It's getting hot in here!

Progress on the garden is slow. This weekend I plan to plant my crops, try to deal with the weeds between the rows, and reinforce the compost pile.
I've been busy with other things, mostly reading and books. I've been trading and buying books. It's a good addiction that really doesn't that much if you know were to look for great deals. If any of you decide to join paperbackswap.com use my username catsnbooks as a referance. I've got about 15 new books to read.
I have really done that much cooking because my mom deciedes to cook certain things on the nights that I plan to cook dinner. That needs to be worked out.
I'll update this weekend and see how far I get with my garden.
Almost forgot! Tomorrow is opening day for my town's farmer's market. I'll check it out before I go to work.

UGH! NO!

I came home from work yesterday and checked on my lettuce. The window box of lettuce that I grew from seed fell on my other lettuce plants. The box was on a sort of surdy surface and had held up nice during the really windy weather we had a little while a go. My thought are that a car had play a role in this.
Lucky, the green lettuce will survive. They're not crushed too bad. The endives in the window boxes flowered so I had to pull those. I think is actually will benifit the lettuces so they can get bigger. We'll see.
I still need to plant the garden very soon!
P.S. The farmer's market opens next Friday so maybe I'll go and get some pictures.

Compost Pile Completed

It may have taken me way longer than I thought it would because of lack of proper supplies, but I fininished it on Sunday with zip ties. There's one slight modification that I want to do. The door is rather long right now so I'm going to put another stake in the ground to make it half the size that it currently is. I started the pile off with some of that wild grass, that took over the garden last year, and some kitchen scrapes. I'll post a picture later once I find my camera chord.

Don't Sell it Swap it!

Are you done with your copy of Twilight or finished listening to Ke$ha, but want to get rid of it those items and want to advoid the hassel of selling it or taking to the thift store? Look no further. Swaptree.com is a website that lets your swap books, CDs, DVDs, and games for free. All you have to pay is the shipping cost.
Swaptree.com utilizes two lists, what you have and want to trade, and what you want. Once you have a good amount of items on both lists you can either browse or wait until Swaptree sets you up with a trade. From there you can either accept the trade or reject it. There is also a time limit you have to accept or reject the item. Letting that time run out will freeze your account. Don't worry. Just log in and unfreeze by answering why you didn't do anything.
There are three kinds of trades; two way, three way, and four way. This makes it easier to get what you want and allows more flexiblity for trading. Instead of you sending your book to someone who's sending you a book, you send your book to person #1 who sends their item to person #2 and person #2 send the item you want to you. It's pretty simple because Swaptree does most of the work in setting up trades.
Swaptree.com makes it easy for applying postage, as well, with their prepaid postage labels, but be warned. To use their postage they raise the price a few cents and they charge you a $1 each month you use it. If you plan to swap a lot, this is ideal and better than waiting in line at the post office. All you need to do is print out the label, drop in the mailbox, and it's done! The only down side to this system is that they automatically give you media mail for books and first class for DVDs. If you know you can get cheaper postage, go to the post office.
Here's my challenge to you. Select at least ten books, DVDs, CDs, or games that you will never read again, and don't want hanging around. Set up a free account on Swaptree.com. List your ten books, DVDs, CDs, or games and make your 'want' list. By the end of the week, trade at least one item and report back here and tell me want you traded and what you got or getting (some traders are really slow at mailing the item).
Happy swapping!
P.S. If sending books to strangers doesn't tickle your fancy, hold a swap party with friends. I'll tell you more about this later because I maybe holding my own.

Homestead Pantry Essentials

The list is complete! Head over to the Homestead Pantry Essentials and have a look see. If you think I'm missing anything feel free to e-mail me at elfscuz at yahoo.com

Too Cute to Not Post

I was browsing YouTube and found this.

Cookie Day

I love to bake. Infact, when I move out I plan to bake at least every two weeks, making multipule loaves of bread and such then freezing them. There use to be a time where I loved baking more than cooking but now the tables are starting to turn. But, of course, I still enjoy baking.
Today's baked good was oatmeal rasin nut cookies. I wanted something a little but more wholesome then chocolate chip cookies but with a little spice. So I found Beth's Spicy Oatmeal Rasin Cookies. I recommend following a reviewer's suggestion and added 1/2 teaspoon more of cinnamon and adding 1/4 teaspoon ginger, and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg. I also added walnuts and I wish I had some whole wheat pastery flour to pack in the while grains. I also used half rasins and half golden rasins. They turned out vey good!
Stay tuned for a Pantry Esstential list. I've been browsing them online and find that non of them reflect what one really needs.
P.S. Food picture quality has definatly improved. Who would have thought to use the Cusine setting on my camera without the flash?

Polling Time!

So, right now I have a poll on my side bar that I would liked everyone to answer.
How am I doing with this blog?
You have until Monday to vote!

My Breakfast Cereal Can Kill Me?

So, here I sit munching on a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats, one of my favorite cold cereals. Curiously, I read the ingrediants.

Whole Grain Wheat, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Gelatin, Vitamins and Minerals: Reduced Iron, Niacinamide, Zinc Oxide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6)Riboflavin (Vitamin B2)Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1)Folic Acid and Vitamin B12. To Maintain Quality, BHT Has Been Added to the Packaging.

My first reaction was that I knew most if the ingrediants, vitamins are vitamins but what the heack is BHT? With a little research into the internet world I found that BHT stood for Butlyated Hydroxytoluene. The full name gave me little clue as to what this was besides a chemical additive to an otherwise 'healthy' breakfast food. The wikipedia artical read further saying that it was an 'organtic compound...used as antioxidant food additive'. But this little chemical additive has links to cancer and 'hyperactivity in children'.
More research found this:

However, the same chemical properties which make BHA and BHT excellent preservatives may also be implicated in health effects. The oxidative characteristics and/or metabolites of BHA and BHT may contribute to carcinogenicity or tumorigenicity; however the same reactions may combat oxidative stress. There is evidence that certain persons may have difficulty metabolizing BHA and BHT, resulting in health and behavior changes. BHA and BHT may have antiviral and antimicrobial activities.

To go even further with this another sources reports:

BHA and BHT could lead to a full range of reactions such as asthma, insomnia, depression, fatigue, learning difficulties, and behavioral problems.

For now, I'm saying 'No thank you' to BHT and BHA. There are a few more food presevatives that are like BHT so watch the labels for ingrediants that are acronyms!

Book Review: The Omnivorie's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Yes, I read the young adult edition of this. But this shouldn't reflect my level of reading. At first I picked up the adult edition, but while I could read it Michael Pollan used words that an average person probably could not understand. While I thought the content of this book was important. Throwing away all notions that young adult books are inferior and dived into this. I'm glad I did. If the goal of the adult edition was to get his ideas acrossed as clearly as possible I would have continued to read it. Pollan was preaching from the mountian top. It was sort of like reading a shakespear play; you know what the words mean but in that order it makes no sense.

With readablity of the adult book aside, I believed that the young adult struck the right tone with me. It was easy to understand and the illisatations and side blurbs made it fun to read and understand fully what Pollan is trying to say. The book shows you four seperate food chains; industrial, industrial organic, local sutainable, and the do-it-yourself meal. While all four food systems where entertaining to read about, I found that the local sutainable and the do-it-youself systems were very informing. People know little about these two systems so it was nice to have them detailed. The systems that we hear most about at the industrial and industrial organtic.
I'm fortunate enough to be able to utilize all four of these systems, but it might be a shock to the average reader in the city and hard to wrap the idea of eating mushrooms from a forest around their mind.
I mostly enjoyed reading about Joel Salatin and Polyface farm. It shows that animals don't need to be handled like a piece of meat just because they are going to become meat and that all of the animals died a honorable death.
Overall, I believe Omnivore's Dilemma was a very informative and entertaining read and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to learn more about food systems and how what you buy is like a vote.
A little side note: Customers do have a say in what products a company produces. If a company sees a decline in sales because customers do not want high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in their foods, companies will cater to their needs. For example, a few companies, such as Hunt, are going to switch to sugar from HFCS. So cast your vote at  the check out.