Disconnected and loving it

Let me preface this by saying I am not 100% disconnected, but when it comes to television I am. This month my rabbit ears will become an ancient relic, destined for storage in the garage attic, or perhaps the local dump. The television will continue to collect dust, as it has been increasingly in the months past. It will retain its position in the corner because I still use it to view movies on DVD or VHS. But as for network or cable television, it is already defunct.

I read today a piece on NPR's All Tech Considered, entitled "Cutting the Coax: Living without Cable TV." Todd Mundt, the author, speaks to his decision to cut cable and live without it. Yet, what he describes is not living without television; he swaps one medium for several others. His post is full of references to television I have never, nor will probably ever watch.

I moved here three years ago. At the point before I moved I was a cable junky, especially on the weekends when I'd curl up on the couch and get sucked into HGTV, Lifetime, The Food Network, and many other channels. I can't count the number of hours I spent in front of the glowing box. When we got a DVR I thought I had died and gone to heaven! Just before moving to California I moved where I didn't have a DVR and couldn't imagine a life without it. But then I moved to a house where there was no cable at all. Interestingly, the only television show I missed and had issues with missing was "Grey's Anatomy." I have watched that show since the first episode and I admit I'm hooked. I worked my way around that initially by asking a friend of mine who does have a DVR to record it for me. For about a year and a half I would go to her house weekly--sometimes bi-monthly--to watch the show. Then sometime this year I discovered that I could watch current episodes on ABC.com, so my weekly trips to her house stopped. That's the only current show I watch. I do turn the television on for 15 minutes first thing in the morning to get the weather, but more often lately I find I don't even do that.

Here's the problem when you disconnect from television like this: pretty soon you can't stand to watch any of it. Last week, when I was in Nebraska, I turned the television on one day while at the hospital with my mom. I watched all of 10 minutes of it (more than 5 was commercial time) before I had to turn it off. It was simply because I could not stand the constant barrage of commercials. I know I've written about this before, so I won't repeat myself here. It's amazing how invasive commercials are.

So when I read Todd Mundt's experience, at first I was kind of excited to read how someone else has discovered that over time without television you don't want it any more, but I was disappointed to find that all he did was transfer one addiction for another. He claims he is still "getting information" through these different mediums, but I can attest that you can get information by other means. Yes, I'm still hooked up through the Internet (and I do pay the $10 extra a month for high speed cable internet), and I find that it provides me a window to the world of information that television cannot. Through other means I can make up my own mind about the quality of information that I'm presented, rather than believe the crap (or even just be persuaded by it) that's pushed in my face on television.

In this household the switch to digital television won't mean a thing. We don't use the TV now, there's no need for us to use it in the future either.

Spring marches on

I flew back to northern California the other day after a whirlwind trip back to Nebraska. As I exited the airport I was immediately struck by the floral smell in the air. It was humid and sticky in Nebraska, as it always is in the spring and summer, but here the air was crisp, and so fragrant! I looked around but could not see where the smell was coming from. Flowers begin blooming here in March or so and continue on until the heat of summer and dry season. Each bloom marks the seasons for me. The Camellias and Wisteria are the first to bloom sometime in March, then comes the Lemon Bottlebrush tree in April and May. But it is the bloom of the Magnolia tree that amazes me most year after year, and it signals to me the end of the lush spring and an ushering in of the heat of summer.

We have two Magnolia trees in the yard. I was curious and did a little research about them. I am guessing ours are the magnolia grandiflora species--that is, the Southern Magnolia. Magnolia trees are ancient; they have survived ice ages and continental drift, and have been around for over 20 million years! They existed before bees, and the flowers developed to encourage pollination by beetles.

Their flowers are short lived, so I take the time frequently to stand and admire them before they disappear. A couple of weeks ago I noticed one of the two trees in bloom already. It stands near the garden bed, and as I was tending my garden I noticed things were dropping like rain onto the ground around my feet. Curious about this, I glanced up, hoping it was not a bird! I was amazed to discover that the bees were busy around each blossom, and as they dove into the flower, they would throw down the stamen to the ground below. Soon enough the flowers will disappear, their leaves will be all around the ground, and we will once again be cursing their cones all over the place. But for now, for these brief few weeks, I stand in awe of this ancient, magnificent tree species with its flowers that span the size of a small dinner plate.

Eggs-a-plenty!

Lately I've been mulling over the idea of raising chickens. Not so much for eating, but for eggs. We have a chicken coop in the back of the garage already, but it has been abandoned for several years. I've been told that raising chickens is easy, and I know it's not against the law here because people all around the neighborhood have chickens, goats, cows, horses and other farm animals. My friend has chickens, and I hit her up from time to time for eggs. Her hens are allowed to roam her property, so the eggs are free range and absolutely delicious. Their yokes are a much darker yellow than store-bought eggs.

Lately my friend has been telling me that one of her hens must be laying on eggs outside the hen house; she knew this because the hen, when she called for it, would come running from behind the garage when all the other hens were already around her waiting to be fed. Yesterday she went out to the area she suspected the hen was laying and underneath a junk pile she found 60 (yes, that's SIXTY) eggs! Now, you would think that all these eggs must have gone bad because the hen(s?) had been laying there for quite some time. Apparently, however, there is a way to determine whether eggs are bad or good.

To determine whether an egg has gone bad you simply have to follow these steps:

1. Fill a bowl with cool water.


2. Gently place the egg into the water.


3. If it drops quickly to the bottom, and lies on its side, it is fresh.


4. If it drops to the bottom, but stands on end, it's still okay to eat, but it needs to be consumed soon!


5. If it floats to the top of the water, toss it--it's a bad egg!

My friend said out of the 60 eggs, she had to toss only a dozen! I was the happy recipient of two 18-packs of these eggs, so I had to experiment to see for myself. Though many of the eggs pointed upward (still okay to eat, but an indication that they're a few weeks old), several were still fresh. I boiled up a dozen of the pointer eggs--eggs that are a little bit older are easier to peel than fresh ones.

After this experience I'm beginning to eyeball that chicken coop with renewed interest!

Gramma's Recipes

Some years ago I stumbled on an old cookbook among my mother's things. It was tattered, torn, and falling apart. Yet, within the book were pages of recipes, many handwritten and food-stained. The handwriting I recognized from old family letters as that of my great-grandmother's. I instantly latched onto the book and held onto it as a cherished family heirloom. Today I was thumbing through the book, and thought I'd take the time to share one of the recipes with you. It is one which maybe we all need to rely upon in these dark economic times:

Economy Cake

Put 1/2 cup sour milk, yolk of 1 egg, 1/4 cake Baker's chocolate in double boiler. When melted and smooth add 1 tbsp. butter 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup sour milk 1 tsp soda 1 1/2 cups flour. Use white of egg for frosting.


That's it. No directions necessary as any good housewife worth her weight knew how to process this recipe!

If you try this recipe, could you please comment and let me know how it went?

California Dreamin'

Well, school is finally done for the semester and I have so many things to do that I've been putting off! I spent some time today raking up some leaves that we abandoned a month ago, and taking them to the burn pile in the back yard. As I was burning the rubble, I began to think about all the lessons I've learned since I moved here to California. I guess that thought popped into my head because I was considering the fact that three years ago I had never gathered sticks and leaves with the sole purpose of disposing of them by fire, unless you count the many campfires I've had. I recall a decade ago being proud of the fact that I got up early once during a camping trip and started the fire all by myself! And here I was today, by myself, standing by a burn pile that I created, I managed, I saw through.

Our lives are full of lessons. One thing I've realized these past few years is that we are constantly evolving as human beings. New challenges come our way, and how we rise to meet them is what creates the person we become. I guess I never embraced those opportunities in years past, but I enjoy discovering what I am capable of, how I handle things, and most importantly, how I can stand on my own two feet and still get by.

As I was waiting for the fire to burn out, I decided to work a bit in the area nearby. It was at this point that I realized that my "voice," or, my "brand" for this blog could include observations of living in Northern California. I was born in Oregon, but I was raised in Nebraska, and consider myself a Midwest girl. On the Great Plains we have few trees--the grassland goes on forever. When I moved to Northern California three years ago I had only ever been to this state three times before: twice to LA and once when my family drove down the Oregon coast, through the Redwoods and over to Reno before heading home. So life here provides new experiences for me daily, and new opportunities for observation.

It is mid-May now, and summer is coming on us hard here in the northern part of the Great Valley. I live just outside Sacramento, on the verge of the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Our weather here is much like the weather is in the Mediterranean. Just down the street from me used to be (before urban sprawl got the better of it) several acres of olive trees. There was an olive ranch there at one time; now all that's left is the house and a few small groves of trees. I had never seen an olive tree before I moved here. The climate here, while second nature to many, always takes me by surprise. This weekend, the middle of May, the temperatures will be over 100 degrees. Granted, this is about 20 degrees over the normal range, but it's not uncommon. To me it is a reminder of the summer to come--hot and dry as they always are, but full of new adventures and wonders to take in.