Posts tagged ‘home stuff’

What’s good in Thorne’s World today? Well, what isn’t? Haha! Really, a positive outlook can change the way we view things, can’t it?

It’s a GOOD morning in Thorne’s World!  Man, it better be after the last one.  That was a rough couple days in some ways. Maybe it was just the dregs of my winter sleepies after me, but I’ve been soooo tired lately!  Not tired enough to sleep early really (I’m rarely that tired, ol’ night owl that I am), but too tired to get up in the morning no matter what time I went to bed!  Laying there peeking out from under the covers at the clock… 9….10…11

“Please ma… just 5 more minutes!!”

Spring must be comin’!  I can feel it in my bones and in the way I’ve been waking up at 7:30 even when I didn’t get to sleep ’til after 2; and waking up feeling GOOD!

That’s OtGF in Thornesworld for today!  I did 2, count them- 2, Thursday Thirteens this week!  My regular one here, on Getting Ready To Garden that has me sooo fired up! And another over at my new blog, The Eclectic Witch on 13 Daily Practices of a Practical Witch, that really got me in gratitude mode and thinking about my attitude and outlook.  Ya know how sometimes ya go along and just take shit for granted?  Not just other folks, but yourself? You start feelin’ like somehow you’re not doing enough, or maybe even being enough?  Writing out that TT reminded me of who I am and what I do.  It was good for me! (And it made the front page on most discussed topics over there, so a big GOOD Thank you to everyone who visited and commented!!!)

This morning I popped in at Shelly’s place to see what was goin’ on for OtGF, and she’s talkin’ about gardening and has a link to another gardening blogger who is trying to start yet another really good thing!

Give What You Grow

Here in Thorne’s World we almost always end up growing more than we can eat (or more than I can keep up with freezing and canning), so we have been giving away our surplus to The Salvation Army and local Homeless Shelters and Soup Kitchens for years.  This is a really GOOD idea and nutritionally it beats the hell out of sending in that can of over-processed green beans (although of course giving whatever you can is good).

Thorne’s Garden this year is, in large part, only happening thanks to the generosity of my good neighbor, R.  R. isn’t in much better shape financially than we are, in some ways worse.  He’s got the VA trying to help him save his mortgage right now.  But when I told him I couldn’t even afford seeds this year and that I would be crossing my fingers and casting every spell I knew on my old saved seeds in hopes of getting a few to germinate he came over with his carefully stored seed box and shared seeds with me.  12 varieties of tomatoes, 6 different watermelons, cantaloupe, spinach and beets and squashes, pumpkins and bok choy and rutabagas!  What a doll!  Now, that’s good!

I could just keep ramblin’ on… I just feel that good today, but Imma quit now and go work on my Ancestor Altar.  I have painting and decopage and decorating to do!  Creativity and honoring and loving my dead is GOOD!

Peace, Out!

*edit. Dayum! All this good writing has my Gematriculator, (You know, that thing up there in the sidebar that tells you all how EVIL I am??) down to an all time low of only 32% evil. Shhhh… I’m not changing it. We’ll just go on pretending (pretending is good, right?) that I’m a badass 41% evil! Buahahahahaaaa

Won’t you join us?? Help spread the good love for Only The Good Friday!

Leave the link to your good in comments and I’ll repost it here! Thanks for participating!

So I was over at BlogOnSmog the other day and I left a comment about my own environmental efforts that included this blurb about my home heating:

We switched to propane BBQ-ing some years ago, but I still by necessity use a wood fireplace to heat my home. We do have an insert, which maximizes heat retention and output.

It’s one of the things that has actually been itching at my conscience for awhile, but that I sorta made a decision to be an ostrich about. That’s actually unlike me, where environmental issues are concerned. I am a sincere proponent of, in the very least, taking responsibility for one’s actions. Change is all well and good, but awareness comes first, then desire, then change.  And sometimes we are simply unable or unwilling to make a change, and we have to live with that.

Eat meat?  Okay, as long as you are aware and take responsibility for contributing to the wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of animals. (I do)

Vote Republican?  Hehe… well, you get the idea.

So anyway, after making that comment, the wood burning issue was in the front of my mind, instead of just whispering at me from somewhere in the nosebleed section.

I thought that I felt pretty okay abut my wood burning, for a couple of reasons.

1) We only burn wood that would end up in the landfill, and tree trimmings and dead wood of our own.

2) We NEVER burn painted, treated or compressed/glued wood products.

3) We have a fireplace insert which maximizes heat retention and output.

And 4) the worst, but truest reason of all: For us it’s either burn wood or freeze.  We can’t afford to put in propane heaters and there is no natural gas pipeline system up here.

Tonight I’ve been doing a lil research on the question of burning wood for heat.  Now, I have to say that as usual when doing web research, I’ve had to wade through a shitload of crap published by folks with an agenda, but in the end I’ve decided that for us, burning wood for heat is pretty okay as far as our carbon footprint is concerned.

I’m not so sure I buy the whole “decaying trees put out as much Co2 as wood burning” argument, since decaying trees also contribute to a whole ecosystem that can’t thrive without them.  I do however, think that the articles discussing the carbon footprint of the corporations supplying natural gas and propane probably make the consumer’s share significantly higher than the emissions of the fuel alone.

Most important to my personal wood burning Co2 output is my awesome, ass kicking fireplace insert!!  When I bought it and installed it in 2000, I have to admit that my primary concerns were economy and effectiveness.  I am simply tickled to death to discover that it is also SUPER efficient from an environmental standpoint.

Mine is lots dirtier than this one

I love mine because it has the whole fan thing which circulates the warm air in the room, (and the fan is thermostatically controlled, so it’s not just whirring away using juice if there’s no heat and someone forgets to turn it off) and I love that it has both damper and draft, which appeals to my thrifty as well as my eco-freak self.  (Damper allows me to control how much heat goes up the chimney: open to start the fire, then closed to maintain it.  Draft controls how much air I feed my fire, which conserves wood) And now I love it even more!

Here are a couple of the many places I went to research:

Great discussion leading to many other research topics (with many dissenting opinions, which Thorni loves)

A CSM article

An environmentalist’s guide to responsible wood heating

(Most of the info here I found substantiated elsewhere, but this was a great link for lots of info in one place)

So anyway, I’m a happy gal enjoying my fireplace tonight.

Okay, I think I did it.  Found a WW title that isn’t a meme.  Maybe.  If I’m wrong, and you followed some meme tag here feel free to stop reading now. Hehehe.

Killer Dust Bunnies

Wandering it is.  My mind is wandering all over the place today.  The house has gone to shit these past few days because I’ve been playing WoW, blogging and reading blogs for hours on end.  Do you see those freaking dust kitties??  That’s from only 2 days not sweeping the floor.

Check out my blogroll, eh?  No, seriously!  Invite a bit of mystery into your life.  I have purposely added a shitload of new links over there, many of which titles do not do not clue you as to the topics covered within.  Take a chance.  Click.

Last night and today I’m having another of my occasional bouts with Blogdentity Crisis.  This happens to me when the traffic bug bites me, and also when I read so many incredible themed/topic blogs.  My ego grabs me by the pubic hair and begins flinging me around screaming shit like:

“Theme, thornie!  Theme!  Remember how many hits you got back when you were ranting about politics, feminism, the politics of feminism. et al…”

“  Oh my Gods! A lesbian Lifestyle award!  Why aren’t you writing more about your life as a lesbian in a hick town?  What happened to your gender questioning posts, your observations, rants and raves?”

“Art!  OMG!  Art is your life, Thorni!  Why not write more painting, sculpture and general art stories?”

“Hey Thorne!  You could really jump on this eco-bus theme.  After all, it’s a constant issue and focus in your life out on Pair-O-Dykes Ranch!”

“Magick!  Why in the hell, as a 30 something year practicing, occult studying pagan freaking witch don’t you jump onto some of these pagan blogrings and write what the fuck you know?”

Sigh…

Well, (I answer my ego) um… because…

Does your fridge reflect your personality?

Because I don’t fit in a box.  Because I am indeed an eco freak, a feminist, a witch, a pagan, a queer, an artist, (and so much more) but none of these things define me in and of themselves.  Because, to limit myself to a theme or the expression exclusively of only (or mainly) one of my many aspects might… diminish me somehow.

So instead, my few and dear constant readers, I continue to share with you blibs and blabs.  Bits of this and that as my fancy is stricken.  And literally hundreds of good ideas for posts go unwritten.  That’s probably the fucked up part.

(Continuing this stream of consciousness rambling)

You know, a lot of people who like to attack environmentalists/ism like to point out that many of us are simply recycling and reusing out of need.  Because we’re poor.  ( Which is just the way of the right and rich to justify their wanton consumption IMO)  I am poor.  Not by world standards, by any means; but it is quite a challenge to live here on the Ranch.  I wonder if those folks have ever compared the prices of say… environmentally friendly anti-freeze compared to the cheap stuff.  Or eco-friendly cleaning products.

And if, indeed “time is money“, the cost of recycling and reusing is high.  Check it out:

Carry a bag of bird waste to the dumpster (headed for the landfill) -30 seconds.

>>>vs>>>

Carry it to the compost pile.  Separate out any non biodegradable bits (like pieces of plastic toys).  Mix into compost with rake and shovel.  Water compost. -15 minutes

Go to Lowes or Home Depot and purchase chemical fertilizer or “organic compost” Bring home.  Unload.  Open bags.  Dump in garden. -half an hour

>>>vs>>>

Hook up trailer to truck.  Drive to Horse Ranch.  Fill, one shovel at a time, trailer with composted manure.  Drive home.  Unhook trailer and block wheels. Shovel poop from trailer to screen for sifting.  Break up clumps of manure and sort out bits of glass, wire (horses eat anything) toss rocks. Haul wagons full of sifted poop to beds and dump. – 2 hours

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Time!  Do you realize that in our language we do indeed constantly equate time with money?  Seriously.  We “spend” both time and money.

Here on the Ranch there is never enough time.  Fuck money; it’s time I want.  Time to do a million things that need doing and a million more that I want to do (there is a bit of overlap there.  A lot, really.  I actually want to do most of the things that I need to do)

I want to:

Get this old place sealed and weatherstripped for both indoor climate control and dust prevention.

Finish the drywall, texture and paint in my bedroom.

Build labyrinths with e.

Get the sweat lodge up.

Get started in the garden.

Sort more junk, organize more junk and make more art.

Tile the kitchen floor.

Finish the counter tile and cupboard doors.

Blog more.

Read more.

Play WoW when my daughter and Hubby are playing.

Finish my second novel.

Edit my first novel.

Submit both for publication and/or find an agent.

Get the front landscaping done (or at least as done as I can with the humungous amount of yard art I laready have)

Get the outbuildings repaired and organized into storage sheds and art studios.

Holy fucking shit.  That’s only a tiny fraction and we are but two lil lezzies in the great out west.

So yeah.  My blog is like my life, really.  Eclectic and mysterious and mostly, I hope, fun.

Peace, out!