THE LITTLE THINGS - HOMEMADE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

In general, my family are working professionals and materially well off.  Some years ago we all agreed that we typically had the material posessions we really needed and exchanging gifts at Christmas should be more a matter of the spirit than the object.  What we agreed to do, was take turns each year designating our favorite charity.  We would all donate to that charity in the name of the selected person.  For example, one year we bought an entire heifer for a family in Africa and another a flock of poultry for another family on Poland. Thus we were able to make some substantial gifts to persons and projects that were truly needy.  To keep things personal, we still exchanged small tokens of our affection, often handmade or of special sentimental value.


Although my material circumstances are rather limited this year, I donated to the charity - a bicycle repairing non-profit my brother founded and also produced some interesting presents of three kinds.

BREAD
We had plenty of flour  etc., so first I baked some of my favorite bread, the Rosemary French Bread described earlier.  That was an easy choice.  Then I looked around to see what other resources I had to make gifts of.


ROSEMARIE.


We had a large bush of it in the front yard, and another at my sister's house and both badly needed pruning.  I trimmed them up nice and neatly and saved the clippings.in the loft of the shed where they could dry undisturbed.  First I tackled the smaller batch from the front yard.  Over two evenings I stripped the healthy looking leaves off the branches onto some newspaper.  The leaves were then washed in our salad spinner and spread out on newprint to dry. I noticed that those stripped the first evening while the branches were still fresh looked darker and fuller when dried. This may be good to remember if we do this again. It was actually pleasant work and the kitchen where I worked soon filled with the fragrance of rosemarie.


Later I dried and stripped the larger batch from my sister's house.  It alone was nearly a trunkful of branches and looked quite daunting after spending two evenings on less than half that quantity before.  But on the first batch I had developed a system for separating and stripping the leaves that went quite quickly.  The method is to take the larger, bushier branches and break them apart into smaller clusters of one to four twigs.  Then firmly grip the base of the branch in one hand, and slide the other from base to tip briskly several times, depositing each handful of leaves on the newsprint before me.  I removed dead branches and other matter before stripping the leaves and didn't try to strip off color sections and very strongly attached leaves. In a couple of hours I had stripped about four pounds of dried leaves.  


After rinsing the dried leaves about five or six times in cold water and spin drying them, I spread them to dry overnight on newsprint in a slight breeze.  They didn't absorb much moisture, but did color the water a faint green.  I wondered if they were losing flavor or essential oils during this step, but felt it was important to remove the dirt they had accumulated growing outside.  All told, I harvested about two pounds of dried rosemarie leaves from the front yard and four from my sister's bush.


Once dry, I had to grind them.  I tried grinding by mashing with a spoon in a bowl or rubbing between my hands, but both proved too laborious for such a large quantity.  I relented and ordered a coffee grinder, about $11.  (True to life, I saw a new one a few days later in a resale shop for $2, and bought it also as a gift for someone who was also interested in this - good to ahve a backup.)    Anyway, I had to pulverize the leaves in handfuls in the electric grinder, but it did a good job.  The ground leaves were a little irregular in size, so they had to be sifted and the large pieces reground.


In the end I wound up with about six pounds of high quality spice, a portion if which I kept for myself and the balance I gave away as gifts.  These were much apprecaited given the personal nature of the source and the high retail cost of good spice!


Looking around, I saw another resource for gifts:


SCRAP METAL


Namely I had a fair supply of scrap lead, copper, brass and aluminum that I could smelt.  There was steel also, but I didn't have the means to melt and cast it.  (Steel melts at about 2300 deg. F.) For earlier this year I had built a small smelter from a design I saw in the Internet.  It was simply a blower that forced air into a coffee can filled with charcoal.  A stainless steel camping mug served as the crucible (the ordinary steel can I tried initially was too thin and burned through when it reacted with the molten aluminum).


I gather the scrap metal to supplement the inadequate income from UI.  Either donated by neighbors and friends glad to have me help clean up their property or found abandoned on the local roads, it adds up.  In steel alone, I collect about 250-500 lbs a month which basically covers the water utility and an occasional treat.  Aluminum weighs in about about 50 lbs a week and pays for gas for the car.  I find the other metals in small bits here and there, but over the course of the past year I picked up about 50 lbs or each kind. 


For my first project, I cast a small lead grave marker for Ivy's plot in the garden.  It turned out pretty well when cast in a plaster mold I made, but I learned that the mold must be perfectly dry before casting.  Otherwise, steam from the moisture remaining in the plaster leaves small depressions in the hardened metal.


Lead - melting point: 327.5 °C (600.65 K, 621.5 °F)


Increasing the temperature, I was able to cast a small aluminum cross for a birthday present.


Aluminum - melting point 660.37 °C (933.52 K, 1220.666 °F)


For aluminum I tried sand casting, but had some problems.  The local soil was too fine and crumbly to make greensand. (A mixture of moist sand and clay used in pattern casting.)  I tried sifting sand from the local creek, but it also didn't stick together well and the high iron content in it made it char and fuse to the aluminum.  I did get a couple usable castings, but with only coarse resolution.


Copper - melting point 1083.0 °C (1356.15 K, 1981.4 °F)


Next I decided to attempt casting in copper, and first made a clay model from which to make a wax pattern. I tried a variety of different ways to make a rubber mold for a way pattern from the clay original, none of which were satisfactory.  The RTV compunds commonly found in hardware and automotive stores were too sticky, and the professional impression compound I bought reacted with the oil in the modeling clay and would not cure.  The plaster had to be cast directly on the clay and then broken away from the clay and glued back together. 


Plaster alone is fine for lead, but needs to be fortified with about 1/3 part fine brick dust to take the heat of copper.  The mold should be heated to about 900 deg. F ideally, but 500 is as high as my oven will go.

THE LITTLE THINGS - LAUNDRY PART I - THE CLOTHELINE

When I worked at Applied Materials a few years back there was a Toastmasters International (TMI) club, Toastmatters, that met there weekly.  I enjoyed these occasions very much and benefited from the practice of speaking and evaluating speeches.  As VP of Education for the club I was called upon to judge a speech contest.  As an engineer, one of the contestant's speeches appealed to me very much. It was on the economic merits of using a clothesline for drying laundry.  Little did I know that this speech would provide the material I needed to solve another of the challenges we faced.

If you've every had to downsize economically, you probably experienced what we did - a steady failure of appliances and automobile components that dealt ringing, near-fatal blows to the budget.  Our dryer was among the first to go.  It still would tumble the laundry, but the door kept popping open because of a faulty latch and the heat was erratic.  I ordered a new door latch and fixed that myself (saving a $50 service call).  But the heating element finally gave out, and besides that, the enamel flaked off the drum and the bare steel left rust stains on the laundry.  End of the line for the dryer.

Looking about for a solution, I recalled how the TM speaker had touted the low cost of setting up a clothesline - essentially some rope and clothespins.  Moreover, it was solar powered; so the energy was free and it was environmentally sound.  The speech was convincing, so I gave it a try.

Initially this worked well, until the tornado hit last year.  Most of the clothes on the line went airborne and were deposited in regions unknown.  "OK," I concluded, "tornadoes aren't common - we can safely continue with the clothesline method."  Thankfully our insurance was up to date and besides, I liked the smell and feel of clothes dried in the open air. My next challenge was the rain - and cold weather.

Texas has a moderate climate and clothes dry fairly well even in midwinter - unless it rains, as it often does in East Texas.  (If you are more familiar with the westerns filmed in arid regions of Texas, that's primarily in the western part of this vast state.)  Rain was an inconvenience and on multiple occasions, I had to bring in the laundry prematurely, or let it enjoy another rise cycle outdoors and wait until later for it to dry.

When cold weather prevailed, I discovered then that if the clothes are left out in the rain and the ambient temperature drops below freezing, the combination of ice and fabric make a fair substitute for military class armor. If folded over the clothesline, the articles are pretty much stuck on the line until the next thaw (unless you want to cut them off and lose some clothesline!).  If only clipped with clothespins, they may be removed with some effort and a certain level of frostbite on the fingertips.  In such cases, I just brought the frozen articles indoors and let them thaw by the water heater - not enough room there for the whole laundry, but enough for the needs of the day.  I also built a folding rack from 2x4s and galvanized wire that could be set up indoors for emergencies and underwear.

When winter passed, we discovered another challenge to having a clothesline - dogs.  We had a pair of young dogs whose purpose was to entertain us and guard the flocks of poultry.  Training them to our purposes took a bit of time though.  And during this period, the dogs not only ate a fair number of the chickens, but entertained themselves with the laundry we set out to dry.

They were in the habit of leaping up and snatching anything that dangled too low.  They would then season the freshly laundered article of clothing with dirt, grass and small bits of leaf meal.  When it was suitable for canine use, they would then curl up on a small heap of clothing on the lawn and snooze blissfully.  Later, the dogs would play a variation of flag football with some particularly delicate and expensive item, rendering it into a widely dispersed mass of confetti.

They had such fun I couldn't be totally angry, but I did hike up the height of the clothesline and used more secure methods of attachment.

I allowed myself to think I'd mastered the art of clothes-drying when I discovered a whole line of clothes had fallen again and been rendered by the dogs both unfit to wear and diligently shredded.  (Thankfully the other birds and beasts were indifferent to clothing.)  Soon after I discovered that cheap clothesline (like the kind typically made in China) lasts about six months in our climate.  Then it rots and separates - conveniently when you are away from home and the yard creatures have lots of time to investigate all the varied and original uses for clothes, towels and linens.  Applying this lesson, I bought only the best virgin nylon cord made in the USA!  I also noted that the cheap wooden clothespins were also decaying in the moisture and heat.  I decided that a future project would be to make some plastic or aluminum ones.

Still, despite the hardships, I estimated that I'd saved about $25/month in electrical costs, and more than covered the inconvenience and occasional loss of a shirt or three.  I had also come to like the fresh, clean smell that comes from drying laundry out doors.  There's something delightful about the scent of East Texas breezes on freshly laundered sheets as I settle down in a newly made bed for the night.

I think I'll scrap the dryer and make a tumbler out if it!

THE LITTLE THINGS - BAKING BREAD

Back in 1998 my employment took our family to Europe for several years where I worked as an engineer to set up several manufacturing lines at a new automotive parts factory.  It was a tough assignment, but a wonderful experience.  One of the things I brought back from that was a love for truly well made bread.  The Europeans have a long history of making fine food, but the simple craft of baking bread has been developed to an art form there.  After enjoying the real thing, I could never be truly satisfied with the bread commonly sold here - even the varieties touted as being "European."  The only local exception I know of is a little German style bakery I know of in Kempner, TX. Every time I pass though that area during their business hours I buy several loaves to bring home.

Anyway, I was used to spending the extra few dollars for the quality breads sold at the local supermarkets and bakeries when we were hit with the harsh reality of a tightened budget.  I found myself still desiring a quality loaf of bread with our meals, but unable to justify the absurd prices charged for it.  For example, the good bread costs about $4-$6 per loaf here at the local bakeries compared to under $1 when I traveled in Poland and the Ukraine.

To maintain this small but important quality of life, I took to baking.  I'd been taught to bake as a child by my mother.  She worked full-time as a teacher and felt is good and just for us three children to all pitch in with the housework - including cooking and baking.  During much of my married life, my wife would do all the cooking, so these skills languished for a couple decades.  Single again, I resurrected these skills and developed them to new levels.

Initially my efforts were less than satisfactory.  The loaves of yeast bread turned out dense and shriveled and the soda breads were often coarse and doughy.  Many batches of rolls, doughnuts and the like that I baked could have doubled as armor-piercing rounds for artillery shells or cheap hog feed. I found the recpies in the books were helpful, but left out some mysterious technical details that allowed the publisher to include pictures of perfect, mouth-watering loaves next to recipes that only gave the most basic instructions and often lead to disappointing results. 

Finally, I learned to bake something comparable to the book illustrations and even began experimenting on my own.  Finally I developed a variation on the recipe for French bread that was a surefire success for me every time.  I decided to call if Rosemary French Bread.  The recipe is as follows:

ROSEMARY FRENCH BREAD

Ingredients:

Unbleached white wheat flour - ~1,300g (about 2-1/2 lbs) (NOT SELF-RISING) [~175g/cup]
Salt - 1 teaspoon - 11g
Sugar - 2 table spoons - 20g
Butter - 2 table spoons
Rosemary - dried and ground - 2 tablespoons - 5g
Yeast - 1/2 teaspoon - 1.5g
Water - 2-1/2 cups - 212g
Shortening - to grease baking sheet, as needed
Optional:
Cornmeal - to sprinkle on baking sheet adn prevent loaves from sticking
Whites from 1 egg with pastry brush

Equipment:
1 Large mixing bowl
1 small cup
1 sauce pan
1 electric mixer with beaters
1 set measuring spoons
1 large sppon
1 baking sheet
1 oven - electric, gas or wood (preferably temperature controlled)

1. Heat 1/4 cup water to 40-45 deg Celsius (105-115 deg F) and add to yeast in a small cup and allow time (about 5 minutes) for yeas to dissolve.  Stir gently.
2. Put salt, sugar and butter into a large mixing bowl
3. Bring 1 cup water to boil and pour into mixing bow with salt & etc., stir briskly until the butter melts and all items are combined
4. Add 1 cup cold water to mixture in large mixing bowl to reduce temperature to luke-warm.  Add dissolved yeast from small cup by pouring into large mixing bowl.
5.  Add the rosemary and 2 cups flour to mixing bowl, and stir with mixer on low speed for about 2 minutes and any additional time needed to mix all ingredients thoroughly into a liquid batter.
6. Add 3-1/2 cups of flour to mixing bowl by cupfuls (or partial cupfuls) and mix with a large spoon until a knead able dough forms.  (Kneadable means it can be handled without either sticking to floured hands and breadboard - too much water, and does not fall apart into chunks and flakes when picked up - too much flour.  Add more flour or water to get desired consistency.
7. Set aside about 1/2 cup flour and use this to dust kneading board and hands.
8. Knead bread for about 5-10 minuets, repeatedly folding dough in on itself so that it is thoroughly mixed.  Add small amounts of water and/or flour to keep dough kneadable.
9. Grease a clean cookie sheet (or loaf pan). Optional - sprinkle with corn meal.
10. Next, return the dough ball to the mixing bowl and let rise.  It will rise faster in a warm environment, slower in a cool one. So, for a shorter cycle time, I turn on the stove to preheat for about 8 minutes to make it warm, but not too hot and turn the stove off again.  Then I cover the bowl with a clean towel and let it rise in the oven for several hours.
11. When the dough has risen and filled the mixing bowl, remove it and divide it into three equal lumps, about 550g each.  Form these into oblong loafs and place these side by side on the greased cookie sheet.  Put them back in a warm over (not hot or on) and let them rise again. The loaves may loose shape or stick together.  Gently separate them and reshape them if necessary after they have risen but before baking them.  If they stick together into one huge blob, the baking sheet is probably too small and a larger one is needed.
12. To bake the loaves, remove them from the oven and remove the towel.  Take a sheet of aluminum foil and fold it at a slight angle and place over each loaf.   Heat the over to 425 F and bake until done.  That is about 30 minutes and is apparent when the edges of the loaves near the baking sheet turn a like brown.
13. Turn off the oven, remove the loaves and take off the aluminum foil covers.  Let them cool on the baking skeet or a cooling rack.
14. Store the finished loaves in a breadbox or wrap them in a plastic bag to preserve freshness.

Optional: brush the tops of the loaves before baking with egg whites to give them an attractive glaze.

COST SAVINGS:

Store bought bread: $4/loaf

Ingredient:
Flour - 5 lbs bag = 6 loaves @ $2.00
Salt - 6 teaspoons => 6 loaves @$0.06
Sugar - 12 tablespoons => 6 loaves @ $0.12  [$0.50/lb - 10g/tablespoon => $0.01/tablespoon]
Rosemary - 2 tablespoons => 6 loaves (free from garden)
Water - 8 cups => 6 loaves @$0.01
Energy - 6 loaves @ $0.50

6 loaves for $2.66 => $0.44 / loaf
Labor - about 20 minutes.

Satisfaction - priceless!

This exercise makes me wonder about why the bread in the store is so expensive and what all those profits are used for.  I for one thinbk I can spend the money better and enjoy both the baking and the eating of my own bread!

OF CHICKENS AND DOGS

My maternal grandfather raised chickens in his retirement, and the passion to raise poultry seems to have been passed on to me.  When we lived in Round Rock, TX, a friend gave a chicken coop to me to house some chicks I’d bought for the children in the spring of 2002.  We’d also acquired a wonderful puppy that same spring; so the birds and dog grew up together.  The dog was named Ivy because of her habit of playing and sleeping in a patch of english ivy adjacent to the back porch of our house.

Mothering came naturally to our mixed breed, shepherd/terrier dog.  She loved children and pretty much any other young creature.  Ivy would gently sniff at the week old chicks and try to herd them with a push of her snout.  At night the dog would fiercely guard the chick from the numerous varmints that would hunt along the stream-fed greenbelt that ran through our backyard.

When we moved from Round Rock to Longview in 2009, Ivy came with us, but the chickens went to live on Brush Creek Ranch with the Ellerbeck family.  We started a new flock at our house near Macedonia.  At first things went well.  We bought all new poultry: newly hatched chickens, geese, ducks, quail and turkeys.  The flock did fairly well in our back yard and was nearly mature enough to begin egg laying when tragedy struck.  Ivy would bark furiously at night as some predator would attempt to catch birds or two.  It would often happen late at night, and I’d rush out of bed, grab my rifle and dash out side, waving a flashlight around.  The varmint would quickly disappear into a pile of brush on the next lot.

We had to go to Austin every other weekend, and I’d usually take Ivy with me.  On such weekends we’d return to discover a bird or two missing.  So, I ended up having to leave the dog on guard duty with extra food and water while we were away. A helpful neighbor checked on her as well. All the geese and ducks had disappeared when we finally caught the thief.  Early one morning the animals sounded the alarm again, and once more I dashed from the house.  But this time strategy prevailed.  Instead of heading straight for the source of commotion, I cut through the field and placed myself before the brush pile that was sanctuary for the beast.   Sure enough, Ivy drove the murderer straight to me.

It was a skunk!

The cornered skunk was too desperate to make a stand and I was too angry to care that it could spray me with mercaptans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiol.  I charged it and drove the creature out into an open field.  Before it could turn about, Ivy leaped on it and tore it to pieces with the trademark shaking that Terriers are known for.  It was a she-skunk and easily the fattest one I had ever seen.  This was understandable considering it had eaten at least three ducks, half a dozen quail and two full-size geese.  Optimistic that we could begin again, I bought more young birds. I thought the ordeal was over, but then things became worse.

I returned home from work one day and found Ivy lying dead in the ditch before our house.  The sight deeply troubled me and I felt loss at the death of our dear companion of seven years. Apparently, some yahoo in a maroon pickup had hit and killed her.  (They drove by later and apologized, but obviously didn't appreciate the harm they'd done.) I made a plain wooden coffin and buried her in the flowerbed on the east side of the house and marked the spot with a simple wooden cross. That was only the beginning of our troubles.  For I hated to keep the poultry caged and let them roam freely about our property.  (The county here is free range, in contrast to Round Rock – another good story for later: “Raccoons Did It.”)

With no dog to guard the poultry and only a low chicken wire fence to protect them, the birds were vulnerable to attacks by varmints.  While I worked in my spare time to build a shed to keep the birds in, the emboldened varmints moved in at night and began picking off the birds.  We obviously needed another dog, and my daughter thought she’d found the answer.  She adopted a stray the neighborhood children incongruously named “Cupcake”.  The huge dog was pregnant, and my daughter enthusiastically promised she’d care for the dog and find homes for any puppies she’d bear we didn’t want to keep.  I agreed on the terms that it was all her responsibility.

Well, Cupcake was a terrible guard dog.  She ran from the varmints, barked in fear nearly all night long when they approached, and she ate poultry, especially quail, with sincere canine enthusiasm.  Then things became worse.

My daughter was sure her newly adopted dog would have a reasonable litter of two or three puppies from which we could choose a new guard dog.  Well, about 3 a.m. on the cold, rainy night of 10/10/09. Cupcake gave birth to not a few, but 11 puppies! 10 of which lived.  I had asked my class at church to pray for a dog to replace Ivy.  At our next meeting I sincerely requested that prayer be significantly scaled back now that our canine resources had increased by an order of magnitude.

Our property is a wonderful place to be a dog, and the pack grew and developed rapidly.  Again, optimistically, I purchased 25 turkey chicks for a 4H project for my daughter.  Unlike Ivy, these mutts had no great affection for our poultry.  Rather they viewed them as a highly desirable source of nourishment and sport. I had abandon the project and give away the last few birds to a friend because the pack attacked them at every opportunity.  It amazed me how puppies at only a few weeks could climb a chicken wire fence and en-mass take down half grown turkeys in a matter of minutes.

We eventually found homes for all but two of the puppies and their mother.  (This required me to learned entirely new and alien salesmanship skills as I placed the majority of the dogs.) We kept a singularly fuzzy one we called “Baby Bear” and her sister Oreo (due to her black coat and white chest.  Sadly, a coyote came by one night and attacked the puppies that lived in the back yard (due to a constraint from out landlord that no dogs inhabit the house). We rescued Oreo with the help of brave little Baby Bear, but the damage was done.  Oreo died at the local veterinarian’s office later that night from a punctured lung.   Again, I fashioned another coffin and buried her next to Ivy. The coyote returned the following weekend and ate out last turkey – a magnificent Tom that had learned to escape to the hood of my car where he was safe from most varmints. (And thereby destroying the finish of the car with his claws and droppings.)

Down to one bird eating dog and no birds, I was ready to despair.

Then an old colleague of mine from work came by one day with a Golden Retriever puppy.  I was delighted and promptly adopted her with the name Goldilocks.  She was a wonderful loving dog with good manners and self-restraint.  She was already big enough to fend off coyotes, and immediately became best friends with Baby Bear. They played together amicably during the weeks I was busy finishing the new shed.

Despite setbacks created when a tornado came through and damaged the shed, we soon were back in business.  At last with a solid shed and a good guard dog, we were ready to start another poultry flock.  For good measure I added a horse and sheep.  So we were well on our way to becoming a mini-farm when I had a couple calls from the owners of some chickens that they needed a good home.  We gladly agreed and adopted fourteen new birds of various breeds.  I’d like to say it was all smooth sailing from there, but rather the adventure continued.

THE LITTLE THINGS - SAVING SHOE POLISH

NEUTRAL POLISH/HVO MIXTURE COOLING

BLACK POLISH/HVO MIXTURE COOLING

NEUTRAL AND BLACK POLISH WITH HVO BEING HEATED

BLACK AND NEUTRAL POLISH BEFORE CONSOLIDATING BY MELTING

With my income cut to less than half of what it was formally, we've had to carefully consider every purchase.  For example, when items like shoe polish ran low or as it sometimes does, the little cake of polish in the can dried up and broke into unmanageable pieces, the old was simply discarded and a new one bought. A can of shoe polish now retails at about $4-$5, plus the drive into town consumes another $5 in gasoline for the car.  $10 may not seem like much, but every expense cuts into some other necessity these days.

So, one Lord's Day morning I was preparing for church and wanted to polish my shoes.  But the polish had broken up into small chunks that were not very manageable.  They crumbled further, scattering small crumbs into the carpet that I had to pick out of they would have been trampled into large, indelible stains in the carpet.  I managed to put a nice shine on the shoes, but cleaning up was time consuming and it used an inordinate amount of polish.

Later I recalled how I'd seen some cadets in the CAP Summer Encampment I'd staffed a few years back melt such polish crumbs over a candle to consolidate them into a single mass in the can again.  I tried that on the stovetop, and did consolidate the polish, but it was as hard and unusable as a chunk of plastic.  It occurred to me that the polish must be a mixture rather than a compound in order to remain soft and workable and homogenizing it by melting it spoiled that property; but I didn't know what that would be.  Looking about the kitchen, I imagined that some item at hand could be added to the melted polish to make it more suitable.  I tried several different materials: cooking oil, olive oil, lard and hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO)(e.g. Crisco).  The latter worked the best.

I added about 1g of HVO to a 1/4 can and 2g of HVO to a half can of polish with satisfactory results.  The resulting shine was a shade duller after brushing than new polish, but a little work with a soft cotton cloth fixed that.  Time involved, about 10 minutes start to finish to reconstitute a partial can of shoe polish.  When using an electric range, use low heat on an electric burner and watch for smoke and fire.  I keep a fully charged fire extinguisher hand in the kitchen at all times and strongly recommend this.

TIGHTENING THE BELT

About a year ago, my employer and I parted ways.  The General Manager aptly described the root cause as a "Poor match."  It appeared to me to be financially motivated too, but basically there wasn't a place in the company for a hard-working, professional and ethical engineer. Though my employer tried to add injury to insult by denying me not only the promised severance package, but even the small consolation of unemployment benefits. Thankfully, the Texas Workforce Commission's arbitrator heard me out and decided they had no cause for terminating me and allowed the benefits that forestalled homelessnes and allowed the simple dignity of regular meals and functioning utilities. 

Suddenly cut off from income and with very little savings, I had to deal with the harsh fact that the bills, especially rent, were still coming in as fast as ever.  Stanching the flow required some immediate lifestyle changes, not all of which were pleasant.

Rent was the main drain on the budget.  Thankfully I have an understanding landlord and live in a rather old rent house that needs regular maintenance.  I worked out an arrangement where I would make necessary repairs to the property and deduct that from the rent.  It was good for both of us because I charge less than the customary rate for contractors and have a vested interest in doing the work well.

Then there were the utilities.  Weather is fairly mild here in East Texas, so we were able to cut about 25% off the electric bill by turning off the A/C-heat when away or at night when sleeping, and turning down the thermostat the rest of the time.  We could have done more if the building were better insulated, or installing a wood stove or a ground coupled heat exchanger, but the landlord wasn't that accommodating.  I also stopped using our electric dryer and set up a clothes line (details to be posted).

I mulched the garden to minimize watering and took showers to cut back on the water used by baths. That only dropped about $7 of the monthly water bill, but everything helped.

We had the option to use or not use garbage pickup at about $33 per month.  I opted to recycle and found we could recycle all of our waste locally except glass.  However, in the past year, that amounted to less than 3 cubic feet, and I was able to take that to Austin on a recent trip and recycle it too.  I set up several trash cans in the back and separated metal and plastic.  The metal I took periodically to the local scrap yard, and with the additions from friends and neighbors, covered the fuel for transport and gained about $20/week as well.  The nearby city of Longview, TX recycles plastic, so that left the burnable and compostable trash.  We live in west Harrison County, so burning was an option, and I even saved the ashes for future soap making and garden fertilizer.  The remaining organic matter either became feed for the dogs and poultry (see next post), or was dug into the half-acre garden behind our home (also another future post).

That left three major expenses to be dealt with: food, insurance and fuel (for the cars).

Insurance was relatively, easy; I just dropped one of our two cars from the policy and reduced the coverage to liability only.  They were ten-year-old cars anyway, so collision insurance was more a convenience than a necessity.  I thought about dropping our renters insurance, $38 per month at the time and desperately needed cash flow, but thought that unwise and was later proven right (the tornado story to be added soon).  Finally, I took an online defensive driving class, $30 up front, but it dropped $20 off the monthly rate so a very good annual ROI.  The total savings were about $270 per month.

Food was a major budget item, but with plenty of fat in it (pun intended).  First to go was eating out, mostly.  Anyway, it was demoted from convenience to rare treat.  Processed food, junk food and the like were also pretty much removed from the shopping list.  Meat, milk, and other staples were all that remained.  I have since learned to raise veggies, grain, eggs and such and make my own bread and cheese, etc.  I will write more about that later.  We even make our own laundry soap from scratch! Comfort food like chocolate and wine remain at reduced levels for morale's sake, but I'm learning to vint and brew. Can chocolate be grown in agricultural zone 7B?

Fuel was both difficult and easy to deal with.  The easy part was when I cut back on the miles driven by both planning my travels better and walking more, as well as cutting out unnecessary trips.  Combining trips, taking shorter or more efficient routes was helpful.  Carpooling when feasible also helped.  None of this is new of course - but just practiced much more rigorously.  Meanwhile, I have been taking the more challenging tack of studying up on biofuels and gathering materials for making it.  This looks quite interesting and should provide material for a post later.

All told, I was able to cut household expenses in half.  The downside of this was that my input of personal time about quadrupled and I had to work much harder physically.  The up side is that I have lost weight, improved my fitness and been learning many new and useful skills and reviving others.  The timing is good too, since both unemployment benefits and the wages I have been able to get at temporary labor have been about half my professional salary - before the benefits are considered! 

In future installments, I will go into more detail and practical explanations about all of these efforts and some of the intangible benefits that resulted.

FROM THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO THE GREAT RECESSION

My parents were both born in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression.  Their parents were middle-class, white collar professionals: my maternal grandfather a mechanical engineer for Bailey Meter and my paternal grandfather a supervisor for the Bell Telephone switch boards.  Even with such advantages, times were challenging and both my grandmothers had to work hard to stretch their household incomes and make home life comfortable and secure.

I remember my maternal grandmother, Mildred Green well.  She ran a tight, orderly home that was well supplied with home-canned fruits and vegetables from my grandfather's vegatable garden.  She was still frugal even in the 70's and 80's when I visited her at their spacious home in Willoughby, OH.  My mother told me of stories of how she sewed their own clothing, made soap, and even rinsed the last bit of ketchup from the near-empty ketchup bottles with a little vinegar. What I liked best were the delicious pickles she put up in the "cold cellar" in their basement.  They were far superior to the store bought variety!

 

Grandpa Green was also handy, and though he had steady employment, he also worked hard to make the most of what they had.  He and my uncle, Thomas Allen Jr.,  reroofed their home on Kingston Road in Cleveland, OH, laid a flagstone walk and even built their own picnic table and canoe! Later, grandfather retired to a nine-acre home site that was originally improved only with a small two bedroom house and a stand of maple trees in the back.  He, my father, Mildred and others helped a contractor to greatly expanded the house to include two more bedrooms, a large living area and numerous utility and storage areas, as well as the requisite workshop.  The living great room was built with massive wooden beams hewn from trees he'd felled on the site, and another room was paneled with lumber of similar origin. Grandfather also built a large shed and a maple sugar shack in the reat of the property.  He and friends would tap the maple trees in late winter and boil the sap down to make maple syrup and sugar.  In the summer he mowed the large meadow in front with a tractor he'd fashioned out of an old Ford Model A and a mowing bar.  When us children would visit, grandpa would tinker with a steel merry-go-round he'd bought and refurbished for such events so we could go round and round as long as we liked. 

As I child I just enjoyed the rich and varied pleasures of visiting my grandparent's home in Willoughby.  As an adult, I greatly appreciate the hard work and careful thought that went onto creating that small, family paradise.  It is especially meaningful to realize that all those good things came out of the hard times they endured in the Great Depression and the privations of the second World War. 

Now our small family is also struggling in a time of economic hardship and war.  It may not be so dramatic as it was in the past, but the opportunity to make something good out of it is at hand.  Inspired by my parents' and grandparents' examples, I am optimistic that we too shall emerge better for it and enjoying a good life in the more prosperous and peaceful future.  In future posts I will elaborate on some of the things we are doing along those lines.

SURVIVING THE GREAT RECESSION

Today I am starting my first blog.  The goal is to chronicle my efforts to continue living life fully during The Great Recession, desipite significant challenges and reverses. The purpose of this is to generally thank those who have helped and encouraged me and to make available good advice and inspiring stories to others in similar situations.

Check back for more details as they are added.