Choices and habits

Poverty is caused by bad choices. Good choices and good decisions and habits can get people back into the middle class.

That’s the most recent message of Dave Ramsey, who is a great guy apparently, and who is very good at helping middle-class people get out of debt. He is wrong about it, and, I think, a smug bastard. But he says that three things cause poverty:

1. Personal habits, choices and character;

2. Oppression by people taking advantage of the poor;

3. The myriad of problems encountered if born in a third-world economy.

And he explains why habits matter, and that rich people listen to audiobooks and poor people don't. And that rich people keep to-do lists and goals, and poor people don't. Also, rich people don't each junk food. Oh, and poor people aren't goal-oriented, and that's probably holding them back.

Except that it's all wrong, even though it’s entirely accurate.

Of course poverty is caused by personal habits and character. And of course it's caused by oppression.

But here's the thing:

Poverty has NOTHING to do with how much money you have.

Poverty is about unfairness. It’s not how much money you have in your wallet, or your bank account.

There are plenty of people with very little money who are insulated from the unfairness of poverty. They grow up without much money, but because they have parents who make good decisions, a good family, and a tight network of people, it’s not poverty. They’re not hungry. They don’t get evicted. They don’t have drugs in their life, or alcohol problems. That’s how most Americans lived for the last two centuries: Humble, hardworking, steady, without a lot of extras.

 It’s not inherently bad, and it’s not what I’m talking about. People who grow up with no money, but with a network and insulation – that’s the way most of the world lives.

I’m talking about unfairness and poverty in America, where it’s not supposed to exist. I think my favorite part of Dave Ramsey’s article is this quote:

“There are others who have far more than I do. The talents and treasures on this earth are not distributed equally, and that is not fair—or is it? God has chosen to give most of you better hair than me, to make Tiger Woods a better golfer than me, to make Brad Paisley a better guitarist than me, and to make Max Lucado a better writer than me. With God’s grace, I am fine with that. I am not angry at them, and I don’t think they have done something wrong by becoming successful. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to realize that God is indeed fair, but fair does not mean equal.” 

That’s the real issue here. Fairness and equality.

Poverty is this: Being told that you are equal to the people around you. Being told that if you work hard and do well, you will succeed. Believing in the American dream. Watching it work for the people around you, the people on the same playing field.

It’s about slowly realizing that the game isn’t what you thought it was. The game is rigged.

Here’s the deal: Some of the players are born with shackles on their feet. Some are visible – those are shackles of racism and bigotry that we claim don’t exist. Others are shackles that are just born there: Abuse. Neglect. Hunger. Drugs. Alcohol.

These weights, these huge manacles around the ankles, they’re invisible. And so it looks like all the kids are the same! Everyone gets a fair shot. You start out on day one learning to walk, and the world is cheering you on! The teachers, the coaches, they’re telling you to run! Go! The goal is to get as far as you can down the playing field – at the other end is success!

And the other kids who are playing believe in the game. They’re succeeding! They’ve been told that if they work hard, they can get ahead, and they have! C’mon, girl, work harder! Run faster!

They can’t figure out why you’re not keeping up with them. Clearly, you must be making the wrong choices!

But some kids are so slow, so weighed down, surrounded by chains so heavy, that you never even see them. By the time you’ve figured everything out, you’re a quarter-way down the field. And everyone tells you that you don’t have shackles on. In the US, everyone is equal. In school, everyone is treated the same. Even if you were weighted down, you’d be treated the same.

Except that really, good habits, trying harder and listening to audiobooks isn’t going to help.

Poverty isn’t about money.

Poverty is about trying to do a stupid diorama of a Beluga whale for your sixth grade science class and not having any supplies at home. So you find a shoebox from the garbage and do something on the bus. Everyone in your class has projects that look like an artist did them. You’re living in a hotel and can't even find a pen and paper. Your teacher says she’s disappointed in you.

Poverty is about the fact that 30 percent of a grade in most of your classes is homework. Your teachers expect two to three hours of homework a night if you’re going to do well.  You work at a bakery every night from 4-10. You take your three sisters to school at 7 a.m. Your buddies don’t understand why you won’t join their study group. You’re just not studying hard enough.

It’s about not even bothering with homework after a while because you know you’ll be in a different school next year after you get evicted again.

It’s about always having a stomachache from worrying.

It’s about knowing that in a family with money, a divorce is a survivable tragedy. But in a family where the children are already hobbled, a divorce is a grenade you can’t run from, filled with shrapnel that leaves deep, ragged, invisible wounds. The children walk around for years, barely breathing, in constant pain, and no one can see the pools of blood that drip at their feet. The kids stop moving forward. The coaches yell, “C’mon! You can do it! Study hard!”

It’s about how none of your friends understand why the first of the month is so important, or what happens on the sixth if the rent’s not paid. It’s about none of them having even met their landlord. You have to go out and talk to him once a month, because your mom won’t.

It’s about eating pea soup every night for a week, from the same pot on the stove, while your mother cries because there’s no food. Then there’s suddenly a lot of food in the house, and you don’t care what she did to get it. And you hate your friends for having mothers who never steal.

It’s about never having enough food in the fridge. And sometimes having a ton of food in the fridge, and having a feast, and having friends over, because it’s grocery day and you feel like you can pay them back for all of the times you’ve eaten at their house, because they always have food.

It’s about having the highest PSAT score in your school, and knowing it doesn’t matter, because you’ve figured out that it’s never going to happen, this college thing. Your family needs the money you make after school. Your mother can’t do it without you. You know you’re not going anywhere. Your friends tell you you’re a slacker – why do have such awful grades if you’re so smart?

It's talking to your landlord about why you don't have the rent, and telling him that your mom is upset about the sewage on the floor in the bathroom, but he says he’s not going to bother fixing it because you're about to be evicted.  Your friend complains that her life is so boring and nothing exciting ever happens to her.

It's about the goddamned black garbage bags that are your whole existence, over and over again, every time you move. You never want to see another black garbage bag or box full of clothes, ever. Your friends tell you it must be exciting to get to move so much.

It's about never, ever having a car you can trust. Or really, anything you can trust. Everything you own falls apart. Your car that you share with your mom has a bungee cord holding the hood on. Your girlfriend gets a car for her 16th birthday and complains because it’s five years old.

It’s about knowing that teeth matter. That if you need braces, the shackles will never, ever come off. And knowing that if you have a toothache, you’ll have to choose between $50 to pull the tooth and $300 to fix it. And you’re terrified that your mom might choose to pull it, because at 17, you’ve still vain enough to care, and to know that your looks are one of the things that helps lighten weights. Your friends complain about their braces while your sister cries because she can’t have them and she looks ugly with crooked teeth.

It’s about a drug dog finding something in your car while you’re in your chemistry final, and when they pull you out of class and find out it’s just a sandwich, they won’t let you retake the test. Zero tolerance. But the other kid whose car was pinged, the one whose dad’s a lawyer? He gets a makeup exam.

It’s about watching your cousin apply to college – 15 applications at $35 each!!! – and crying yourself to sleep. You moved to two states and three houses your senior year. You didn’t apply anywhere. Not even for the ones that offered you a PSAT scholarship.

It’s about your mother crying on your first day of community college, because you deserve better and she wishes she could be picking sheets out for a dorm room. And then she takes your tip money.

It’s about slowly casting off the weights that your parents gave you, and picking up speed as the load lightens, and being so, so careful not to pick up more. No drugs. No cigarettes. No alcohol, real relationships or talk about the future. Not until you’ve caught up.  The load lightens. You can see a way clear. This is not permanent, not for you. You WILL move ahead.

It's about wishing you could help your sisters lighten their load, and knowing there's nothing you can do until you learn to manage yours better. You let your sister borrow your ID and Social Security card so she can start work at 14. Maybe she'll have better habits and choices than you did.

It’s about dating a guy for two years because he has a truck and you’re sick of walking to work in the snow, and he goes to the same community college you do. So you have a ride to work and to school. Funny, though – your friends who have money, they date for love.

It’s about knowing that the only ways out for you are education or marrying someone. When someone offers to help with school if you change your major, you jump at the chance. Follow your dreams and take eight years to pay for it yourself, or get a degree you’re not interested in and it only takes two? Sure, you’ll sell out. No problem. Who thinks you can make money in archeology, anyway? Clearly, journalism’s where the future is.

It’s about graduating with honors, and when your family comes (your mom’s in jail and can’t make it,) they ask why you don’t have the honors sash. You tell them you couldn’t afford the $26, and they say they would have helped with it, and you’re so surprised you don’t know what to say. Five years of waiting tables at Pizza Hut to get a two-year degree, and this is the help they want to give. A sash to walk across the stage. Huh.

 It’s about having friends who work at topless clubs and make $800 a night, and you wish you had the guts and the body to do it. And hearing about how exciting it is that your cousin who went off to college when you did just started law school.

It’s about having your water turned off, and then you need a deposit to turn it back on, so you get a hose, attach it to your neighbor’s house and wash dishes with that for a month. And shower like that, too. Your friends want you do go on a ski trip with them to their parent’s condo in Vail, and don’t understand why you never want to have fun.

It’s about knowing that while you’re showering with a hose, the cousin who went to college the same time you did is now done with law school and is now on a rowing team, competing for the world record. Once in Argentina. Once in Scotland. A family member takes you to Europe to go watch. It’s the first time you’ve been overseas. Your cousin has rowed in 25 countries, lived in Ireland, and has three gold medals. Her mom asks why it’s taking you so long to finish college. Maybe you're not making good choices, she says. You can try to work harder. Like her daughter.

It's about how you can always scrape up $3 for Funyons and Diet Coke from your tips every day, but you can’t scrape up the $87 to turn on the gas at the house to cook. Your family wants to know why you don't eat better.

It’s about watching other cousins get cars when they turn 16, watching them be loved and cherished and taken care of, watching them turn in applications for college, and wondering where you’d be on the playing field if you hadn’t been hobbled. And feeling guilty, because you know that everyone has the same opportunities, and that if you'd just worked harder and made better choices, you'd have done better, too.

It’s about needing $200 to fix your car or lose your job, and knowing that borrowing the money comes with a lecture, and swallowing your pride, and if they ask, “why can’t you take the bus?” while they spent more than that for their purse and this is life and death to you, you need to shut up and be glad they’re around to lend it to you and be grateful. Because you know not everyone has someone to lend them the money.

It’s about believing in doing what’s right, and still using white privilege, the crying girl privilege, boob privilege, whatever it takes to get out of a ticket, because that $200 will be the end of you.

It’s about trying to get rid of the weights, and knowing that you can’t help anyone else who’s stumbling. Not yet. You can barely figure it out yourself. And yet you see so many people you love just stop trying. They sit down, stuck where they are, and they develop weights of their own that will never be shed. A baby. A bad relationship. Their own drugs or alcohol problem.

It’s about recognizing people who get it. About being able to tell at a glance who’s fighting along side you, and picking up travel companions. You want someone who’s learned to pick up their weights and sprint alongside you, not someone who complains about how heavy it is. Someone who will shake their head with you as you both pass someone who was born unshackled, but who has now weighted themselves down. You and your travel companions, you can share the loads and speed up the trip. The going gets easier, for the first time.

It’s about watching your sister go to jail for years because she couldn’t take one more step with weights on. Her load never lightened. She got more shackles of her own. She had a son, and you watched him learn how to walk with shackles on his feet, and you wished to God that you could remove them from that poor little blonde toddler.

It’s about seeing your fierce, beautiful blonde sister with a hole in her leg from where the spider bite went septic and the prison guards wouldn’t let her see a doctor.

It’s about seeing people you love who were born free make bad decisions and be insulated from them. They make some of the same choices you made, and they bounce back. Traffic tickets, bad teeth, mouthing off to a cop – these things miraculously go away when there’s money. When there’s no shackles.

Slowly, slowly, the weights drop off, one by one. And because you’re made stronger by carrying those weights, you can move fast. You’re nimble, you’re smart, and you catch up.

Hell, you even blend in with other people, the ones who never had weights! You even marry one, and have kids. And your kids are born free, and at some point, you even manage to run over and find your sister’s kid on the playing field, and you do your best to take as many weights off him as you can.

They were right! You can do it! Once you get rid of the weights, you can go as far as you want!

But the scars are still there.

They’re there when I look in the fridge.

You know what I see in the fridge, full of good food? The possibility that tomorrow it will be empty, and I'll be unable to feed my kids. I have months and months worth of dried beans in my pantry, because I know how long you can survive on pea soup.

Poverty is having a pantry full of food, a fridge full of food, and a bank account with money in it, and still being aware every single minute that it could all be gone tomorrow.

It’s asking my husband, who has been by my side, steadfast and stable, for 17 years, "Are you going to leave me?" because I have to ask, because I know what divorce does to children.

It's waking up with nightmares that I have to tell my son that he has to give away his cats because the landlord won't allow pets, and waking up sobbing until I remember that we own this home and we're safe.

It’s being involved in my children’s education so that I know they are prepared for this world. It’s seeing police officers and wanting to hide, and being afraid that CPS will come take away my kids, even though I’ve done nothing wrong.

It’s the moment of panic when the gas light goes on in my car, until I remember that I now have money to fill up the tank.

It’s reading this woman’s excuses for why poor people make bad decisions, and understanding every one of them, and knowing that she’s right, but it’s not the whole story. 

Fair does not mean equal, Dave Ramsey says. I’m sorry, but he’s a sick bastard if he really thinks being bald is the same thing as being born into a family where there are drugs and mental illness and abuse. Bald is not a life sentence to poverty. Being a bad golfer is not a shackle. I don’t think he understands a thing about what it’s really like to be poor.

What you need, he says, is to have better choices, have better habits, and to grow your character.

No. What you really need is help. A coach who can see the shackles, and who can explain them to you, and who can lift them for a bit while you gain strength.  Someone to make sure you understand how the game is played, so you don’t add more weights to yourself.

You need an aunt. A friend, a teacher, a mentor, an uncle who went to a good college and can help you with the application. Someone who knows how to help.

One person who will say, “Here, take my hand. I’ll help you. You really can do this. Even if it’s hard, and even if I can’t take away your burden, I can help carry it with you for a while.” I paid for college, with student loans I’m still paying off, eighteen years later. $167 a month, every month, since 1995.

But when I was in college, my aunt would bring bags full of treats: New sheets for my bed in my dorm room, candy, groceries that my roommate and I could cook in the microwave. New underwear. She’d pay for the dentist, so I didn’t have to have teeth pulled. A nice haircut once in a while, instead of Supercuts. She'd take my roommate and me to Costco and we'd spend $200!! We lived like royalty. And then, when we got back to the dorm, she'd give us each a $20 bill, with the warning not to spend it all on beer.

She was the difference between making it and not making it. 

One person can make a difference. One loan, to get a car fixed so someone can get to work. Even better, one gift to the car fixed. One trip to the dentist. One trip to the grocery store the week before Christmas, so the Christmas bonus can be spent on bills instead of gifts, and the whole family can catch their breath.

Anyone who says that there is an even playing field is wildly ignorant and stubbornly, willfully blind.

These are the things that help: Medical care, mental health care, counseling. Food stamps. Housing. A school system that doesn’t penalize kids for not being able to do homework. A school system that doesn’t reward kids for having parents who help. Teachers who care about students and not grades. A kind word, said at the right time.

These are things that don’t: Guilt. Shame. Being told to work harder. Being told that it’s your fault. Being told that setting goals is the answer. All of the to-do lists in the world weren’t going to help my journey. Being goal-oriented wasn’t going to help, either. And I listened to plenty of audiobooks, but I don’t think that was what saved me.

What got me out was being willing to take the help that was offered. Sometimes it’s hard to take help when it comes from people who don’t understand. They know so little of the real world, even though they run it. But if you want to know how to function in their world, you have to befriend them instead of blaming them. It goes both ways. It’s not their fault they were born free.

I have three sisters. Two of us are out, unshackled and walking freely. One is still struggling, but is learning to lighten her load. Another gave up a long time ago. I still have hope for her. She’s been given help but can’t see her way anymore.

I have a farmhouse now, out in the country. I have apple trees, and chickens and pigs, and a husband who doesn’t understand me even a little bit and who adores me anyway. I have three children, and they are thriving. I make them do chores. They make me laugh. They ask, when the apple tree is ripe, why I have to use every apple. Why I have to make 68 quarts of applesauce, why I have to donate the rest to the food bank. Why can’t I just leave the apples to rot, the way the neighbors do?

Because it’s a shame to waste food, I reply, while there are children out there tonight who are going to bed hungry.

What I didn't need at Costco...

So, one of the things I'm trying to do by having a tiny farm is to re-discover food: Where food comes from, what's in it, and how food is made. 

I've always been a great baker and a good cook, and when our family had to switch to a diet without gluten or dairy five years ago, my cooking skill went from good to "I can cook anything!" 

Now, though, the challenge is keep the food bill down -- anyone can make food taste good and eat a healthy diet if they have unlimited funds -- and to try to find ways to get food that are organic or grown with good practices, local, sustainable, or at the very least, cheap.  

The best way, of course, is to grow your own. The second best is to trade something you've grown for something someone else has grown around the corner.  After that, you've got to buy food, either from farmer's market's, co-ops or people who have small farms. And if you still can't find what you want, you have to go to a real store. 

And you know what? Real food at real stores is damned expensive. After being here for almost a year, I'm impressed at the offerings of fabulous stores packed with organic, seasonal, local food, but turned off by the prices. I'd like to buy from local store. Honest, I would. But Costco is HALF the price of other stores. Not ten percent or twenty percent cheaper. Half. 

A jar of the organic chicken bouillon I like? It's $6 at the local supermarket.  It's $6 at Costco, too. For a jar that's double the size. The local supermarket had brown sugar on sale for a $1 a bag if you buy ten bags. So I stocked up! Woohoo! Ten pounds of brown sugar for $10 -- score! Until I went to Costco and saw the same brown sugar in a 15-pound bag for $7.

So, Costco's getting most of my business, and the first few months we were here, I'd go and stock up and get everything there, twice a month. I'd spend about $300 and get almost all of our essentials.

But guess what? 

For the last four months, I've been canning, and pickling, and trading. I've been going to the Gleaner's Pantry, and taking tomatoes and making salsa and sauce. I've picked blackberries until my hands were bleeding, and I made pie filling and jam. I picked hundreds of apples and made 60 quarts of applesauce, and then I traded applesauce for more jam. I bought 40 pounds of cucumbers and made enough pickles to last forever, and then I got more cucumbers by trading with a friend for her garden produce, and I made relish. I made Tabasco sauce, and salsa. I froze zucchini squash and peanut butter cookie dough and veggies for stir-fry. 

And this last trip to Costco looked very different than previous trips.

Here's what I DIDN'T get at Costco, this trip, that I would normally have bought: 

Produce was the place I saved the biggest amount.
 Normal produce purchase:

Onions: $7

Potatoes: $7

Bananas: $3

Carrots: $6

Salad: $4

Broccoli: $5

Kiwi: $6

Mushrooms: $4

Apples: $14 ($7each)

Cuties: $12 ($6 each)

Tomatoes: $6

Was:  $74

Now: $0

Why didn't I buy any produce? Because I get produce twice a week from the Gleaner's Pantry. I get all of those things listed above, and more, for $16 a month. Plus, I have a huge garden where all summer long I picked tomatoes and squash and peas and apples and berries and I canned them or froze them and I've got a ton of them put up for winter.

Here's what I usually get in the frozen aisle: 

Frozen:

Corn: $5

Green beans: $5

Cherries: $12

Hash browns: $7

Was: $29

Now: $5

I still bought the corn. You can't do better than a huge bag of organic corn for $5. Even if I got the corn for free (and you can't get organic corn for free,) it's not worth my time and effort to peel, cut and freeze huge amounts of corn if I can get a jumbo bag of corn for $5. Costco wins that one. Cherries and green beans and hashbrowns, though? I've got a freezer full of cherries and green beans. And I've got a pile of potatoes and a teenaged boy. He can grate hash browns. 

Here's what I was getting for meat:

Meat:

Conventional ham for sandwiches: $10

Conventional turkey for sandwiches: $12

 Organic chicken drumsticks: $10 ($2 pound)

Organic chicken thighs: $14 ($3 pound)

Conventional roast chicken: $5

Ground beef, organic: $17 ($4.25 lb) 

Was: $68

Now: $24

I've decided to stop bringing home conventional, factory-farmed meat. It's just too gross and irresponsible. I still eat it when I'm out, once in a while, but I don't have to bring it into the house.

So I skip the ham and turkey, and my kids and I will eat peanut butter and jelly or not eat sandwiches until we have our own pork and ham in January, when our pigs are ready. 

I did buy the organic chicken. That's super cheap.  And I don't know that I'll ever get it together to raise enough chickens for meat that we don't have to buy any. I might raise some meat birds. But enough to have chicken once or twice a week for a whole year? That's anywhere from 50-100 chickens. That's a lot of birds.

Which is something else to think about: Does my family really eat 100 birds a year? Or more? And should we be eating that much, especially if the meat that we eat in restaurants is factory raised? 

But I don't need any beef anymore. I'm buying a fifth of a cow from a friend who has a farm down the road. I'll have 100 pounds of beef in my freezer next week, at $4 a pound. 

Snacks:

Chips, tortilla and regular, 3  bags: $15

Guacamole: $6 (2lbs)

Salsa and dip: $6

Was: $27

Now: $15

Still bought the chips. No way I'm making my own except for a party or something. 

No salsa: I have a pantry full of fresh. No guac. I bring home as many avocados as I want from the Gleaner's Pantry. And limes. And I have salsa and salt and tomatoes to mix in. 

Juice/drinks

OJ: $7 (one gallon),

Rice milk $13 (12/32oz boxes)

Apple juice $12

$32

Yep. Still had to buy all of these. I could bring home oranges and juice them. But they're not organic, and it's a pain to do it. For $7? Buy it. 

Eggs:

Organic eggs: $14 (3.50/doz)

Chickens are not laying enough to keep up with baking and with scrambled eggs every morning. We have five people. That's ten eggs every morning, minimum, on days we have eggs. We only have six chickens laying. The math doesn't work. Clearly, we need more chickens. 

Grocery:

Crackers:$7

Applesauce:$8 

Curry sauce:$8

Chicken broth:$7

Organic oil: $8

Maple syrup: $13

Sugar: $11

Jam:$5

Was: $75

Now:  $54

 I bought curry sauce and crackers, because I can't make them (OK, technically I could, but not practically.)

And I can't make olive oil or maple syrup. Wrong climate for both. And I bought sugar, to make more jam. But I didn't buy jam.  Or applesauce.

And I bought paper goods as well, but I'm not including them, because I'm not going to save money on toilet paper or paper towels by cutting back. I'm just not. 

So, if I need all of these items on a shopping trip, and I had the money (I don't usually need everything, and I never have the money,) it would be $319.

This trip, without the things I've grown, traded, gleaned or otherwise figured out another way to get?  

The grand total is:  $144

So, that's $175 savings. Times twice-a-month trips, where I figure I'll be saving roughly the same amount, and we're saving about $350 per month.

Is that life-changing?  

Not yet. But it's a start. And it makes me think that it's worth it to put the time and energy into what I'm doing. It's saving more than half on groceries, which is a big deal, because we were spending way too much.

And if I think about getting a part-time job making $10 an hour, it would take me 35 hours or more to make up the savings -- and though I probably spend 35 hours a month on doing the canning or cooking or gardening, I enjoy it, I'm with my family, and I'm glad that it nets out that it really is worth the time to do it.

We'll see. Can I do more? Sure. Should I? Perhaps this is the point of diminishing returns. Or perhaps as I get better at it, I can spend less time at it and cut my grocery bill down more. 

I'm never going to mill my own flour from grain I grow myself. I'm not giving up maple syrup in favor of local honey just to be a locavore. My kids like rice milk, and I know there are people who make their own, but I'm not joining their ranks. So I'm figuring out a balance between making my own salsa, which is easy, and making my own crackers, which is crazy-making. 

It's a work in progress. I'd welcome thoughts and ideas on what you guys do. 

The Gleaner's Pantry

OK, so how many of you know what a gleaner is?

I sort of knew -- you can glean an idea, and I'd seen the famous painting of "The Gleaners" while in Paris. I remember thinking it was a really tough way to make a living -- picking up leftover food, after the harvest.

But here, it was used it the literal, biblical sense: People wanted to know if they could glean apples from my tree when I was done with it, and I heard about gleaners going out to the raspberry fields after the farmers harvested crops.

It's an old, old concept; as the link explains, different books in the bible talk about gleaning, and it goes back to ancient Jewish tradition and way before that. It means to pick up the leftovers -- to gather up all remaining food and use it to feed your pantry.

I'm fascinated by this -- that there has always been a tradition of gleaning, of laws made about it, and that it still exists today.

And then, last week, we drove by a beat-up, hand-painted sign on a small, run-down building, only a few blocks from my house, that said, "The Gleaners Pantry."

So I had to stop in and see what they were doing.

Turns out, they're gleaning. They're taking all of the leftover produce and food that grocery stores don't want, and they're getting people together to dig through it all and see what's good enough to keep.

All you need to do is join up, pay about $15 a month, volunteer a few hours, and be willing to dig through boxes of food.

So on Monday, I showed up to see what it was all about.

And it was like a whole different world.

There were about fifteen women, all of them looking like they homeschool, go to church, have children and lots of responsibility. I'd be willing to bet there wasn't a pedicure, botox shot or a designer handbag used by any of them. And not for lack of money: Clearly, these women had different priorities. Frugal, strong, intelligent, clever and efficient, they lined me up, put to work, and told me I could "shop" for free the first day to see if I wanted to join.

So, with a pair of gloves on, I joined in. Case after case of half-rotten peaches, tomatoes with a few brown spots, lettuce that was wilting, apples that had soft spots, jalepenos that were starting to wrinkle. I said to one woman, "So how bad does the peach have to be to throw it out?"

She said, "If you can make it into a smoothie, save it. If you and your kids wouldn't eat it, it goes into the box for the pigs."

It was pretty tedious work, but not entirely unpleasant, and there were several boxes of dry goods -- sugar, mac and cheese boxes, jello and canned goods. After about twenty minutes, we were done, and we lined up to "shop" from the now clean, dry, ready-to-eat food.

Cases of tomatoes. Nothing wrong with them. The ones with mold had been thrown away. The ones left were ripe, but not bad. The jalepenos were soft, but not rotten. The peaches needed to be eaten that day, or the next, but they weren't awful.

It looked like, well, food. Like a peach you'd brought home a day or two ago and sat on your counter, and you'd think as you walked by, "I'd better eat that soon."

Not, "Eeew, I need to throw that out."

And so I went, and I picked out potatoes, and peaches and pears and plums and tomatoes (I picked out the organic ones,) and cucumbers and peppers.

I went by the peaches, and they were a little yucky, but there was a woman who was going to take the whole box home.

I said, "Those are pretty over-ripe. They're really too ripe, even for smoothies. What are you going to do with them?"

She said she was going to take them, mush them up, put them in the freezer and when the apples on her tree ripened, she'd mix the applesauce with the peaches and make fruit leather.

That's when I knew I was in presence of ninja-level frugality and food cleverness. 

And then, at the end, they said, "OK, who wants more? There's a whole case of tomatoes and peppers left."

One lady said, "I only need half a case for canning. Anyone want to split the box?"

Nope. It was going to go to the pigs.

So I took it home.

This: 

And this:

All of it.

With peppers, and mushrooms and onions and potatoes, and more food than I had any idea what I was going to with.

Yes, that's a fat organic heirloom tomato.

And fat, ripe apples with not even a spot on them. And a turnip, I think, or a parsnip. I don't even know. But I do know that it's going into soup.

And I got into the car with my free loot, and I handed Scout a plastic clamshell full of canteloupe, and she didn't say to me, "Mom, I can't eat this, because it's garbage that our society says is no good anymore."

Instead, she said, "Yuuuum! Give me some of that delicious fruit!", and she ate every last piece.

And so I went home, and I lined up my canning jars, and I got out some recipes, because I had no idea what to do with half of this stuff, and I did this with it:

And now I have to decide if this is something I can keep doing.

Because I'm not saving the world by eating food that's been thrown away. I'm not really making a statement by eating food that would otherwise go to pigs. Or if I am, I can't figure out what the statement is.

I just know that our society throws out an awful lot of food for no good reason.

Do you guys know Mavis? Mavis is my hero. She's who I want to be. She feeds her family on $100 a month, mostly from her garden, and from gleaning.

I can certainly afford to feed my family. I can go out and buy lettuce. I can plant a garden. But do you know how much more money we'd have if I spent $100 a month on feeding my family?

And I have a hard time deciding whether it's better to use a case of tomatoes that would have gone to the pigs to make sauce with over tomatoes that I've grown from my garden, or that I've bought from a local farmer who makes his living on organic heirloom tomatoes.

I'm not sure what all of it means.

But I do know that I'm with Mavis. I'm not going to go back to eating the American way anymore -- buying overpriced, over-sprayed, under-nourishing food from a grocery store lit by flourescent lights that sells food that kills people.

This might just be the beginning. Can I keep it up? I don't know. I sure hope so.

Because it sure would be a shame to let the pigs in our country eat better than most people do.

Lessons learned this weekend

Skills and lessons learned this weekend:

*Turning a pig leg into a ham isn't that hard. It just takes a sharp knife and some patience, and a lot of googling. Sites like pigwomanknife make it easier.

*Americans throw out a TON of food.  I took home 120 bananas from the gleaner's pantry tonight. Plus chicken, salads, green beans and produce. 

And there were at least 100 loaves of bread and bagels that were going to get fed to pigs and chickens. We're talking artisan, organic ciabatta, loaves of sourdough, whole wheat sandwich loaves. It's very sad.

I feel like I'm stealing food from the mouths of hungry people, but the food banks here are overflowing with food. And if I don't take the food, it's going to someone's pigs.

*A dehydrator is totally worth the money, if you'll eat dehydrated veggies and fruit leather. I don't know about the veggies yet, but my kids will totally eat fruit leather. Dehydrated green beans and squash? Will I use it? The jury is out.

*I went to go visit my new pigs tonight. We're getting two weaner pigs next week. They're very cute, absolutely adorable, and I will have no problem eating them. We went to go see a neighbor named Alan, who's the local pig/cow/chicken expert. He has a farm around the corner from us with chickens, one-eyed turkeys, pigs and cows and a pumpkin patch, and stray ducks and cats with half a tail. Sander is in love and wants to visit every day. He was enthralled with every story and soaked up every drop of information. Alan's like an encylopedia on why you want sows vs. boars, why you want short-horned cattle for beef (they're the heirloom tomatoes of cows -- totally underappreciated and making a comeback because of taste,) and what happens if your pig gets out (you buy your neighbors flowers to replace the ones they eat!)

*I love my husband and I hate when he's gone. He's the only thing that keeps this crazy train on its rails and headed down the track. Can't even imagine life without him.

*I am really, really ready for harvest season to be over. Because while I'm loving all this food and I recognize how lucky I am to have all of this bounty, I'm ready for easy nights where I can throw lentils and carrots into the crockpot and call dinner done and not have to think about preserving even one damned thing. I'm ready for knitting,  TV shows and hot chocolate. But I still have more apples and green beans and squash and tomatoes to deal with. They'll be delicious in January. Right now, I don't even want to look at food.

*I'm happy. We're more poor than we've been in a long time. All of our money went into moving, buying this house, renovating it, and then there was a stupid $2,000 cat bill. We're broke, like until Sawyer goes to college. But I wouldn't change a second of any of it. We spent the weekend putting netting on the chicken coop, picking blackberries and apples, and setting up for pigs. My kids are happy, I'm happy, and Mark is ... Well, Mark is slowly getting used to the idea that he's in not in downtown Austin anymore. The more good food I keep feeding him, the happier he gets. So I'm going to keep feeding him, and I think that in a year, while he might not be ready to be a farmer, he's going to be a happy guy.

The county fair

Sander and his apple, at the fair. Sander was born for county fairs.

I have been having quite the time the past few weeks.

We have an apple tree that had close to 1,000 apples on it -- possibly more. I lost count. But the apples are green, soft apples, and they're sort of mealy/mushy. They're not that great for eating. But the neighbors all said the apples were good for sauce, so I picked a bunch of apples, made some applesauce, and OH MY GOD is it good. Fabulous. Best applesauce you've ever had.

So, now I was on a mission. There is FREE FOOD in my front yard. We're trying to save money, right? And live on a budget, right? So clearly, the number one thing to do to cut down the budget is make applesauce. Not cut down on travel, stop spending $2000 on bringing sick cats back from near death, not cut down our huge phone bill. Applesauce will do the trick.

So, I've put up a bunch of applesauce. Like, 20 quarts worth. And I think, "There is no way in hell that I will ever eat this much applesauce. I don't even like applesauce. I'm done."

And my friend Sheila, who is more frugal than I am (well, hell, Kim Kardashian is more frugal than I am on a bad day, but really, Sheila is frugal,) says, "But if you have the applesauce in your pantry, you'll use it. You'll use in baked goods, on pancakes, in desserts. Put up as much as you can."

Fine, says I, and I wipe the sweat off my forehead, put my hair back up in the ponytail, and go back to work.

But then the blackberries become ripe. And there are acres of blackberries, surrounding the house on all sides. And these are devil-bushes that take over the entire yard, and I hate them, and all of the sudden, they're throwing fabulously delicious fruit at us. There are blackberries by the car door in the morning. They're over by the chicken coop. They're by the mailbox. And they're under the apple tree.

So, I have everyone pick blackberries, and I make blackberry wine, and blackberry jam, and I put up some pie filling. But they're hard to pick, because there are ton of sharp thorns on them, but they're tasty and sweet and it's FREE FOOD, I'm telling you, so I go and make more.

And then my neighbors come over and ask me for some apples, because apparently this tree is famous in the neighborhood for how many apples it's been producing for the past 60 years, and because of how good the applesauce is. So I give them each a bag, and then I put on a trading list that I have extra apples, and someone comes over picks apples and gives me two jars of blueberry jam and some quail eggs and some duck eggs, and that's what finally gets me hooked, and I am on a roll: I must preserve food. I must make more applesauce.

So, by this time, I'm making applesauce in my sleep, and there are still more apples, and the blackberries are only beginning to come into season, and I'm starting to feel like it's the last week of school and finals are just around the corner and I'm wondering if I'm ever going to get done, because, you know, FREE FOOD.

And then the squash come in, and I'm like, "Oh, HELL no," and my son's friend comes over with four squash that are the size of my thighs, and let me tell you -- I do NOT have small thighs. And so I look that up, and it turns out you can't can it, and you have to freeze it, so I'm grating it to freeze it, when one of the ladies who picked apples says, "Hey, there's a plum tree up the road that needs picking," so I get in my car with my kids, and because clearly, I have lost my mind, we pick 64 pounds of plums.

Because, you know, FREE FOOD.

And of course, they're tiny, wee little plums, that are completely fussy and require all sorts of work, and I've still got the apple tree throwing apples at me, people are sneaking squash onto my porch at 2 a.m., and the blackberries launching themselves in my path to remind me they're still there, and while I was, just last week, thinking that it was so bountiful and amazing that the earth was throwing food in my direction, I'm now feeling like the free food is being hurled at me with great force and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to catch it all.

And then today, I finally changed my jam-stained clothes, took a long overdue shower, cleaned up the kitchen and went to the county fair with Mark and the kids.

And we had an absolute blast. How could you not? Tilt-a-whirl, the dairy barn, quilts on display, curly fries, and both boys had a wristband for all the rides they could ride in a day.

We went on a mission to find out as much information as we can about local 4H clubs, and to ask questions about raising pigs for meat, and about how to show animals at the fair.

I have this idea that we're going to have pigs for meat, and maybe raise chickens for meat, and we bought three turkeys last week, and we need to see if we're brave enough to eventually murder them, or if we'll end up with turkey pets.

So in the dairy barn, we met up with a woman who we know from Boy Scouts. Since everyone in Whatcom county knows everyone else, I'm going to call her Nellie Olsen. Nellie's a homeschooling mom who has a passel of children, and she is as nice as she can be, and she is as diametrically opposed to me as is possible in just about every area, except the fact that we're both American, homeschoolers, female and live in Washington.

Nellie's one of the moms whose family is leaving Boy Scouts over the fact that they're going to let gay children stay in Scouting. She believes it's wrong. I've also seen her give the Cub Scouts a good scolding because they weren't saluting properly when they had a flag-folding ceremony, and she gave them a lecture about "how people have died to protect your right to fly that flag." Which is true, but people have also died to protect their right to not have to respect it as well.

And she has a license to carry a concealed handgun, which tells you something. I'm not sure what it tells you. But I know I wouldn't want to mess with her dairy cow at 2 a.m.

So, the kids and I ask Nellie questions about 4H (as much as I want to hate her for being so close-minded, she's really quite pleasant to talk to and friendly to my kids and me,) and off we go to the exhibits.

This is what I really want to see: Where other people who have been infected by this insane disease of putting up food are now showing it off to the world. There's a whole bunch of fruits and veggies on plates, all of which have ribbons on them, and now Sander wants to show veggies next year.

At this point, we want to enter our chickens, our turkeys, our tomatoes and apples, Sander's collection of "cool stuff," because he saw that a collection of Beanie Babies had a ribbon, my knitting, and perhaps some pickles.

And I have now completely had my brain taken over. Because really, how, exactly, am I saving the world by entering pickles into the county fair? How is this good for me, or for my family, to take my knitting and have it held up for judging? What the hell century is this? What am I teaching my daughter about feminism and equality by putting up applesauce and holding it up for inspection?

Just as I am contemplating how silly, really, all of this is, in an age of internet and international travel, for me to even contemplate entering plum jelly, I see it: The rows of jams and jellies with ribbons on it.

There's only one applesauce entered, so it has a blue ribbon. One blackberry jelly, so it won, too. One corn salsa. In fact, there are a ton of jams and jellies and sauces, but one woman was clever enough to enter things into categories that no one else entered, so that she ended up with EIGHT blue ribbons.

I'm sure you can guess who it was.  Yep. That gun-totin', gay-hating, dairy-cow owning bastion of homeschooling motherhood. Nellie Olsen.

And all the way back to car, like some pod person, I ranted. "Next year, I'm entering applesauce, and pickles, and a turkey, and jam, and a chicken, and we're going to show that Nellie Olsen who's boss. Next year, it's MY turn to win eight blue ribbons!"

This, people, is what it looks like when nature has hit you in the head with blackberries and apples one too many times.

Clearly, I need a dose of fast food. Or a job that involves wearing clothes and leaving the house.

In the meantime, however, I'm going to fantasize. Next year, Nellie Olsen, those blue ribbons are MINE.

Where's Hercules when you need him?

I have a love affair with Craigslist. Odd, quirky people, free stuff, and a whole lot of trading -- what more could you ask for? Over the past five years, I've done wheeling and dealing for tilling, a garden fence, a side of beef and all sorts of free stuff that was worth what I paid for it. Some of it was even worth the gas money to go pick it up.

 So, in continuing my grand streak of ideas that end up giving Mark a ton of work, I had a brilliant idea for a solution to our problem.

This, then, is the problem:

It's more than twenty years worth of horse shit, left in the barn untouched, and fully composted.

It's actually valuable stuff -- fabulous for gardening -- it's just in the wrong place.

The lady who lived here before us had a horse, and apparently never, ever, not even once, cleaned out the barn. It's possible that before she got here, there was a layer of cow manure under that. Honestly, I didn't know there was a concrete floor underneath -- the boys and I shoveled enough to get down to the bare ground, and sure enough, it's concrete. And by "boys and I," I mean I shoveled while they begged to go inside and watch TV and get out of this river of horse shit and Scout sat in it and tried to make mud castles as we dragged her to higher ground.

So, we want to have a "farm." Which, in my imagination, looks like "The Burrow" from Harry Potter. Lots of happy kids, an orchard, a big garden, a few chickens and a few animals, and kids who help with the yard and the upkeep and a husband who tinkers with projects.

The reality will be different. As in, Mark hates yardwork and hates projects. Sawyer has dramatic fits worthy of a reality TV star who's just been told her show is canceled every time you suggest manual labor. And Sander complains and moans that he's miserable if he actually likes what he's doing and is having a good day -- on a bad day, you're lucky if you can him to agree to get dressed, much less muck out a horse stall.

And while I have good intentions, there are a lot of days where "distracted" is a good way to describe what happens. Because I have every intention of getting out to the garden and planting and weeding. But somehow I end up deciding that I need to learn how to quilt, or I have to get started on food storage for a five-year supply for my paranoia pantry, or the kitchen chairs are the wrong color and have to get painted right now, and of course the house isn't unpacked yet, and I need to put up shelves in the dining room, and while I'm at it, the table's in the wrong place, and it would be a good day to rearrange the furniture.

So, sometimes the garden gets a little bit of benign neglect. As in, stuff gets planted, and whatever's alive at harvest season is what we eat. Which means that in Texas, we ate a lot of tomatoes, some tomatillos, and we threw away a ton of habaneros. And that was about it.

Part of "the farm" will be chickens, a huge garden and some kind of meat. Either a pig or a beef cow.

We have plenty of room for either one, but we can't put them in the barn, because the barn is full of horse shit.

So I had the clever idea that I'd have someone come and shovel out the barn for me, and they could take away as much manure as they wanted. If it worked, I'd actually have someone cleaning out my barn for free.

So I put out the ad, sat back, and waited for replies.

The first person who came by was a self-proclaimed "little old lady" and she drove out to come get a load. She lives 40 miles away and wanted to know how early was "too early," as she's up at 3:30 or 4 a.m.

She arrived, all 110 wiry, tough pounds of her, and shoveled a whole load of horse manure into her truck by herself. She lives alone, had five husbands, plust a sixth man that she lived with seven years and never married, and she takes a bath, outside, naked,  in a tub warmed by a fire under it every night. Yes, she talked a lot while she shoveled, and I listened and watched. It was something else to see her -- apparently she's had a ton of energy since she was born, and she loves to shovel as it takes some of the energy off her. She usually gets up at 4 a.m., splits wood and then shovels something for an hour or so to keep her busy until the sun comes up.

She lives without any paycheck or income -- she has her house paid off, turns off her electricity, most days -- hence, the "cannibal tub," as she called it, and she's using my manure to grow medical marijuana, which she trades for groceries. She loves the internet so she can look up chemtrails, conspiracy theories, and how the government is persecuting Christians, but won't have a cell phone because they cause all sorts of damage.
Interesting morning.

Then, a very nice woman who seemed normal enough asked if she could come get some manure when her husband got home from work.

Mark was in Alaska, so when they got there, I was baking cookies, making dinner, I'd been painting and unpacking, and I was in sweats, no makeup, no bra, covered in paint and cookie dough, holding Scout, who was tired, hungry and dirty.

So, the guy at the door, who looks middle aged, upper-middle class, and normal, says, "I know who you are -- you're a Stone!"

Um. Sure. My kids and my husband are, anyway. How do you know me? Boy Scouts?

"Oh, no -- I'm Mark's boss! I'm the guy who hired him! I'm the reason you guys moved here!"

Fabulous.

Let me just put down the baby, take the cookies out of the oven, throw on a sweatshirt to attempt to cover up that I'm not wearing a bra -- I'm 44 with huge boobs and I've nursed three kids. A bra is not optional when meeting new people.

He and his wife were polite, charming, funny and got a grand tour of the barn, the manure, the garden and the outbuildings, and I was happy I'd met him. Just not dressed like that.

However, next time I do Craigslist, I'm going to go to the door fully dressed. Even for crazy old ladies with lots of energy.

Who would have thought that my biggest logistical problem is how to get rid of a literal ton of horseshit?

The new kitchen!

Now, you all know that I am *not* a blogger of design, houses, kitchens and Martha Stewart stuff.

I write about parenting, food, garden, homeschooling, gluten-free cooking, and my adventures while raising three children.

I also, freely and willingly, acknowledge that I am not a neat person. I'm not not an orderly person, and I don't believe in having a house that fits a magazine lifestyle.

 In fact, "wildy exuberant, with a generous helping of comfort, a dash of messy and a side of what-the-fuck" could sum up my decorating style.

But the kitchen is different. This is my home, where I cook, spend most of my day, and where I ply my skill. I cook for five people, three times a day, every day. That's 21 meals a week, times five servings. More than 100 servings a week need to come out of that kitchen, and that's not counting parties, birthday cakes, snacks, extra granola bars, muffins and the occasional cherry cobbler.

My kids can't have wheat, and they can't have dairy. That means we're not serving bagel bites and a side of Kraft mac and cheese for dinner, either. We're making real food, from scratch.

And that means that I want my tools close, I want the kitchen to be easy to clean, I need bowls, serving spoons and whisks to be close at hand, I want a baking station where I can churn out the GF goodies, and I need a place where I can spend a lot of time and actually enjoy it.

This is the kitchen when we moved in, on March 7:

There was nothing really wrong with it.

It was functional, sort of, and aside from being boring, it was better than some kitchens I've had before.

But we got a loan with the house that let us spend a small amount of money toward fixing up the house.

Not a fortune, and not enough to knock out walls and build whatever I wanted, but enough to get a new sink and a new floor and to paint. I'd have to keep the old fridge, and the old dishwasher, and the cabinets. But I could get new countertops.

The biggest problem with the kitchen was the layout. The lady who lives next door was born in this house, and her mother designed the kitchen, in 1952.

She came by and said, "Oh, yeah, it's time for an update! Back when my mom designed it, it was OK to have the fridge way in one corner, and the sink in another, and the stove way over there. Of course, we had a half-wood, half-electric stove back then..."

Yeah. So the kitchen hadn't been updated since 1952, except for new, ugly floors.

So, almost two months later, the kitchen has arrived.

Our contractor, Jennifer, kicks ass. There's no other way to put it. She's feminine and fun and shows up in a Porsche with high heels and leather-print skirts, and then comes in, changes into a T-shirt and jeans, and guts the kitchen by hand. She hauls out cabinets, lays flooring, does detailed paint work and still manages to be nice to my kids when they walk across the work area trailing crumbs.

She has muscles you wouldn't believe, mad design skill, and she took a project witn NO budget (I swear -- this is a high-end makeover on an IKEA budget,) and she made it look like we spend thousands upon thousands of dollars.

If you need anyone to do anything, from painting a bedroom mural to putting in a new bathroom, she's your go-to: http://www.jenniferryandesign.com

So, here it is, in all of it's glory, finished and ready to go:

This is the island, made with butcherblock, with an induction cooktop. I like the induction very much. I don't like that none of the fabulous cookware I got for a wedding gift works with it. Right now I'm down to a Le Cruset Dutch Oven and a cast iron skillet. I love the farmhouse sink. I love the huge faucet. And I'm in love with the open shelving that lets me see everything I need.

My family who all live at least 500 miles away and will visit less than once a year, are freaked out by the open shelves and are very afraid that the shelves will be messy and that this will bother them.

It sure as hell won't bother me -- I'll be too busy admiring all of the good meals I've made.

This is the other side of the kitchen. The lamps above the table are called up-and-down lights, or pendant pulley lights, and they had them in a house my family stayed in during a trip Tuscany. My aunt bought a pair while we there and never used them, so she sent them to me. And now every time I sit down, I think of Tuscany, which can only improve the mood of the kitchen.

In the back is the baking section, with a marble countertop. Baking pans below, baking supplies above, oven right there under the counter -- everyone's getting cookies for Christmas!

I don't think I could be happier with it. A little paint, a new island, and a lot of work, and we have a kitchen that I love.