Absinthia Returns, Part 3

Modern wood cooking stove

This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with  Living a Simple Life.

Dear Absinthia,

Lately I have been thinking about how to minimize the amount of electricity that we use.  How do you heat your house? Wood stove, fireplace, electric heat, gas? We have electric, and it’s costing us a fortune, plus adding to global warming.

- amanda

Hello :-)

Here in Sweden we have lots of sun during the summer, but during the winter… not so much. Now in December we have hardly more than 4 hours of daylight. Yet, we have enough sunshine to support solar power panels! We can heat our own water, and even sometimes get enough electricity made to sell back to the local electric company. There are some companies out there that sell “starter packs” so you can set up your own solar power panels for a small sum, as long as you have a screwdriver and a drill and know how to handle them ;-)

We heat the house with a firestove in the kitchen and an extra stove in the sitting room. This works great for us.  The firestove in the kitchen is the regular heat source, but during December and January we have to light the extra stove sometimes to get a reasonable temperature. In these months we often get the “Russian cold” when the Siberian winds pass over us.  Then we can get temperatures as low as -35 degress Celsius. It is so cold the skin hurts if you get it exposed to the air.

Yep, I have good use for all my wooly knits :-) Those legwarmers from your pattern are a great help during these very cold periods.

The firestove in our kitchen is a really old one, probably from when the house was built, a hundred years ago. We cook all our food on it, we bake all our bread in it. We heat water on it, dye yarn, and by hanging a wooden stick between two hooks in the ceiling, we can dry clothes and yarn there when the weather doesn´t allow us to dry it outside. This firestove is a great money and climate saver, even if you consider the price of firewood. To heat this house with electricity, you would probably have to pay at least double, maybe triple what we pay the local lumberjack for our yearly load of firewood.

Maybe it sounds just horrible, cooking with a firestove in the summer. I haven´t really thought about it that way. I am probably too used to this way of living. It is after all the way I grew up at my granny’s and grandfather’s place. In the summer you light a quick little “coffee-fire” early in the morning or late at night for some speedy summer-cooking, before the day’s heat, or after the worst heat of the day. Summer cooking is different from winter cooking. You only make speedy simple meals--no long-cooking stews and such--just simple things like yoghurt, wraps with some stir-fried meats, simple things that take very little time and very little cooking. The smoke helps to keep the mosquitos away, so that is nice too :-)

´til next time,

- Absinthia

Dear Absinthia,

Ah, electricity. I wish we could live without it. But how would you and I communicate, then?  I'd love to set up a small windmill here, to produce the electricity we need. It would be wonderful to have an electric car that’s powered by our own wind-generated electricity. That’s probably far off in the future for us, though.

- amanda

The conversation is continued here:
Absinthia Returns, Part 4

Absinthia Returns, Part 2

Fair Trade products (photo by Andie Gilmour)

This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Living a Simple Life.

Dear Absinthia,

Last night my husband and I were discussing the “throw-away” mindset that our culture has regarding many things that we purchase, including clothes. They are so cheap at the big box stores, that many people buy a few outfits, wear them for a season, and then get rid of them and buy more. What a waste! But I suppose it keeps millions of poor factory workers from starving.

- amanda

Hello :-)

This “buy-wear-throw” away culture… I heard a politician on the radio once defending it with “but we support the poor countries if we buy things.”  But, sad to say, that is not true. The only ones we support if we buy in the big brand stores, are the western multi-millionaires that sit comfortably on their big moneybags. The poor seamstresses make less than half a dollar a day. They have to borrow money from the black market money lenders to be able to buy food and pay the rent. The poor young girls that put the iphones together, they have such bad work-situations (too long days, no rests, too stressful etc.), that the factory owners have had to block the doors out to the roofs to stop them from commiting suicide.

I look for this kind of information in the newspapers. It never hits the headlines, but one finds it if one looks for it. And I do, because I refuse to live a good life on the back of my brother, and I refuse to eat from my sister’s plate.

Some years ago, more than ten years ago now I guess, a young boy child finally was able to run away from the debt slavery that his parents had sold him into. He started fighting the money lenders that organize this kind of thing, and he started fighting against the system that allows child labour.  I had the chance to hear him speak on these issues, and he said, “The only way to end this, is to not support them in any way. It is so easy. Just don´t support them. Don´t send your money in their direction.”  He was so dangerous for the factory owners, that he was murdered after just a few years. 

So, I don´t give them my money. I don´t buy any product made with child labour, or under other kinds of unfair conditions. I make the things I need myself, or I get it from a local producer (the local seamstress, the local fire wood seller, etc.), or from someone with a “clear” source, such as Fair Trade, from whom I buy cocoa and vanilla.

By not letting people fare ill, at the same time I’m not letting the earth fare ill. By not letting greedy people enslave others, I don´t support the polluting transports. So Fair Trade is both fair for people and for the planet’s eco-system. All of us must stick together, earth and people are one. It is very easy, if one lets it be easy :-)

- Absinthia

The conversation is continued here:
Absinthia Returns, Part 3

Absinthia Returns, Part 1

Shopping mall in Toronto, 2008  (photo by Benson Kua)

Living a Simple Life

My Swedish friend, Absinthia, has kindly agreed to have another conversation with me for this blog.  In 2011, we posted an 8-part series of emails, starting here.  The current series is about living a simple life, and I think you'll enjoy her perspective.

Dear Absinthia,

I have been thinking about you a lot, lately, and I hope we can have another conversation--this time about simple, basic living. As humans, we must start making the transition. Global warming is happening faster than we expected, and we’ve just got to take swift, major steps to correct the way we are living on this Earth.

- amanda

Hello!

I wanted to think if I have something to say and share about simple living, and I think I do :-) We have been living a small simple life for some years now so I have learned quite a lot, remembered lessons my granny and grandfather taught me, read some, heard some, realised some and thought some too ;-)

I am now a teacher fiber crafts, and I also do commission work.  It may sound strange, but I am much happier and feel physically much better now, even though we have approximately a third as much money as we did before.

I hear and read that many people think that Christmas is a very stressful time. I think that may be because they are focused on the material stuff “Buying, buying, buying!!!” instead of making an experience “let´s have a lovely holiday together: read, tumble around in the snow, and drink hot cocoa!”

And this is the core of the climate-disaster in the making, don´t you think? If we stop the “buying, buying, buying,” then the big businesses cannot enslave the poor countries into child labour, and then the international traders will no longer get rich from all those poisonous mass-producing industries that contaminate the water and the earth, and all the cheap stuff will no longer be transported hence and forth, bought by us and then hardly get any use before we exchange it with some new cheap bad-quality stuff, and then get thrown away at the junk heaps everywhere.

We have completely stopped buying Christmas gifts. We buy trees in an agroforestry-project and send their gift-cards as Christmas cards :-) It saves the earth and gives the growers and their families a way to support themselves. I am happy to have found such a nice project to support. We have supported them for more than 10 years now :-D

- Absinthia

The conversation is continued here:

  Absinthia Returns, Part 2.

Got Salad?

This is the stuff of life.  Every day we have at least one meal with a big salad as the main dish.  Thanks to Joel Fuhrman (Eat to Live), our diet has taken a quantum leap in the right direction.  Probably the most important part of it is to eat salad, and LOTS of it.  The key is to eat as much leafy-green and fresh-veggie food as you can.  Every day.

BASIC SALAD PLAN

serves 1

Romaine lettuce

fresh veggie pieces

cottage cheese or avocado

vinaigrette dressing

seeds

Fill a 1 to 2 qt. bowl about halfway up with bite-sized pieces of Romaine lettuce.  Top with halved cherry tomatoes, or whatever you like.  Add a dollop of cottage cheese or a cut-up avocado half, drizzle about 1 Tbsp. of balsamic vinaigrette on top.  Add 1 Tbsp. of pumpkin, sunflower, or freshly ground flax seeds.

Fruit Variation:

Spinach leaves

Orange segments cut in bite-sized pieces

Jack cheese cubes

Pecan or walnut halves

Marinated Variation:

Romaine lettuce

Carrot pieces marinated in vinaigrette

Sweet pickles, cut into 1/2" pieces

Gouda or cheddar cheese cubes

Pine nuts

If you have some whole-grain crackers, they're nice with this type of salad, but don't fill up on them.  We like to add a little fruit dessert to this meal, like warmed peaches or berries from the freezer, topped with a touch of cinnamon, brown sugar, or even sour cream.  In the summer, we make "ice cream" made with fruit, rice milk, and honey.

Use your imagination, but don't go crazy with the fats.  We eat this kind of salad pretty much every other day.  On the in-between days, we have denser salads like pea salad, corn salad, avocado salad--all on a bed of lettuce.

Time to Get Serious...

There's definitely something powerful in having comrades-in-arms, and my blogger friend, A Polish Granddaughter, has inspired me to get serious about improving my health habits this year.  Last year, Hubbie and I dramatically improved our diet, but this year I need to stop playing around with it and finish the job.  That means more salads and less chocolate.

It also means getting seriously regular with yoga, walking, and weights.  I am now too old to be haphazard about it.  Anything like the flu or a trip, and I'm back to weakling status.  Must do better!

So this year, expect more healthy vegetarian recipes here on the blog.  Everyone needs to work out their own exercise habits, and mine are pretty mundane... when I do them.  Nothing blog-worthy there. But I am working on a new conversation with my Swedish friend, Absinthia, about the basics of living--green, clean, and who needs money, anyway?

A Polish Granddaughter

Michelle Rosien

First, I want to say thank you, Shel, for nominating me for a blog award... you are too kind!

Since I made the decision a couple of years ago, that participating in this type of "blogfest" was not going to work for me, I want to feature Shel's blog, A Polish Granddaughter, in today's post.  This is truly one of my favorite blogs, and if you like mine, you will like Shel's.  She and I are cut from the same cloth.

Michelle is a professional woman, a rennie (Renaissance festival-goer), wife, mother, and aunt who is raising her 3 remarkable nephews.  She is an avid crafter and cook, and she regularly shares recipes from her hand-written family cookbook.  (How cool is that??)  She also features her husband's latest leather creations on the blog.  They are marvelous.

I can't say enough good things about Michelle, so you'll just have to go see her blog.  Here's a bit from her profile:

"As I have grown older, I have realized more and more how much my Grandmother has influenced who I am, what I do and what I love.  I spent every weekend with my Grandmother while growing up and she taught me to knit, to crochet, to sew, to cook, to bake, to be there for family, to live a spiritual life, to be grateful for what you have, and sooooo much more.  This blog is my way of acknowledging everything she gave me, everything I learned and maybe pass on some of that knowledge to others."

I get tears in my eyes every time I read that.

Merry Mincemas!

Here's this year's mince pie, with a new-and-improved top crust using a holly leaf cookie cutter and my mother's edge-crimping technique.  Yum.  Click here for the recipe.