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Our enjoyment of kumquat and loquat season has been substantially enhanced by the acquisition of a pole pruner. So much of the good fruit is out of reach, but now it’s in our grasp. West Los Angeles offers a wealth of options, loquat trees everywhere, some beautiful kumquat trees, and peach and fig trees which have yet to ripen. We wonder if we could open a farmer’s market stand based on our findings.

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Andy and I are very excited and relieved to welcome our new baby boy, Oran Rice, to our family. Born three weeks early on February 21, everyone was a little concerned about Oran’s small size (just 5 lb 4 oz), and whether he might have been exposed to infection in utero. We were delighted when Oran was cleared of infection risk and was discharged from the NICU allowing us to all go home from the hospital together! So far he excels at eating, sleeping, pooping, and making bizarre snorting and grunting noises.

About the Name
We had a really hard time picking a name, and would probably still be in a state of uncertainty if it weren’t for expedience of getting paperwork handled by the hospital records department rather than spending the years it would take us to figure it out on our own. Just like the name “Oliver” (Oliver Cromwell, Ollie North, Oliver Twist) the name “Oran” comes with a dubious famous namesakes (Orrin Hatch, and a less than appealing character in dfw’s book “An Infinite Jest”). We want to reassure our friends and family that we actually had a good reason for picking the name. We chose it because we like a story that goes with the name. Oran was an Irish monk who helped establish a monastery on the Island of Iona in 548 (perhaps through a “Foundation Sacrifice,” according to one version of a cryptic local legend… http://www.columcille.org/storan.htm). The monastery at Iona was likely the place where monks started writing the Book of Kells in the early 800s, events depicted in animated feature ‘The Secret of the Kells.’ In the midst of Viking raids and across the dark ages, this book survived. St. Oran is still commemorated on the stone ruins of the monastery at Iona, the graveyard there is named after him, and the Book of Kells has remained on display at Trinity College in Dublin since the mid-1800s (http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php…). For us, the name is about preserving spirit, beauty, and writing through times of extreme hardship and vulnerability. It also acknowledges each of our maternal grandmothers’ connections to Ireland–it is difficult to find ways to acknowledge your maternal line when naming a son. We also like the fact that the name has an apparently separate Hebrew origin, where it means “pine tree.” Oliver had suggested naming the baby “Conifer,” and we think Oran at least has a bit more of a ring to it.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us through the pregnancy and birth and early days with Oran–we are so grateful for our communities of friends and family.

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It’s hard for me to believe this, but my blog turns 10 today. I started it back in the cold February of 2005 in Cambridge MA with the idea of creating a forum for small-scale environmental activism. The original mission statement is still on the web, along with the first posts from Valentine’s Day of 2005, which focused on re-forming pumpkin cookie cutters into hearts. (Now THERE’s some serious activism). Though it’s not really spelled out anywhere, the initial impetus for the blog was to look for something hopeful and actionable at a time that seemed pretty desperate. The Bush presidency had us deep in the second Iraq war, the impacts of climate change were just beginning to be felt and realized, and (of course) it was winter in Boston, which will make anyone feel hapless.
Though the blog has never been particularly well-read, I have to say that for ten years it has been a great outlet–and one that has given me a feeling of (possibly false) efficacy as I’ve tried to construct a life that manages to be joyful without denying some of the tougher realities of our time. Of course, ten years later the political atmosphere may be even more dire, the challenges even more intractable–and so I anticipate that I’ll keep up with my lifestyle blogging if only because it creates a space in my life where I feel like I’ve done something positive, beautiful, and hopefully also supportive of the ideal of more sustainable human lifestyles.

I have to say that the most amazing thing about these past ten years is the incredible chorus of like-minded (and better) blogs, publications, websites, and media that has grown up on the web and in our popular culture. When I got started with Sparrowpost, I felt a little bit stranded, and in need of a community. Now I read a series of blogs daily that make me feel that I’m part of a movement–whether it be Planetizen, NextCity, Grist, RootSimple, or the online forums provided by the LA Times, the New Yorker or the NYT. While there have been some casualties in the same time period: treehugger, worldchanging.org, whipup.com, not to mention the strange demise of environmentalist writing on apartmenttherapy.com (which used to have a dedicated green living blog), the overall environment is richer than it was when I started, and more mainstream. The outpouring of considered thought and writing on these topics is true reason for hope–one that groups like 350.org are increasingly cashing in on as movement becomes less personal, and more politically oriented. I hope that in the next 10 years, that both the wellspring of thought and the wellspring of action will overflow, and that we will see real progress on climate and other actions.

In the meantime, I will keep tending my little vanity plot here on the web, which manages to be strangely sustaining as I try to keep up my spirits in the grind of trying to make more substantive action. Thank you, interwebs, for 10 great years.

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It’s true, in our household we are big fans of Hasbro’s updated “My Little Pony” (MLP) series. Not only have we watched all four seasons available on Netflix, but we have also purchased and read a number of the comic books, and have just recently cracked the digital cover on some of the fan fiction involving the MLP characters. While our family eagerly awaits the release of Season 5, we have to do something with ourselves. So we decided to try some MLP-style letter writing.

For those who may have missed this wonderous television event, early MLP shows have a sort of “Dougie Houser, MD” thing going on, where at the conclusion of each episode, the nerdy main character (Twilight Sparkle) writes a letter to her mentor (Princess Celestia) detailing which lesson of friendship she has learned in the course of the episode. These letters are written on a scroll using a red quill pen, are sealed, and are then “mailed” by Spike, her trusty dragon sidekick, who dispatches them to the Princess by charring them with his flaming dragon breath.

So, of course WE had to try this at home. Fortunately, the internet offers up many great tutorials on carving quill pens (here is our favorite from YouTube–if only all ‘how to’ videos were this awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89tJ7UPpl1Q). The lovely Florida Antiquing Town of Micopany had all necessary supplies, from ink to 50 cent turkey feathers, available in some of their fascinating shops. And for the seal and sealing wax we can thank Santa, who certainly didn’t envision such a robust usage of this gift as it has ultimately received.

Possibly the best part from a junk accumulation perspective, is that after we finish one of these letters, we ‘send’ it by ‘vaporizing’ it. No scrolls lying around the house = happiness. Thanks MLP, for the hours of holiday fun.

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2014 was also the third year I attempted canning (maybe the fourth)? The first year I canned I was inspired by an excess of produce on the verge of going bad after my brother’s wedding. I had time on my hands, so I tried canning it. It was pretty fun and I liked the idea of ‘preserving the moment’ after this great celebration in the form of something edible. I had also always wanted to try canning because of nostalgic memories of eating my grandmother’s strawberry jam with croissants on holidays. We enjoyed her jam several Christmases after she had passed away, and I remember being pretty impressed by the idea that her good intentions (and good cooking) could be enjoyed even after she was gone.

Lovely as that memory is (and as much as I’d like to replicate it), I have to admit after three years of attempting jam that mine tastes nothing like what she made, and that most of my canning experiments have ended up being pretty disgusting. Because I follow the rules, and boil my preserves to inedibility, I am not concerned that they would actually harm anyone–however with a few exceptions I doubt any recipient of my jam has actually enjoyed the product in the jar. You can read about prior attempts from 2013 here and 2012 here. Going into the 2014 canning season I thought the trouble might be that so far I’d only attempted low sugar/ no pectin recipes. The canning book I have “Canning for a New Generation” advocates this approach, but so far it seems to have yielded some pretty strange tasting strawberry jam. While this year I again rolled with the “Pamona’s Universal Pectin” which allows reduced sugar use, I also used some basic strawberry jam recipes from the internet that were more liberal with the sugar. The results are a little better (the jam had more structure than years past, and the color was a little better), but still not as delicious as my favorite “Bonne Maman” strawberry jam from the grocery store. I also tried making peach preserves, and somehow basically carmelized the jam until it turned a dark brown color from overboiling. The resulting product is a thick, molasses-like product that is better than eating toast plain–but not by much.

As much as I enjoy the ‘trash to treasure’ aspect of gleaning bruised produce at the farmer’s market, and turning it into something useable, I’m beginning to think that making jams and preserves might be one of those crafts that I might have to abandon unless/until there’s more pressing reasons to try it. I was too embarrassed by my results to really give away much of my canned goods as Christmas presents this year, so our own family pantry will be well-stocked in 2015–perhaps based on whether/how we enjoy the results I will return to canning in 2016. But for 2015, I think my new years resolution is to give canning a break.

I first heard about melt and pour soapmaking when hanging out with a friend whose daughter had gotten a melt and pour soap as a valentines day gift at school. I’m pretty sure we laughed about the overachieving mother at the time. But the soap actually worked pretty good–and it looked cool, so of course I looked it up afterwards.

One of the things you realize as a parent is that kids can be bribed to do many useful things using small incentive gifts. As such, these items are incredibly useful. But most of the commercially available items in this category are exemplars of cradle-to-grave awfulness. Halloween is a classic illustration of this problem. Trick or treating itself is fantastic–it’s the only time each year when the public is welcomed onto private property, and is the last standing American version of many older traditions (mumming, caroling/wassiling, Guy Fawkes) that were focused on the redistribution of wealth from those that had plenty (single family homeonwers) to those that have little (i.e., children–though they may have a reputation for being spoiled, 25% of the kids in Southern California live below the poverty line). Unfortunately, really crappy candy is the only incentive that gets the kids out pounding the pavement and ringing the doorbells of elderly neighbors.

Conscientous parents everywhere have tried to salvage this holiday (and Easter and Valentine’s Day) by switching over to less damaging incentives–but the small, cheap, non-food alternatives are all problematic in their own way– mostly plastic, random stuff that breaks and then transforms into the flotsam that becomes an understory of litter in children’s bedrooms and drawers, and is ultimately transitioned to the trash. Add to that the happy meal toys, half-spilled bottles of bubbles, dust-tarnished bouncy balls, it really adds up.

I’m not sure that soap is as fun as silly string, but at least it doesn’t come in a container and it will, if used, ultimately disappear down the drain. For these reasons it’s become my go-to holiday/ birthday party incentive.

I did a more comprehensive blog post about melt and pour soap for Halloween last year. This year we didn’t give out Halloween treats but I did make some soaps for Oliver’s birthday giveaways. Getting a lot of use out of my World Market silicon baking mold.

The way the internet age enables us to dip into any craft for a short while is pretty incredible. Back in the summer I bought a huge chunk of industrial grade beeswax from a farmers market vendor in Gainesville. I had big plans to use it to make body lotion (using instructions given by Root Simple). However once I looked into the details I decided to re-consider–the lotion isn’t shelf-stable, and the person who makes it re-mixes batches ever month in a clean and sanitized kitchen–definitely more than the once-a-year crafting schedule I maintain.

Instead I got interested in candles. I really love the color and scent of beeswax candles, and it looked like making them was relatively easy. I got some wicks from brambleberry.com, watched some youtube videos, and away I went.

I used the simplest of all techniques–pouring the wax into jars. We tried a few molded candles at my assistant’s insistence. The Hedgehog pictured above (from a baking mold we got at CostPlus World Market) is definitely not in a practical shape for a candle–but it’s pretty darned cute.

The biggest problem with candle making is that wax is incredibly messy. It felt a lot like a cat-in-the-hat situation, I’d get the wax off one thing and then of course it would get on something else. I suppose to make it worthwhile, you’d need to get dedicated candle making stuff and store it, which is a step I’m not willing to take. (Unless I ever end up with a beehive).

In the meantime, informal, 1ce a year candle making was pretty fun.