Brooklyn Feed

I passed this interesting installation walking down Metropolitan Ave. in Williamsburg Brooklyn. I think it would be amazing if everyone grabbed a tree and added it to the installation to make a whole hanging forest. It’s in a particularly ugly empty space under the highway, which could use some beautification.

When does being frugal turn into hoarding? I keep coming back to this question lately.

Both my husband and I tend towards being pack rats. I think it’s my European roots, but I hate throwing perfectly good things away. It just seems so wasteful. We both like to hang on to things that we think may be of use down the road. We don’t have drawers of used nails, or twist-ties, but things get crowded quickly when you live in a small space.

We have a technique we use to get rid of “perfectly good” junk. We hang it on the fence outside our apartment building and usually within minutes it is taken. It makes me feel good that that item isn’t being carted off to a landfill. But we still have clutter. We don’t have stacks of newspapers piled up on our floor, but we do keep a section to use to start our bbq. I don’t have mountains of craft supplies, but I usually have what I need to start a project on a whim. I am slowly trying to weed out books we haven’t read in years, but I like to hang onto my reference books (canning, chicken keeping, cooking, nature guides, etc.)

I can’t figure out how to live with less stuff without throwing things out and then having to re-buy them later. Certainly the obvious answer is to not buy things later. Learn to live with less stuff. See The Story of Stuff, which is a great video. Having a kid adds to this stuff exponentially. My daughter is constantly being given gift bags at parties and school, which are filled with cheap plastic toys. This stuff makes my skin crawl because it is fodder for landfills. Zerowastehome’s blog details how she has taught her children to refuse these things. I admire her, but I’m not quite there yet.

I know I hang on to things for sentimental reasons as well, but  I think that’s what makes a house a home. Personal items that mean something to you. A friend of mine who has a very uncluttered home once said to me that she would come here to help me de-clutter. She would hold something of mine up, I would tell her the story about it, and then she would throw it away.

And, honestly I know I’m not a hoarder. I had a relative who was and it goes far, far beyond having a messy or cluttered home. It’s just in reading about the approaches psychologists use to help change the behavior of hoarders that I see similarities:

• Make more reasonable judgments when deciding if an object is worthy of keeping or not.
• Learn how to make quick decisions on whether to keep an object or toss it.
• Practice discarding items while sorting through the intense emotions they trigger.

Contrary to what you might think, Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn is a lovely place to spend a fall afternoon. We decided to go there this weekend to see if we could find any hen-of-the-woods mushrooms. These mushrooms grow under oak trees in the fall, and I thought there would be many old oaks there. I was right, but the place offered so much more.

We saw the fabled monk parrots when we first arrived. Their story is that escaped from a container at Kennedy airport and have taken up residence at Greenwood. You can see photos of them here.

We actually saw very few mushrooms considering the vast quantities of rain we’ve had. There were a few hen-of-the-woods, but they were old and woody and uprooted. I think the groundskeepers are too efficient to let big mushrooms grow there. But the day was beautiful and it was like walking in a lovely park.

I guess this falls into the category of “How did this get past the focus groups”? Nothing like insulting your prospective buyer.

If you live in most of the US, you will probably be surrounded by snow. It’s easy to grumble about how hard commuting, parking, etc. is. I am guilty of it as well. Here’s a video a friend of mine made with his kids. They live in Minnesota and when we spoke to him, the temperature was -27F. And, no, that’s not with windchill factored in. Kind of puts whining about 18F in perspective, eh? We tried it on one of our coldest days and it mostly worked. Take a peek.

His daughter says it’s steam, but I’m pretty sure they made snow.

Cold Weather Fun from Martha Lazar on Vimeo.

Yesterday was Lindsay’s 7th birthday. We celebrated at a local bowling alley with a big group of her friends. It was fun chaos. Lindsay asked for a bowling ball-shaped cake, so the blue ball was just for her.

And to continue the silly fun, here’s a ridiculous video that we’ve been laughing over.

After a lot of talk of 20″ of snow and school closings, we got much less. They said we got 9″ in Central Park, but I think we got about 6″ here in Brooklyn. Much to my daughter’s chagrin, school wasn’t closed. She was told that if she slept with her pjs inside out and a spoon under her pillow, there would be a lot of snow. She felt totally cheated this morning. But the walk to her school was beautiful.

My chickens hate this weather. They don’t like standing on the snow, which is seriously limiting their range. I’m going to have to dig my way out to them later this morning.

Have you ever seen such sad and depressing snacks in your life?

Tweety doesn’t look nearly as happy as he did before he was frozen solid.

And seriously what sick-o came up with this idea? Clear-cut candy. Really it will be fun for the kids! And the poor rabbit running for its life because all its  habitat has just been destroyed by the pipe-smoking lumberjack isn’t depressing. It’s cute and appropriate for children.

All winter-long, we have been congratulating ourselves on making it through the entire winter without getting sick. I’m sure you can guess what’s coming…pride comes before the fall, and all those other pearls of wisdom.

Neil brought the cold home, then I got it and now it looks as though Lindsay has it. Although at the age of 6, she’s cluing into the whole “if I’m sick I won’t have to go to school” thing, so I’m not sure exactly how sick she is. I thought I was better and then yesterday I got sick again. Don’t ask me what it is, I have no idea. We usually say we’ve been bitten by the tse-tse fly when we get one of these mysterious illnesses. Achy joints, tired and probably a bit feverish. Today is better, but I’m still mostly flopped on the sofa. I’m even watching daytime tv, which I’m not sure helps to make one feel better.

I decided to watch the Martha Stewart show because next tuesday I will be in the audience. They are doing an urban farming segment (and I think its even specific to chicken keeping) and they want all audience members to be urban farmers. The even asked if we would bring a chicken with us to sit on our laps. The thought of having a chicken struggling and pooping on my lap for 2 hours isn’t too appealing, so I think I’ll go solo. I’ll figure out when the show airs so I can see if they pan to the audience.

The other thing I didn’t do while I was sick was to hold my book giveaway. So today I would like to announce that the winner is Jess. I will be in touch with Jess to get her address.

Thanks for the comments. I love hearing about unusual wildlife interactions. I think I posted in the fall about our stand-off with a raccoon. We had friends over for dinner and were eating in the garden when a raccoon climbed down the ivy on the side of the building next to us. It kept trying to eat my chickens and they were running around freaking out. The little bugger was determined and not scared of us at all. We were spraying it with the hose and tossing bricks near it, but it was determined to eat chicken that night. In the end it gave up and left, but it came back several more times after that. I’m sure we will see it again now that the weather is warming up and we’re trying to eat outside more often.

When I was a kid I loved to stay up late and watch Saturday Night Live. I was usually pretty tired because it was way past my bedtime. It was always a bit unsettling when I was watching what I thought was a real commercial only to realize it was a spoof that was part of the show. That is how I felt the other night when I was watching tv and there was a pro-high-fructose corn syrup (hfcs) commercial. Unfortunately Neil wasn’t home, so I didn’t have anyone to turn to and scream, “Did you just see that??”

The video above is one of the commercials the Corn Refiners Association is running on tv. They have spent 30 million dollars launching this pro-HFCS campaign.

I find the commercials disturbing because of course they appeal to morons, who haven’t read anything about food in the past 20 years. But I also think it’s a good sign that the corn refiners must be getting hit  with bad press. Otherwise they would never have coughed up $30 million.

Just in case you are like the woman in the video and can’t think of reasons why HF Corn Syrup is bad, click here for 4 very good reasons to avoid it.