Even better than recycling...

Lately, I have been seeing a ton of televisions offered "free" on Freecycle and the free section of Craigslist.  It baffles me that people never think of donating perfectly good working televisions & DVD players to their local children's hospital or nursing home.  When I mention this to folks - it's like a lightbulb goes off over their heads.  Recently, I splurged and got a new television - but my 19" CRT television still works perfectly well and doesn't have any bad spots (why should it since I have only watched movies on it and am hardly a couch potato).  I confess - with my recent convalescence, I just decided I wanted a bigger and more energy efficient TV that doesn't weigh so much.  And a DVI to stream Netflix.

Rather than Freecycle my television and old DVD players, I called the Children's Hospital Family home - turns out they do need a TV and DVD players.  The Oakland Children's Hospital also need lots of other stuff - things that I never thought of for crafts projects and such.

Here are a few things that tickled my fancy:

• Art and craft supplies 
• Beanie Babies 
• Crayons & Colored Pencils 
• Crossword Puzzle Books: for both kids and parents 
• Games: such as Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble, Battleship, Chutes and Ladders, Yahtzee, Life, chess, checkers, Boggle, Trouble, Connect Four and memory games 
• Hot Wheels Toys, Small Cars & Trucks 
• Journals, Blank Books, NotebooksMad Libs 
• Magazines: for all ages, including magazines in Spanish 
• Mini Needlepoint Kits
• Playing Cards: including UNO, Old Maid, Crazy Eights 
• Safety Scissors 
• Scrapbook Supplies
• Stationary Sets
  
• Stickers 
• Knitting Yarn & Knitting Needles: all sizes (Family Resource & Information Center) 
• Crochet Hooks: (Family Resource & Information Center)
• Booties: Knit or crochet baby booties (including preemie size)
• Favors: Make tray favors or origami for patient meal trays
• Sew: Sew a quilt or wheelchair backpack. Please use only new, not used fabric.

I think I am most likely to make up a bunch of twin size quilts with small pillows to send sick kids home with sweet dreams.  Last little girl who received a quilt I made said it was "magic" - a big red velvet heart with gold fringe on a field of 8" wide alternating green & white patterned and white bands.  I've been kind of thinking about making less pattern oriented quilts and using up some fabric - but using a simpler background to do some fun applique stuff - and maybe these kids can be my guinea pigs.  :)

I wonder how kids would love the little creatures that Hannah at Bittersweet makes, like the cute little froggy.

Backcountry Vegan - Backcountry & Camping Cookbook Reading List

My pre-trip reading list included these books, in no particular order:

• A Fork in the Trail
• Backpack Gourmet
• Freezer Bag Cooking
• Lightweight Backpacking and Camping
• Lip Smackin' Vegetarian Backpackin'
• Lip Smackin' Backpackin'
• Trail Food: Drying And Cooking Food for Backpackers And Paddlers
• Simple Foods for the Pack
• The Well Fed Backpacker 

Reviews coming soon!

The Truth About Homemade Laundry Soap

I finally finished my bucket of homemade laundry detergent. Over the last six months, I have done some reading on the ingredients in the detergent as well and have some observations.

• Homemade laundry detergent doesn't work very well. I stirred the goop. I doubled the amount used - my white cotton socks are so grey and ugly that they look like rags for cleaning the car.
  
• The homemade laundry soap doesn't dissolve well in cold water (which is all I use) and often leaves goopy streaks on the washing.
  
• Fels-Naptha is made from petrochemicals and isn't very green. Probably shouldn't go on the garden, either.
• Borax, while a naturally occurring mineral, is bad for your vegetable patch in greywater as it can accumulate in the soil.

I've still got some Borax, washing soda and bar soap - I'm torn between making another batch, stronger, to see how it performs - or finding a hazardous waste disposal for the stuff and going with a biodegradable powdered detergent in a recycled cardboard box.

Thoughts? Observations?

Solar Dehydrator - Mission Accomplished

After working on painting, attaching the screens and trying to figure out my options for the cover -- I finally finished up the solar dehydrator this week.

Painting and shelves completed, cover frame leaning against front:

Totally finished:

Lid Open:

Thanks to: Jon for all his help putting this together, Tom for helping with prototyping the internal frame, and James for his emotional support and help attaching screens, hasps and moving this thing around.

FIRST DRYING PROJECT: James has a pile of Asian pears from his friend, I'm going to pick a pile of lemons from Regan's house and dry some pears!

Solar Dehydrator Intensive

My dear friend Jon loves carpentry projects -- he helped me out with the first step of the solar dehydrator project by taking me to Ashby Lumber to pick up supplies and then he cut up all the pieces a few weeks ago.

The project should have been easy enough to assemble -- but I was swamped with canning projects. My brother offered to help -- he thought it should be a snap, but Jon and I missed something in the tiny plans that resulted in a "Hey, we have a lot of extra 1" x 2"" and self-congratulatory slaps on the back for efficient chop saw use. My brother pointed out that the plans showed an internal frame -- four pieces on the backside of both vent ends and two pieces lengthwise.

Tonya Kay's sweetie made the construction of this solar dehydrator look easy, but we had some problems figuring out measurements for some of these things because of the difficulty of seeing all the parts on the plan. I also realize that he did a lot of modifications (using window screens and a totally different cover, for example).

My brother and I tried to figure out the correct dimensions of the internal frame - given that the sides are supposed to sit on top of the 48" square back. However, there was a slight miscalculation resulting in Tom cutting the pieces to totally fit flush along the edge of the back.

The other problem was that he was gluing as he was screwing -- instead of screwing everything together to make sure it fit, and then taking it apart, applying the glue and rescrewing it together. My brother didn't take this project as seriously as I wished -- he said, "Hey, it's just a box, we'll make it fit."

I tried to explain to him that this was now approaching $200 in materials, was to be used for food and had to have square edges with minimal gaps so that critters would be (mostly) kept away from the food -- to no avail. He accused me of "micro-managing" and wouldn't answer my question, "What is the problem with sticking to the plan if we have one?"

So, while the glue was still wet, I unscrewed the vent sides from the frame, then cut off the pieces that formed the frame. After a discussion with a neighbor who is a contractor, and my friend Jon about how to "make it work" -- a light went off in my head: use the other side!

Today, Jon and I put the dehydrator and shelves together. The biggest trouble we had was correctly figuring out the size of the internal frame. His plan was to put the internal frame together along with the sides -- it doesn't have to be an independently stable frame -- the internal frame just has to provide more stability. And, now that we have additional 1" x 2" along the outside edges on the back side, I think we have plenty of box stability.

I put together the shelves...

And then we had some beers and watched some movies. The next step is to paint and finish polyurethane.

Easy Plum (Habanero) Jelly

PLUM JELLY can be easy or difficult -- if you don't have freestone plums, the best way I've found is to clean and cook the whole fruit.

First, wash/sterilize your jars and put them on a cookie sheet in the oven at 125 or 250, whatever makes you feel good. If you don't keep the jars hot - the boiling hot jelly may make your jars crack and break, causing a big unhappy mess.  Boiling hot jelly will sizzle in the jars kept at 125 and you won't be able to grab the jars with your hands so have pot holders ready.

Next, gather your plums and wash them really well to get off all the bird poop and bugs. Or not - it's all going to get strained anyway and you might like the protein. Cut out any bad blemishes or parts you wouldn't want to eat. Your plums should look all clean and pretty:

I never add juice to the pot for the plums -- but I squish them hard with my hands as I put them into the pot -- I use both hands and squish a small handful of plums. Once the bottom of the pan is covered, I turn on the heat on low and continue adding smashed plums to the pot. This helps the juice release more quickly.

After you've smashed up all the plums and they've filled the pot with juicy goodness, turn them into a big colander or sieve lined with 2-4 layers of cheesecloth over a big bowl or pot to collect the juice.

You can stir the plums to release more juice, or pick up the corners of the cheesecloth from time to time to give a wiggle and shake. Once you've collected all your juice, you can store it and finish it another night or put it back in a pot and start thinking about flavor accents -- like habanero or jalapeno pepper or lavender.

In this picture, you can see the jars I used to store the juice in the refrigerator - you can also freeze the plum juice if you want to make it much later or really have a lot of plums.

Adding pepper can be tricky - so you have to start with a little, bring it to a simmer for five minutes and then taste it (let it cool, first!). Add more chopped pepper if you want more heat.

Simmer a bit and then strain out all the pepper (or lavender or other herbs) and put back in the pan.

Add the lemon, sugar and pectin as instructed by your pectin manufacturer. I use Pomona's pectin - so I put the lemon juice & calcium water into the pot, and mix the pectin in with the sugar really well using a wire whisk before adding.  Then I follow the instructions for bringing back to temperature and testing for set.

Pour into hot jars and put the lids on and process in hot water bath.  Then, set the jars out to cool and wait for the sweet plink of success (some people skip hot water bath with jelly -- this isn't recommended by the folks at Ball but it's done often since the simmering jelly is hotter than boiling water anyway).

DIY Laundry Detergent

One of the things I have always disliked about laundry is the expense and the waste of time. I'm fortunate to have a washer and dryer in my current apartment -- though the dryer is electric and I only use it as a last resort in the winter to dry sheets and blankets (everything else is hung on hangers around the apartment). Most of the year, I hang my clothing to dry on the line.

Detergent is always expensive - liquid detergent is a waste because you're basically buying water - powdered detergent comes with its own issues. I read about making your own laundry detergent several months ago and have been planning for the day when I finally used up my box of Biokleen powdered detergent.

While the ingredients are all basically the same - bar soap, borax and washing soda -- proportions vary widely as do the amounts you use. One powdered recipe recommends using only 1T or 2T, and the liquid detergent recipes vary between from 1/8 to 1 cup. One of the biggest variables in the liquid detergents seems to be the amount of water added -- recipes calling for 2 gallons are around 1/4-1/2 cup soap for a load, and recipes calling for a 5 or 10 gallon bucket have you putting up to 1 cup in the wash. I live in a small apartment - the idea of using a small 2 gallon bucket (with lid) that fits under the sink appeals to me.

Since I am cutting down on driving (like to 200 miles per month average since December), I like to link trips as much as possible. Yesterday I drove into San Francisco and left my car for an oil change (prematurely - at 6K miles, I'll wait until 10K or next June), then I went and did errants. I picked up Borax ($5.29 for 76 oz) and washing soda ($0.60 per lb) at Rainbow Grocery. They no longer carry Fels Naptha, so I picked up a couple bars of Kirk's Coco Castille (saponified coconut oil) "just in case." My brother helpfully checked around and informed me that the Pastime Ace on San Pablo (where I planned to find a bucket) carries Fels Naptha -- so I picked up James and we went back to the East Bay to the hardware store.

So, I invested in a bucket with a lid -- buying more plastic was not part of the general idea of making my own laundry detergent but my last bucket only lasted 12 years and died a month ago. I ended up buying a second bucket for floor cleaning and watering the garden. This morning I realized I need some kind of container to store my fertilizer ingredients per Crunchy Chicken's gardening challenge (and watering the garden is going to be another experiment - I have to visit my friend Dave about the 55 gal drum/spigot gravity drip hose with a battery powered timer system he uses).

Costs (including tax):

Bucket & Lid $7.01

Ingredients (per batch)

1. Borax ($5.73 for 76 oz box = $0.07 per oz) 1/2 c weighs 2 7/8 oz - $0.20
2. Fels Naptha ($1.40 for 4 oz bar) 1/3 bar - $0.47
3. Washing Soda ($0.65/lb = $.04 per oz) - 1/2 c weighs 5 1/8 oz - $0.205

Total Cost for 2-Gallon batch of laundry detergent: $0.875

64 loads at 1/2 c. soap per load:
$0.014 per load.

If I include the cost of the bucket, my first batch comes to $0.11 per wash (or less if I use 1/4 per load).

The powdered soap I was using costs something like $0.11 and liquid soap costs a bit more.

THE PROCESS:

1. Dissolve 1/3 bar grated Fels Naptha soap in hot water.
2. Add 1/2 cup washing soda and 1/2 cup Borax to hot water.
3. Pour hot tap water and soap mixure into bucket and stir. Let sit overnight before using.

Links:
Tip Nut has about 10 recipes
Crystal Miller has a recipe with detailed instructions and pictures
See also recipes from: Suite 101, The Frugal Shopper, Recipezaar