Grow food not junk

My husband and I have chosen to retire in his hometown of Lafayette, Indiana.  Indiana has some pretty nice people and Lafayette, though it is a big city, has a small town atmosphere to it.  We like the cultural diversity and we like the fact that important things like stores, restaurants, parks, etc. are conveniently close to us.  Nothing is more than a ten minute drive for us.  We live in the city, but our house is on a corner lot on a dead end street.  The front yard faces the city street, but our backyard is almost like living in the country.  Our backyard is quiet and a perfect spot to sit and watch the birds who frequent our many bird feeders.

We have noticed that most of our neighbors have backyards too.  Steve and I decided to turn part of our backyard into something useful.  Rather than mow a lot of grass, we feel it is much more productive as a vegetable garden.  Most of our neighbors, like us, are not real well off.  We have been wondering why they too, have not turned their yards into a useful garden.  The price of meat and produce in the local grocery stores isn't getting cheaper, so there is nothing more satisfying than the feeling of feeding yourself and your family.  

We have looked down our street since we moved in and we notice a lot of neighbors do not like to mow grass, they allow it to get quite tall and to the point of the city having to send them letters to mow it.  We wonder why this is.  One, or more neighbors, have even taken to placing junk not just in their backyards, but also on the street.  We mean junk, stuff that neighborhood kids could very well get hurt on.

 This is so totally uncalled for

I don't care how someone was brought up.  Hoarding junk on the street and in your backyard for all to see, making your neighborhood look rundown, is not acceptable.  We may all be a bit poor in this neighborhood, but we don't have to wear signs advertising we are poor and for too many, smack of ill breeding to boot.  It's what my Mom used to call: "Pooping where you eat."  Stop it!  Steve and I hate to mow grass too and besides, we cannot eat grass and we view it as useless.

Many people are going to say: "But I don't know how to grow vegetables, I have no tiller, my soil is poor."  Well the list of excuses can go on and on.  How do Steve and I do it?

The soil in our backyard is clay only about four inches down.  We looked on Craig's List and found a person who will till any size garden plot for only $45.  We had checked rentals of tillers and the price was as follows: $45 for delivery of a tiller, $45 a day for the use of it and $45 for the rental people to pick it up.  Hell no!  So the $45 we spend for the gentleman to come till it up with his tractor, was well worth it.  If you do it right, the $45 tilling is a one time expense. After it was tilled, we knew we had to build up our soil in order for anything to grow.  We decided to do French Intensive raised bed gardening.  We piled the pulverized soil into six mounds and we purchased organic fertilizer at $1.09 a bag.   We bought six bags (one for each raised bed) for a little over $12 total.  

Raised beds work very well for keeping the fertilizer just where you will grow plants.  This way not one drop of it gets wasted on walking paths.  Raised beds stay light and airy and are so much easier to weed and to water.  

 Our raised bed garden, picture taken today.

We cannot afford to continue to buy organic fertilizer so I place all of our used coffee grounds, along with any green organic scraps, into an old coffee can and when full, I spread it around plants, covering it with soil as I go.  We now have turned bad soil into a good growing medium, full of worms.  Oh, did I mention that with enough worms, you need to till or fertilize much less because they will do the work for you, making your job much easier.

Even if you live in an apartment building, you can grow a lot of food in containers.  Almost anything can be painted and used for growing vegetable or herb plants.  Even on a small scale, you will save money at the grocery store with each less fresh food item you would normally buy.

 Our zucchini plants in full bloom

 Our cantaloupe plants from seeds.  We have an entire row of them.  Melons now cost $4.00 each in the stores.  The seed packets cost us just 10 cents each.

 Beautiful tomato plants.  A friend of Steve's gave us six of the plants.  But we do have two volunteer plants as big as these, growing also.  You can direct seed tomato plants in good soil, for about 10 cents for an entire pack of seeds.

 Nothing is more satisfying than sitting on our back porch watching the vegetables grow.

Zinnias in the front yard.  Another 10 cent seed packet.

We were reading, today, that someone broke into a community garden, in Lafayette, near the Boys and Girls club and stole a bunch of vegetable plants.  Seriously?  Is this how people are being brought up these days?  Grow your own in your own backyard.  Anyone can do this, no excuses.  Give it a try.  Beats the heck out of mowing useless grass. 

 

Social Work in a nursing home,you're too fat

Available at: Amazon.com

Kindle edition

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There is a book about Social Work in a nursing home that gives you details concerning MDS charting and much more technical information.  While that's nice, those are things you will be trained on while on the job.  What you cannot find in most books is how to really do a good job in a nursing home by having a good attitude about dealing with residents, coworkers and families, all of which you encounter on a daily basis.

Now while I do not fat discriminate, lord knows I too have struggled with weight, I do have a problem with large dietitians who will tell residents and families: "Mary Smith must lose weight and is being placed on a 1500 calorie a day diet."  The dietitian at the last nursing home I worked at, was telling us about a recent seminar she attended and was surprised that most of the dietitians attending were, in fact, very over weight.  The dietitian at our nursing home weighed around 120 pounds.  She asked how can anyone seriously take losing weight advice from fat people?  She has a good point.

Back when I was a nursing assistant, my class was taught by a nurse who was obese.  She told us: "This is how to lose weight.  You need to watch your calories and get your heart rate up enough to burn fat."  She was 250 pounds at the very least.  Seriously?  All of us in the class discussed that topic over lunch that day.

The VA has told my husband he needs to see a nutritionist about a sensible diet.  Many of us have been there.  While waiting for an appointment, we have been more active, eating more sensibly and our tummies are slowly melting away.  

Like many people I knew what and how we should be eating, I simply ignored it for too long.  I was a vegetarian for over 15 years in my younger days and weighed around 113 pounds for most of my adult life.  Once I got older, I decided to enjoy many foods I had denied myself and consequently, put on the pounds.  Most of us do know how we should eat, but do not always go there.  

As a Social Worker, you might encounter an over weight dietitian telling residents how to lose pounds.  It will be difficult when residents and families ask you how they can believe or take such advice from a person who is clearly not eating right.  "Physician heal thyself."  Comes to mind for me. 

A couple living on the line

I have no delusions that in retirement, my husband and I are, as the author John Steinbeck said: "Temporarily embarrassed millionaires."  No, we are not.  There is an entire young generation that likes to think 'all retired people have money.'  They are delusional then, not us, but we pay rent, eat and figure out how to juggle funds on a limited income.

Our food budget for the month is around $250 to $300 per month.  We stock up on basics and we make pretty good meals out of what we can afford.  We have a chest freezer which was worth every dime we spent on it, which was only $152.  We stock it for the month and pick from that, the food we use for meals.

I have been sharing recipes on a budget on Blogger for some time now.  Those aren't just 'look, these are tasty meals' they are the meals on a budget we use each week, each month.  If we can do it, so can you.  We make all meals and snacks at home and we go out to eat for something special, hardly ever, so when we do, it's a treat and fun.

Today we are baking chocolate chip cookies which we will snack on for several days.  I will share the pictures and recipe here.  We think these are the best chocolate chip cookies we have ever made.  
 Recipe for chocolate chip cookies:

1/2 cup softened margerine
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup of all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream butter, shortening, sugars, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Combine flour, and baking soda, add to creamed mixture until well blended.  Stir in chocolate chips and chopped walnuts if you like. Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.   Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown. 

 Cookie dough

Finished cookies

 

 
 
 

What's for dinner?

Steaks with tomatoes, onions and peppers

Picked up a wonderful old, cookbook at a yard sale not long ago.  I adore old cookbooks because they bring back memories for me, great smells in my Mom's kitchen, making me hungry when I'd come home from a long day of playing or school.

So many dishes that 'just don't taste like Mom's' but now I have grow kids saying the same to me.  That makes me feel good when they call and ask me 'how did you cook that?'

Well this one is one of my Mom's recipes but I plan to do at least one recipe from the yard sale book, per week, maybe more if I can.  I now have more time and I discovered I love cooking from scratch.  Bon Appetit!

Steaks with peppers, onions and tomatoes:

Three to four steaks, either cube steaks or any cut you enjoy

Two medium size cans of tomatoes with garlic and onion, or just plain tomatoes, whichever you like

Course ground pepper to taste

One medium green pepper, chopped

One medium to large onion, chopped

In a skillet cook steaks, peppers and onions until steaks are brown and done

Add the two cans of tomatoes and cover skillet, simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes, adding course ground black pepper to taste

Place on a plate and serve with a baked potato and a fresh green salad.  Delicious.

Cook time about 20 to 30 minutes