require. Although I love to make soup (recipes here), there are ways to cook it efficiently, including using the crockpot or solar oven. Dicing vegetables in smaller cubes helps them cook more quickly and, of course, keeping the lid on during cooking uses less energy to keep the soup at a simmer. I frequently use the pressure cooker for foods that take longer to cook, such as potatoes, green beans, and pinto beans.

When I bake breads (or Christmas cookies) or roast vegetables, I try do as much as possible at one time to fully utilize the gas used to heat the oven. I pack the oven full and rotate something else in as soon as the first things are done. (Here's an example of that kind of cooking, albeit in the summer, here.) I have to admit that it’s wonderful to be in the kitchen on a cold winter day when the oven’s hot!


How did we do without gas?

The three things we had to deal with when we turned the gas off were how to keep warm, heat water, and cook.

Keeping Warm

We live in the desert Southwest, so our winters are not nearly as brutally cold as those in many other parts of the U.S. (Don’t be jealous; we pay for it in the summer!) And, the weather has been a little bit on the warm side lately, so we were pretty sure we’d be okay. Just in case, I had our long johns ready, and we already had the knit caps, coats, gloves, and warm booties out for regular use.

When I went to bed on New Year’s Eve, I turned off the thermostat and the heat. On New Year’s morning, my sweetie shut off the gas furnace and gas water heater. The house was 60 degrees F. As soon as it warmed up a little outside and the sun was hitting the windows, we opened window coverings to try to warm the inside of the house. By midday, we could sometimes open doors and windows but only if there wasn't a cooling cross breeze.

During the day, all of us, dogs included, gravitated towards the sunny spots in the house where we could soak up a little warmth. We also spent time outside in the middle of the day to warm up. Layers of clothing and snuggling under blankets while reading in the mornings and evenings were needed to keep from shivering.

Since the computer was not available and I had no office work to do, closing the office door was another step we took. It is generally the coldest room in the house, even with the furnace on. We noted during the few times that we did need to go into the room that it was at least five degrees colder than the rest of the house.

One thing we both noticed was that we began to adapt to being cold. When we went outside in the morning to walk the dogs, it didn’t feel quite as cold as previous mornings at the same temperature and we were often wearing fewer layers. The other thing we noticed, though, was not so positive. The cold made us need to urinate far more often. In fact, this was really exacerbated one morning when I drank coffee before we headed out. Thank goodness there was a public restroom in the nearby park. I had to use it several times! I didn’t drink any more coffee before walking the dogs after that morning.



It may look silly, but at the end of the day, I was able to get a little bit of radiant heat out of the Sun Oven. It wasn’t much, as it cooled in about 10 minutes, but every little bit helped.

As soon as the sun set - so early this time of year - the temperature would start dropping fast. It was a struggle to decide when to close the window coverings because we needed the light as long as possible but didn't want to lose any heat after the sun was no longer hitting the windows.

For our three days without gas, the average high outside was 70 degrees. Inside, the house warmed up only to 63 degrees on Friday and Sunday, but made it all the way up to 65 on Saturday. The lows during our two nights of power down experiment were in the 40s, low enough to be chilly outside but not cold enough to be miserable. The house stayed warmer than we expected without the furnace running, only dropping to the mid 50’s overnight.

Had it gotten colder, we might have gone with the original plan of setting up our camping tent in the living room. Sleeping inside a tent traps body heat in a contained space and keeps it warmer. We opted not to do this because, one, it wasn’t quite that cold, and, two, sleeping on the cold floor would have negated some of the benefits from the tent.

We chose instead to sleep in our regular bed, raised up off the floor by our bucket-supported platform. With flannel sheets, an acrylic blanket, three cotton blankets, and a down comforter, we were pretty comfortable. I also slept with a knit cap on my head to hold in body heat and usually tossed my wrap-around blanket on top of the comforter on my side. When it didn’t get as cold as feared, I shed the cap and blankets midway through the night.

Heating Water

Without hot water, there was no way to shower and not be miserable. We still wanted to keep clean, of course, and our usual sponge baths fit the bill. Normally I fill the sink with hot water, add a little baking soda, and then use a washcloth, rinsed frequently, to clean up. (Don't forget to capture all the cold water coming out of the tap as it heats up. That saved water can go in the toilet tank when flushed.) The first morning, the thought of firing up the propane camp stove to heat a little washing-up water sounded like too much work so I managed with cold water. Yikes! Hardly any need for coffee after that! But, since it worked the first time, I continued with cold water clean-up the next two mornings, too. So did my sweetie.

It’s more comfortable to wash hands with warm water but since it takes a while to get warm water out of the tap, we generally don’t. From various things I’ve read, water temperature doesn’t seem to be critical to germ removal. We just used cold water while the heat was off. We even skipped the soap, but you’ll have to wait until I write up the water report to hear more about that.

On the other hand, hot water was necessary for washing dishes. Every day, between using the solar ovens to cook or reheat food, I heated up a big pot of water in the Sun Oven. It takes about an hour and a half, this time of year, to get the water heated to just below boiling. If there were a lot of dirty dishes, pots and pans, I washed the dishes midday with the hot water. The dishes had to be washed rapidly as the water quickly lost its heat in the cold kitchen, especially since the stoneware dishes and pots were chilled, too. If there'd been time to solar-heat more water for evening clean-up, I’d put the pot of hot water in the retained heat basket. It didn’t keep it hot enough to wash the dishes, but the warm water reheated fairly quickly on the camp stove.

Cooking

I talked some about food in the power down electricity report but that was more about reheating leftovers than cooking. When possible, I cooked with the solar ovens. This was limited by the fewer hours of sunlight we get in the winter. In our back yard, we only get about 4 hours of decent sun (from 10 am to 2 pm). I am loathe to put the ovens in the front yard because some folks that roam our neighborhood are known to pilfer whatever is not nailed down. I would hate to see my ovens up and walk away, even though they probably are not a high theft risk. Still, I’m not comfortable with cooking in the front yard.

However, this was an “emergency”, even though voluntarily orchestrated. On Friday afternoon, we decided to pull our vehicle to the back of the driveway (near the street) to create a little more privacy. I set the ovens up in the front of the driveway where they received an additional two hours of sun in the afternoon. (The neighbor's tall trees block the sun in the backyard after 2 pm.)


On that first morning, I extended the morning's available cooking time by tipping the Sun Oven almost all the way on its front side to collect the sun's rays earlier. I used the plant stand on wheels to keep it from resting on the ground so the lower panel wouldn’t get bent. This allowed me to preheat water for soup before adding the vegetables.

I cooked or reheated about half our meals in the solar ovens. All three days were sunny and bright. If it had been summer with the much longer day lengths, I could have easily used the solar ovens for most of the cooking and reheating, plus heating dishwashing water. Here’s what I was able to cook or heat in the ovens. (also included in the ongoing log for my solar-cooking)

Friday, New Year’s Day

Sun Oven
Cooked lentil & vegetable soup
Heated water for washing dishes

Tulsi
Warmed bread (not toasted)
Cooked rice
Boiled vegetable stock
Heated water for washing dishes


Saturday, January 2

Sun Oven
Preheated pasta cooking water
Heated water for washing dishes

Tulsi
Steamed beet greens
Roasted beets


Sunday, January 3

Sun Oven
Reheated mac ‘n cheese
Heated water for washing dishes


Another alternative to the gas stove was … a gas stove. We’ve had a propane camp stove forever and now keep it with our emergency supplies. Although we originally set the stove up outside, we decided that it would be safe to operate it in the house which would have the added benefit of warming the house while cooking..


We placed it on top of the regular stovetop, as you can see here in a bright nighttime photo using the camera flash. The fire extinguisher is kept near the kitchen so we were prepared for any emergencies. The fumes from cooking with propane were no worse than those from the natural gas.

The propane camp stove mostly came in handy in the morning and the evening when the solar ovens could not do the job. We used it to heat water for drinks and make breakfast the second two mornings after the solar toast failure. In the evening, we used it to do a quick stir-fry, reheat leftovers, and reheat dishwashing water.

One thing we noticed while using the stove, oil lamps and candles was that we were going through a lot of wood matches. I always toss them in the compost but I still was disturbed with how many we were using. One way I reduced that was to save any match where only the tip was burnt. Those could be re-lit from a burning candle and used again to light the stove or another lamp. I added paper matches to the shopping list but have not been able to find any yet. The hardware store only sells wooden matches and the grocery store only sells plastic disposable lighters. I’ve still got to check the convenience market where I know they used to give books of matches out to the smokers.

Incidentally, we usually don’t use matches to light our regular gas stove. It has pilot lights but you can turn those off and adjust each burner to be match-lit instead. We did this the first year we moved into this house to save on natural gas and to keep the house slightly cooler in the summertime. Instead of matches, we light the burners with the cigarette lighters found along the road (we currently have about half a dozen we’ve scavenged) or with a flint striker.


This is a flint striker my sweetie’s had for ages. Strikers (typically for welding) and new refill flints are available at hardware stores.

Shutting off the gas also provided a good opportunity to put our new little rocket stove to the test. We first learned about it from the Aprovecho Research Center. Their mission is:

researching, developing and disseminating appropriate technological solutions for meeting the basic human needs of refugees and impoverished people and communities in the developing world. ARC's goal is to help relieve suffering, improve health, enhance safety, and reduce adverse impacts on the environment. ARC provides technical assistance and related appropriate technology to projects around the world. The main focus is on cooking and heating systems that use biomass for fuel.

StoveTec, a not-for-profit company, was created to promote the use of technology developed at ARC, and all the profits from their sales help fund ARC's mission to "provide cleaner burning and cost-effective stoves to the billions of people in the world who need them most." Rather than build our own rocket stove, we opted to support this organization.

My sweetie tested it the stove when we first got it but could not get it to boil water. The problem is the only small wood we had on hand was not dry enough then, and it still isn’t. Rather than go buy firewood – for sale, at an exorbitant price, in small bundles at stores – we decided to try using wood from a pallet. Discarded pallets are free and we picked one up last week.


My sweetie cut the pallet up with a saw rather than deal with removing a zillion nails. The final pieces measured approximately ½” x 1” and are an average of 20” long. There were enough from a standard size pallet to fill a 5-gallon bucket.

For kindling, I fished some corrugated cardboard and heavy packing paper out of the recycling bin. I tore the cardboard into small pieces and the paper into moderate sized ones that could be crumpled up.

Although we have a camping lantern, we decided to do the rocket stove test during daylight. During an emergency, people would crave comfort food so I suggested we make vegan macaroni and “cheese”. We’d cook the pasta on the rocket stove and I’d make the sauce on the propane camp stove. To use less wood heating the water, I preheated a big pot of water in the solar oven. There wasn’t enough time for the sun to bring the water up to a boil but it was warm when we set up the rocket stove.


To set up the rocket stove, we fit the adjustable metal pot skirt around the big pot of water and set it on top, pushing the pot skirt down onto the top of the stove. This skirt keeps the heat around the base of the pot instead of letting it disperse into the air. It saves about 25% of the fuel. After filling the combustion chamber at the bottom with kindling, the rack to support the sticks was placed in front of it. This supports the fuel and allows air to come up through the burning sticks.


We lit the kindling and placed a few pallet sticks on the rack. They quickly caught fire and started burning. As they burned, we kept pushing them in further. It was tempting to add more and more sticks, but the instructions caution against overloading the stove with fuel.


As you can see, the fire really got cranking. There was a bit of smoke, too. We may have had too much fuel or it may have been that the wood from the pallet was aromatic. In any case, you can see in the next photo that the outside of the pot became rather soot-covered. This was a mess to clean up.


The water finally came to a boil, seeming to take forever but we assumed that was simply because it was a “watched pot”. The pasta cooked for 10 minutes, during which time we were careful to avoid adding any more fuel to the fire. There was no need to keep the fire going after the pasta finished cooking and there was already a fair build-up of embers. In developing countries where rocket stoves are more common, I imagine people strive to get use out of every last bit of heat on the stove.

After draining the pasta, we put the pot back on the stove to warm up a little clean-up water over the embers. Since we weren’t planning to stay outside and keep an eye on the stove, my sweetie placed a broken piece of block in front of the combustion chamber so no sparks could escape.

All in all, it was a successful test of the rocket stove. The pallet sticks burned hot and easily. All of the fuel was free. The stove was relatively inexpensive. The soot was a pain to clean up, especially with limited water. I suppose one could just designate one pot for rocket stove cooking and only worry about cleaning the inside, leaving the soot to build-up on the outside. The only real cost to using the stove was in time. You cannot leave it unattended.



Now what?

As with the electricity portion of the experiment, some things are changing as a result of this experience.

We learned that we can deal with colder temperatures in the house than we previously thought. Once the furnace was turned back on, I re-programmed the thermostat. It has four time periods available. I now have it set at 50 degrees overnight. Half an hour before we have to get up in the morning, it is set to increase to 63 degrees. That way we will be able to get out of the nice warm bed a little more easily and deal with showers or sponge baths without turning blue.

Once my sweetie leaves for work, I’ve got it set to drop down to 60 degrees. I put on a fleece pullover and knit cap, and put on the fingerless gloves I made a couple of years ago. (Simply cut the fingertips off plain cotton work gloves. Wear them to keep warm when working on a computer.) When the sun is up, I open the window coverings and the house warms up a little. By early afternoon this week, it’s gotten as high as to 65 degrees. I have the thermostat programmed for 63 degrees in the early evening up until bedtime. Then it’s back down to 50 for the night.

So far this has been working. It’s chilly, but we’re doing okay with it. We keep layers on in the evening and snuggle under blankets to stay warm while reading or relaxing. I can’t guarantee I won’t ever go hit the override button to warm the house up by a degree or two, but it’s still a big drop from the 68-degree setting we used to think was the lowest we could go.

Washing up with cold water? Nope, not sticking with that one. I’m back to my hot sponge baths. We did replace the shower head, however, so that we are using less water – and that means less gas to heat it in the winter – when we shower.

When the sun and my schedule allows, I will continue to heat dishwashing water up in the solar oven occasionally. This is not a huge savings in gas because I don’t use all that much water to wash the dishes anyway.

I am much better about using the solar ovens consistently in the summer when it makes a huge difference in keeping the house cool. Cooking inside during the winter helps warm the house so that provides less incentive to use the solar ovens. We’ll save the propane camp stove and rocket stove for use during emergencies, although I may use them on the patio this summer just to keep the house cooler!

In the long run, I'd love to have a wood stove to use during the colder months. I'm just not sure whether the expense would be worth it in southern Arizona.