SECONDHAND NATION

A Fairer Fair: Minnesota State Fair Goes Green

The Minnesota State Fair is one of the largest state fairs in the nation.  Inaugurated in 1859, the Fair is a place where Minnesotans gather each summer to eat fried food on a stick while admiring prize-winning livestock and home-grown or canned garden products, stopping by info booths for free swag bags, listening bands way past their prime (Def Leppard featuring Styx and Foreigner - no shit!) and enjoying chintzy games and rides on the Midway.

I haven't been to the Fair since I was 13 years old.  Not even when we lived just a few blocks away from the fair grounds, nor when one of my editors kicks me free tickets as a thank-you gift for writing for her. 

See, the end of August typically doesn't feature mild, temperate weather and I'm not wild about the idea of walking around in the sweltering heat to stand in long lines and dodge the sweating throngs of people noshing shamelessly on things like deep-fried Snicker bars or Coca-Cola cheesecake dipped in chocolate (both of which are available on a stick, by the way.)

Despite my nonattendance, from a distance I must admit that our Fair is rather bitchin.  If you've never been, you probably should give it a whirl.  The variety of junk food available is legion and you're sure to enjoy gawking at folks with face tattoos and other dramatic sartorial choices, as people-watching remains the unofficial (and free!) activity for all fair-goers.

This year, the Fair is hopping on the green-consciousness bandwagon with even more fervor. 

In addition to Eco Experience in the Progress Center and numerous recycling receptacles throughout the fair grounds, compost bins are now available for the over 50,000 cobs of corn expected to be crammed into fair-goers' pieholes this summer and some of the vendors in the Food Building also volunteered to compost food scraps.

Kudos to the Fair's planners for integrating sound environmental practice into a tradition that has deep roots in agriculture as well as our precious natural resources. 

Blah blah blah - enough with the press release-y junk!

The fact is, trash pile-ups at public gatherings are gross. 

The more the Fair can do to reduce waste while raising ecological awareness to the heavy-breathing summer hoards, the better.  When you combine the August humidity, the hundreds of sweating armpits, the ubiquitous swarms of bees trying to cram their asses into discarded soda bottles AND too much garbage, the result is much more foul than fair. 

(Yes!  Puns!  I'm totally clever! *air guitars*) 

photo:  Lots of People Enjoying the Minnesota State Fair by Amy Mingo

Rainy Day at the Thrift: Savers Edition

I ran into my local Savers on Monday to look for a king size bedskirt.  Yes, I know they are at Target for pretty cheap, but guess what - the bedskirt isn't going to touch my body parts nor will it be examined in detail by me or anyone else.  So it can be used and junky.  As long as it's white.

Which all the bed skirts at Savers were not.  They were zebra print and jazzy purple and sage green and all sorts of wild nightmarish prints, but no white.  Dammit.  I shoulda walked out right then and there. 

But of course, it behooved me to continue patrolling through the rest of the store.  I've got my radar set on a rotating set of key items at all times - there's an interesting discussion of this here on the forum at The Thrift Shopper.com - so I cruised around looking for the usual suspects:  enamel ware, cake whips, pillow forms, crochet hooks, Oaxacan tinwork, non-overstuffed couches. 

However, it seemed like I was overcome by the meanness of my surroundings, like the time a few weeks ago when I inadvertently walked into a little girl's nasty fart cloud. Everywhere I looked there was something depressing and/or ugly transpiring:

• A man pushing an empty cart while picking his nose
• Several shrieking children swarming around their mother's hand-held basket while the mother hollered and careened around wildly
• A man with a mustache wearing very dirty clothes and sporting crust-caked fingernails standing in an aisle with his mouth hanging open

Then, while looking at the cookware, I accidently bumped into a man. 

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Ohhhhhhh," he whined in a voice ten times higher than Oscar De La Hoya's.  "That's ohhhhhhkaaaaaay."

I hot-footed it far away from Super-High-Voice Guy.  His face was too shiny and his eyes too unblinking for my personal comfort.  I dislike talking to any humans in thrift stores, as a rule.  Even when their voices are normally pitched, their visages matte, and their eyes fluttering at acceptable rates.

Another unsettling thing was how there were several customers making themselves at home in the wretched furniture department, parking their bedraggled asses on very undesirable chairs and decrepit, doghair-flecked sofas, reading books.  One of these customers was even taking notes.

This is all fine, of course.  Sit!  Read books!  Take notes!  But the way these customers seemed so comfortable and at home made my heart hurt.  It was like the poor people's version of lounging about in Barnes & Noble. 

Except, instead of soft green silky plush furniture, there was... a mustard-yellow scratchy tweed chair with bald arm rests. 

Instead of the latest Oprah pick, there were...Oprah picks from five years ago. 

(Long Rambling Aside:  What's with the surfeit of Stones from the River and The Book of Ruth?  All of those Oprah picks, melancholic tales of woe about retarded children or rape or AIDS or Haitian immigration or abusive husbands seem poised for a hostile takeover of Savers book department every time I look through it.  But when you consider the amount of tragedy these books contain, can you really blame them?)

Finally, the staff.  The staff looked like they'd like nothing more than a 14-hour siesta in their own greasy, sagging furniture department.  It made me wonder what they've been putting in their meth.

I dunno what it is with the staff at Savers.  Generally, they seem just one more insult away from flinging themselves off the nearest bridge.

Maybe it's the red vests. While I'm not a fan of staff uniforms in any capacity, vests seem to be a particularly cheap and cruel form of employee degradation, a sort of slap in the face to minimum-wage workers everywhere. 

The vest says:

"We don't even care about you enough to make you wear shiny, polyester, ill-fitting pants, like they do at Burger King.  No, we don't have the money to spend on that kind of spangly excess or the will to regulate whatever rags you show up in, as we're just surprised if you do show up.  Wear a barrel with straps for all we care!

"But we do realize that something aside from dire poverty must separate you from our clientele.  Hence, the vest.  Put it on over your own sorry duds, pop on your cheap button nametag and you're good to go.  No, of course we're not worried about people seeing your track marks or jail tats or cigarette burns on your arms.  Wear a mesh half-shirt if you feel the need!  We don't care! You probably won't show up after this shift anyway and that way, we will only have lost the vest.   Now, wipe that smile off your face, make sure you've got a close-toed shoe on and get out there and look round-shouldered and defeated!"

Wal-Mart makes you wear a vest.  Grocery store cashiers have to wear a vest.  Fran Leibowitz chooses to wear vests. Need I continue?

All for want of a white king-size bed skirt, huh?  I've worked myself into a sad lather for nothing.  A typical 99 cent Monday, and it was raining in my part of the world.  May your next thrift adventures prevail on a sunnier day than mine. 

Eco-Crushes: That Dreamy Michael Pollan...

+ SHN = LUV!

If you're like me and get all tingly whenever Michael Pollan comes around or just haven't read The Omnivore's Dilemma yet and want to get all lubed up for the greatness that lies within its pages, have a listen to a talk he gave at the Minnesota Arboretum, courtesy of our pals at Minnesota Public Radio.

photo via Michael Pollan's website

Tomato Time?

 

Is it time yet?  How much longer can the local harvest hold out?  I've got my jars and lids and a fresh copy of the Ball Blue Book.  Is it time to swoop in to my local farmer's market and buy a few bushels?  Do I wait?   

Since I can't shut up about local foodsheds it seems, here's a general guide to the harvest schedule in the United States.  Since it's general and not taking into account the recent weather fluctuations, I'm not sure what to do.  Help!   

Book Review: The Omnivore's Dilemma

If you live in the Midwest and have been noticing little bits of sparkly fluff explosively cartwheeling about the atmosphere late at night, don't panic.  It's not an alien invasion or evil wizards or anything like that.

No, that's just my mind, getting totally BLOWN AWAY, while I stay up late reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Penguin, 2006). 

Okay, I admit that it's not like I never heard of a farmer's market or that I imagined what transpires in modern slaughterhouses to be a day at the beach.  But who knew that over 100 pages on the history of corn in North America could be so riveting?  Or mushroom hunting?  Or just plain old hunting after all?  Did you know that there are wild pigs in California?  The cocktail-party trivia factor alone makes this book worthwhile.

Since I'm late to the party on reviewing, many others have complained that Pollan offers too much description and not enough proscription for us clueless omnivores out there who think food comes from grocery stores, drive-thrus and vending machines.  But getting a feel for the industrial-food business and its strangle-hold on our gullets is unfortunately necessary these days.  Industrial food production is a long and winding chain that has very little to do with nurturing people or the environment for that matter.  You'd think people would be more interested in where the chow they shovel into their maws comes from, but this isn't the case.  Clearly, we've got better things to do, like not read books or continually sit on our asses.

Pollan reviews the ethics of meat-eating , with a primer on animal rights that made me want to read everything written by animal rights philosopher Peter Singer, but manages not to shove down your throat - excuse the pun - any dietary decrees.  After being told that margarine is okay but not to eat bread, I'm a bit weary of magic bullets, thanks.   

The discussion Big Organic left me feeling embarrassed for ever darkening the door of Whole (Paycheck) Foods, not to mention the constant pats on the back I gave myself for buying organic cherries and prebagged and pre-washed salad. 

(Long Rambling Aside:  Uh, let's define what the prefix "pre" really means in the case of the bagged and pre-washed salad.  Yes, it's clearly bagged.  But that little green inchworm I find in there from time to time?  Suggests that my definition of "washed" clearly diverges in a yellow wood with that of Earthbound Farms.) 

What I appreciated about The Omnivore's Dilemma is that the author leaves you asking more questions than you would have guessed you'd need answers to prior to unpacking his heavy tome. But that's cool with me.  Every 15 seconds I am told by some dumbshit from the modern media machine noteworthy proclamations like having fat friends makes you fat or no-shit-sherlock revelations like talking to babies makes them smarter than plopping them in front of televisions.

Enough with this rickety advice masquerading as certainty!  We are a nation obsessed with certainty, unable to sit still through the discomfiting consideration that complex concepts require. We need to wrestle with the omnivore's dilemma for a while, deal with our squirming desire to grasp at the nearest conclusion before making catchy-headline pronouncements. 

Since reading the book, I've calculated the logistics of buying local food and pondered the offerings of my local foodshed.  I've researched food preservation and wondered how I can figure out the proper timing to can and freeze according to the harvest.   I've considered the work involved in changing to a meatless diet.  I've been wracked with guilt for how much household wisdom we have lost, in just a few generations, about how to wrest our meals from nature in ways that don't produce giant lagoons of pig shit.  I'm cogitating and contemplating and making lists of everything I know and don't know.  I don't think I've been as moved to act by a book since I was a rambunctious liberal arts major.   

And I'm not the only one.  A great blog with a great name, The Ethicurean, (featuring an enviably fabulous tagline:  Chew the Right Thing) has been similarly inspired and offers constant comment on the state of our national eating disorder.  The Ethicureans follow the Gospel of Pollan and have introduced me to a great new acronym - S/O/L/E food, which encourages people to make choices that are either Sustainable, Organic, Local or Ethical. 

A pretty good guideline, and quite a ringer, too, with the homonym and double meaning.  But I'm still in the middle of my own personal food dilemmas and will be for some time to come, which underscores again to me what an important book Pollan has written. 

The Human Stain: Fels Naptha to the Rescue!

 

Photo Credit:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USF35-1326]

Slate had a rather prosaic plodding review of stain removers that I normally wouldn't have given a second look.  But now that I'm totally crazy, and making my own laundry soap, I checked it out. 

Mostly they reviewed products that would probably kill you if ingested, which seems to be against my fuzzy logic that I use for proper items to use in my home.

In my recent turn as Laundress, I discovered Fels-Naptha.

Great guns in the morning!  This soap is powerful.  There's a reason parents of old used it to punish their potty-mouthed spawn.

Ever have that menstrual stain in a white sheet that never comes all the way out?  Of course you have.  And so have I, or at least I used to. 

Merely wet the area of the stain (I just run it under the water stream in the washer) and then rub the bar of soap all over the stain ground zero.  Toss it in the wash and WALLAH!  Beautiful!

Purists might object to some of the ingredients in this soap, but I think when you consider the other bullshit put out there by the Dial Corp, this huge retro-slab soap is a pretty solid choice. 

Got nothing better to do?  Tell me about your old-timey laundry practices!  Woo!

The Original Secondhand Nation

 

Want to find out what happens to some of your trash after you roll it to the curb?

Listen to a recent report from National Public Radio's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro about how the tiny island nation of Haiti makes lemonade with our tossed out lemons.

photo:  Waste Dumping in a slum in Cap-Haitien by Remi Kaupp, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The Tag of 8

I've been tagged by Jennifer at Earth Friendly Weddings to post 8 items about myself and pass the tag on to 8 other blogs.

I invented my own format.  Feel free to steal it!

Foods I Won't Eat:  pickles, mustard, mayonnaise, canned tuna, hard-boiled eggs, black licorice

Foods I Love:  coconut, coffee with milk, dark chocolate, salsa, blueberries, peppercinis

Words that describe me:  Armenian/Norwegian blend, short, married, curly-haired, green-eyed, widows-peaked, disproportionately-chestally endowed, stubby-fingered, web-toed, orthodontically-enhanced, silly, bookish, relaxed, mechanically-disinclined

Words that do not describe me:  athletic, serious, drunken, leggy, mature, spontaneous, pious, intense, methodical, precise, social, fun-lovin', perky

TV Shows I Have Enjoyed:  Scooby Doo, Airwolf, Falcon Crest, X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dogs with Jobs, Twin Peaks, Big Love, Weeds, Sex & The City, Oz, CSI, The Office, Family Guy, The Simpsons

TV Shows I Have Not Enjoyed:  Survivor, Top Chef, Modern Marvels, CSI Miami, The Real World, Sopranos, Touched by An Angel

Jobs I Have Had:  50's grill dishwasher, waitress at Little Caesar's & Happy Chef, housecleaner, nanny, emergency room patient receptionist, franchise daycare center minion, Y2K computer compliance checker, Barnes & Noble bookwhore, thrift store supervisor, high school foreign language instructor, corporate temping drone

Activities I Engage In Regularly:  reading books, buying books, reading magazines, buying magazines, thrifting, yard-saling, complaining about thrifting and yard-saling, herb gardening, vegetable gardening, plain old regular gardening, crocheting things nobody wants/uses, making wisecracks at my Husband, dinking around with my 4-year-old, reading celebrity blogs, taking walks, listening to podcasts, avoiding social engagements, dressing inappropriately

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You've Been Tagged: 

Prose Matters

Yard Sale Bloodbath

Everyday Trash

You Grow Girl

Urban Ecoist

Crafty Green Poet

Frugal For Life

Doris Zine Blog

Recycle This: A Blog for Eco-Obsessed

Last month, between the dark lows of Post-Potter Depression and the giddy highs of That Hottie Daniel Radcliffe is finally Legal Age?! Euphoria, I started wondering if I was going totally mental.* 

For one thing, I began wondering what I might do with my used Q-tip/cotton swabs so as to keep them out of landfills.

These types of twilight-hour considerations are not pleasant.  I wavered between thinking that I was becoming an acoustic-guitar brandishing, deodorant-eschewing hippie and the more reasonable idea that I was perhaps merely rising to the challenge that our new green consciousness is raising, which might soon become the standard in everyday life.   

Radical?  Mediocre?  Pervy?  Nuttier than squirrel shit? 

Well, like the fine ladies of Le Tigre once said, it turns out that mediocrity rules.  Apparently, I am not alone in my late-night musings on the rehabiliation of the humble Q-tip.  I should of have known. 

These days, if it ails you, there's a blog that'll cure it.

Next time these pressing recycling dilemmas attack, there'll be no need to flounder and waste time, because I'll just toddle over to Recycle This, a British blog dedicated to finding creative ways for people to re-use or recycle everyday items.

Wallah!  The answer:  How To Recycle/Re-Use Q-Tips...

With the current glut of green blogs, the simple format of Recycle This is refreshing, as well as genius.  The blog itself doesn't deign to have all the answers but merely poses questions for readers on how to recycle or reuse things like old swimming costumes, tyres - wasn't kidding about the British thing, was I? - old jumpers (that's "old sweaters" in American), medication blister packs and used staples.  Then interested readers comment with their suggestions and solutions.  Truly interactive and a godsend for for anyone perseverating over the fate of their manky old hot water bottle.

So far, August finds me feeling much more stable, thank you, now that I need not spend the wee hours speculating on the plight of my empty dental floss container.  May it be so with you as well. 

Now, if I can just get up the nerve to ask that dreamy Daniel Radcliffe to the prom...

*Check out my spoiler-laden review of the last Harry Potter book at Prose Matters.

Reader Recipes: Canning Tomatoes

Our tomatoes are still green here in Minnesota, but my recent foray into seasonal harvesting at Bauer Berry Farm in Champlin has got me all sweaty for food preservation. 

In response to my previous post on canning, reader Edell Fiedler shared with me some recipes she likes to use in the fall with tomatoes.  I'm especially partial to the idea of tomato juice, as I've been gulping that down like crazy lately, with the crazed "5 a day for health!" mantra circling around my brain.

Edell, the book-reviewing bibliophile extraordinaire from Prose Matters, sent me some tomato recipes for all of you lycopene fiends out there.  The first recipe for Tomato Juice is one her husband's grandmother followed. 

"My husband hates tomatoes," Edell writes, "but he'll eat this."

Canned Tomato Soup

15 pounds of tomatoes
3 stalks of celery
2 large onions
1/4 cup green pepper

Process above ingredients in a food processor.

Add the following to the juice mixture:

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup of flower
1/4 cup salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 cup of butter

Bring all ingredients to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Add flour and water mixture (or cornstarch and water mixture) for thickening. Place in clean jars and can using a hot water bath for 15 minutes.

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Tomato Juice

2 quarts tomatoes (blanched, peeled and cut into pieces)
1 1/2 stalks of celery (par boil in same water)
Add celery and water to the tomatoes
Add 1 large onion, cut up
Add 2 garlic cloves, cut fine
Salt to taste

Cook on low heat until vegetables are done. Put into blend and chop fine. Put through a strainer. Put juice back on high heat.  Add worcesterchire sauce to your taste.   Pour into jars, add 1 tbsp lemon juice to each quart.  Process 40 minutes in hot water bath.

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Got any canning recipes you'd like to share?  Email or comment!

Secondhand Nation Artist: Holly Keller & Beeper Bebe

Etsy is the indie craft world's answer to the consumerist behemoth eBay.  An online auction site for artists, DIYers, zine-makers and other creative types, Etsy is a online storehouse of unique and hand-made delights.

In the first of a series of artist profiles, I caught up with newly-launched Etsy seller, Beeper Bebe proprietoress and sewing whiz Holly Keller, who's doing her part to recycle and "reclaim" used materials.

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So, how did you get started crafting, sewing & designing?

How did I start...Brownies in 1979?  Honestly, I have been making things for as long as I can remember.  My mom is very creative and was always making things with me.  I can also remember I used to wake up in the middle of the night when I was a child and I would just lay in bed thinking about all the things I wanted to create -- and sometimes I would even get up in the middle of the night and start making things from old boxes, coffee can lids, pipe cleaners, whatever I could find around the house.  Sewing did not really come until later—although I do recall doing some hand sewing when I was about 10 and making some accessories for my Barbies, little purses and teddy bears and stuff.  I really started sewing in earnest and making my own designs though just a year and a half ago.  And I started hand sewing some dolls and cashmere animals for babies.  And then my mother-in-law donated her old sewing machine to me and I really started sewing in earnest, then.  Guess my corporate straight-guy job just wasn’t doing enough for my right brain.

Tell us a little about what you make. 

I make toys and clothing for children and babies from reclaimed materials—plushies, blocks, t-shirts, onesies, hats, little animals with their own wardrobe, dolls, bibs, booties.  I try to make things that are safe for babies but also things that are cool for toddlers and school-age kids.  My actual patterns are pretty basic, and I like that rustic, sort of made-by-a-kindergartener look.  I use all-natural fibers for my creations, wool, cashmere, cotton, linen.  And I make a lot of animal-inspired designs because that is what my little boy loves.

I really, really believe in the idea of making something from something else that already exists in an effort to be nicer to the earth and our resources.  We have so much stuff in the U.S. and it ends up in the trash or in a heaping box at the thrift store, and I want to use that.  Even when I cut apart a sweater to make one of my toys, I really try to use as much of that sweater as possible—the cuffs will become a little cardigan for one of Mini Menagerie animals, scraps of the multiple sweater hems might be sewn into a bird nest, and I lay my patterns out carefully so as to maximize my use of the material.  I also sort scraps by color and they go into a set of bins and I use those scraps to make little pieces on my bigger Mangy Menagerie animals.  Monkey hands or cat ears or a dog tail.  And the scraps that are too small to made into anything, go into a bag and use that in the stuffing of my animals—I do use about 2/3 fiberfill, but about 1/3 of the filling is actually unuseable scraps.  It is a bit like the Native American philosophy of using the whole animal as a way to demonstrate respect and gratitude for the animal and its place in the earth. 

That's kinda funny - I'm thinking of the Dances with Wolves scene, except now Kevin Costner is looking at a prairie covered in discarded ric-rac and ribbon.  What made you decide to make children's toys and goods over other types of products?

I dunno.  I guess because I have always been interested in toys, really.  And after my son was born I was really struck by how artificial and electronic and unoriginal so many toys are.  There is no heart in a Leap Frog learning pad or whatever they are.  And I was really drawn to the timeless quality of so many European toys, but could not afford them.  So I just started designing my own.  I like to make colorful onesies or tees with funky sayings on them because [my son] Julian is cooler than a plain baby blue onesie with a little car on it and should wear a bright orange tee that says, "I am the lizard king.  I can do anything."  [Keller also hand-dyes secondhand-onesies that have ironed-on funky quotes, which she calls Use Your Words Onesies.]

I know by day you work for corporate America - how has your work as a freelance artist and crafter been thus far?

Yeah.  It has really been quite unexpectedly and weirdly wonderful on so many levels.  I just did not expect to be so positively received since I really felt like I was bungling through making these toys on my sewing machine…and did not have a clue what I was doing.  But I have been in the Powderhorn Art Fair as a community artist, the Seward Art Crawl, the Minneapolis Women’s Art Festival and the No Coast Craft-O-Rama since I started making toys.  And have been approached by several retailers wanting to carry my toys - I do sell to Quince Gifts in St. Paul - but do not really sell to other retailers at this time because I just find that I like to make what I like to make when I want to make it, rather than filling an order for a hot pink cat.  I was also featured in an Eco-Chic spread in Minneapolis-St.Paul magazine this past year, which was cool.  I've also found the arts and crafts community to be really supportive — I  had a textile professor approach me and ask to take photos of my stuff at an art fair because she thought it was such a great example of a use of textiles.  And I've been approached by someone who works in social services asking if I would consider teaching a class on how to make one of my animals to people with developmental disabilities.  It has just really been a cool experience doing this.  And of course, I just launched my Etsy shop.  So be sure to come by and visit while I still have loads of stuff out there.

Where do you get your inspiration for your designs? 

My son.  He really is my muse.   He was really into elephants when he was about one year old so I had to make an elephant design for him.   And I love to see which of my designs he is most fascinated and attached to when he comes prowling around my workshop — right now it is my ABC snake.  He is in my workshop about every day, digging out the snake and trying to make off with it.  But I am also inspired by so many of the other crafters and toy makers out there on Etsy and Softies Central.  Discovering other people who did this was like an epiphany to me. 

I love the work of Missy Ballance who makes these fabulous and queer mohair bears at Mohair Circus.  And I love Abby Glassenberg's work - she really has moved beyond toys into sculpture with fibers.  And there is this shop called Odkins on Etsy and I think the weird and simple designs are brilliant.  Today, in fact, I just discovered this toy maker on Softies Central called Fern Animals and am in love with her deconstructed-looking plushies.

Where do you find your materials? 

Thrift stores mostly.  But friends also give me their old sweaters.  And I save about everything that could be recrafted into something else:  cloth ribbons on packages get saved for ties on a hat, an old white linen shirt with a stain on it will become the body of a doll, a shoe box will get covered in some funky paper and become the storage box for one of the Mini Menagerie animals.

Can you tell us some of your favorite places to search for good stuff? 

Mostly Savers.  I spend loads of money there and I am sure they think I am some eccentric, like those old ladies who have a million cats and their home is overflowing with cat fur and cat toys and empty food bags…except they probably think my house is overflowing with sweaters.  I am surprised they have not called social services or something on my behalf. 

What is your favorite part about the Beeper Bebe enterprise? 

Dreaming up a new design, drawing out the pattern on butcher paper, then sewing it up and seeing my vision of it made flesh. [Or made "plush"?  Couldn't resist!  -- Ed.] I was so excited when I made my first Mini Menagerie animal from a secondhand tweed suitcoat that I had to go wake my husband up in the middle of the night so I could show it to him and force him to gush over it while still half asleep.  But I do also enjoy meeting people at art fairs and craft shows and seeing them go off smiling with one of my animals.

So, what's next for Beeper Bebe - any dreams or ideas for the future you'd like to share?

I want to create a book of designs and patterns — a guide to making your very own Mangy Menagerie.  And I want to be a main exhibitor at the Powderhorn Art Fair next year because that would just be a huge accomplishment.  And then I want to make about five more toy designs I have lurking in my brain.  And after all that I want to retire and become a cowgirl.

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Want to see more?  Click the links below for more Etsy and Beeper Bebe goodness!

Etsy

Beeper Bebe on Etsy

Front Yard Gardens: A Stealthy Approach

Ellen Simon's article on Front-Yard Gardens gives anyone who's ever considered moving their vegetable patch front-and-center a view of how it might be received.

I know our foray into the front yard went quite nicely, but that perhaps was because we started small. 

I created a flower bed surrounded by paver stones and then the Husband stealthily went behind that and set up some bamboos vineposts and three tomato plants.  Nicely disguised!

(Short Aside:  Is my lawn dry enough?   Do I care?   What's the difference?  I'm too lazy to water it, so I chalk it up to being eco-sensitive.  Good tactic.) 

Also unnoticed by my neighbors is my daughter's bean plant that I added amidst the riot of flowers in the same garden bed.  Meant to be her first garden, the entire plot featured annuals she picked out herself, with a few additions from me and the bean seedling she grew in a baby food jar at preschool.  I know - you're dying of the preciousness of it all.

I also am growing garlic chives, rosemary and thyme right under my neighbor's noses and nobody seems to mind.  I think the best approach to moving a comestible garden to the front lawn is to go slowly and intersperse the food plants with the ornamentals.   The whole boiled frog principle.  By the time they notice you've got an entire grape arbor/rice paddy in your yard, the neighbors will have moved out or retired anyway.   

It's Not Heaven, It's a Church Rummage Sale

Why I Heart Church Rummage Sales

Church Rummage sales are usually staffed with kindly elderly folks. 

Church Rummage sales often feature hot-dog and pop lunch stands. 

Church Rummage sales often feature pricing by item type, not individual pricing, which means absolutely fabulous deals.

Church Rummage sales sometimes feature plants.  One-stop shopping!

Church Rummage sales always end with glorious $1 bag sales. 

Church Rummage sales are often run by people who aren't savvy to high-end shopping or brands, which is a boon to thrifters and eBayers alike.

Church Rummage sales are never held during worship services. 

Church Rummage sales usually feature all types of items, unlike most individual garage sales, which are usually focused on a select type of merch, like all baby/kid items or just tools, etc. 

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I just hit a bountiful, beautifully-organized church rummage sale at St. Phillip's Lutheran Church in Fridley, MN, near where I live. 

Mein Gott.

They had everything.  Furniture, tools, lawn and garden gear, dishes, kitchenware, linens, appliances, small electronics, lamps, art and wall-hangings, clothing, toys, housewares and knick-knacks.  There were special boutique rooms for jewelry, collectibles, holiday items and books.   There was the standard hot-dog-and-a-pop stand, too;  I noticed a mom and daughter lunching on soda and hot dogs as I walked out with my haul, a large box that cost $9.25. 

Here's what 9 and a quarter can bring home to you when you break it off, Church Rummage Sale Style:

A linen skirt, two ceramic Mexican suns, ceramic Mexican pitcher, bowl and ashtray, a vintage dishtowel, a set of plastic funnels, an enamel spoon, kitchen clips, a vintage cake whip, a jar of coconut oil, four plastic spatulas, 11 canning jars and set of rings, a green ceramic bank shaped like a pig, a cheese grater and copper measuring cups for my home-made laundry soap project, a vintage lap desk toy, vintage stationery set, a map of the world placemat and two blank notebooks.

Jesus really does love me!

Local Blueberries

Listening to Barbara Kingsolver discuss her new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, on Krista Tippett's Speaking of Faith program (check your local NPR listings) got me totally wound up.

Here I am, in the beating aorta of the heartland, and still buying foods from the grocery store!   My ambitions for next year's garden shot up into the stratosphere. 

Of course, then I got blueberries on the brain again.  There are tons of pick-your-own operations across the nation - check listings by state at Pick Your Own - and in Minnesota, you can find many of them here at the Minnesota Grown directory.

The Bauer Berry Farm in Champlin, Minnesota, was the closest pick-your-own blueberry site I could find.  Still, it is a good 40 minute drive from my house.  After much math, factoring in gas and time and the rate at which complications cause motivation to atrophy and die, I popped up on a Saturday morning, tossed a coupla of buckets in the car and went out to pick.

The Bauers have a pretty well-oiled machine out at their farm and with sweet corn season just revving up, they had plenty of help on the premises to serve people.  With my big blue bucket, a little guidance on picking technique ("Pick the blue ones, avoid the pinkish-purplish ones, just twist between thumb and middle finger and let them fall into your bucket") and three hours under the sun, I picked myself 10 pounds of blueberries.

They're triple-bagged to protect from freezer burn (after all that work, squatting and twisting and lying beneath the bushes, they are totally precious to me) and may not look like much, but I'm betting the first winter day I meet with a bowl of steaming hot oatmeal and some juicy blue berries will be quite satisfying.

Somehow eating local, picking the low-hanging fruit, as it were, has been snipped from national memory.  It's no longer intuitive for us, when foods are in season. I remember only eating grapefruit and oranges in the winter.  After February, my mother told me, they weren't any good.

This is still true.  But somehow, we still think we're entitled to put anything on the menu, at any time.  If it can be picked and plopped on a plane, we think it's fine to eat it.  The result is that we get pink baseballs for tomatoes and strawberries that taste like wet newspaper.  Eating in season - not a drastic concept, people.  Yet here I am, in 2007, struggling to relearn it myself.

Get more local eating inspiration with the originators of this movement, the Locavores, see how it can be done at One Local Summer and then put yourself to the test with the Eat Local Challenge.

I'd be interested to hear from readers on eating local.  I myself won't be able to do this quite yet;  I'm setting up grow lights to create a mini-coffee plantation in my basement.  It's either that or move to Kenya.