Criminal Veggies

Do you have rogue, criminal vegetables in your neighborhood???


With all that has been happening this summer, between selling at six markets a week, working with the high school to maintain their herb gardens, keeping our own herbs in line, and making product to take to the markets, I havent had a lot of time to dedicate to my blog.

But I couldn't, just absolutely couldn't ignore this when I saw the story.

This is a local story... Oak Park Michigan, about 40 miles away from us.

Julie Bass, a homeowner in Oak Park, recently had her front lawn torn up to do some work on a sewer line.

Instead of replacing it with grass, she decided to plant a garden.

What a great idea!

What an opportunity, to instill a love of home gardening in the next generation. To follow the example set for us by the wife of our very own president, Michelle Obama, who planted gardens at the White House.

So, Mrs Bass, called the city and asked if she could plant a garden in her front yard. The helpful employee told her that since nobody had ever asked before the answer was probably not. She called another employee and was told that only "Decorative plantings" were allowed.

Mrs Bass was unable to find any rule or law that prohibited vegetables in the front yard, so the Bass family hired a contractor to build attractive raised beds, landscaped around them, added stones and ornamental elements and planted their vegetables.



Like I said, a great idea!

Unfortunately, the city of Oak Park didn't think it was such a good idea.

They sent her a warning, telling her that her vegetables would have to be moved to the back yard.

Back to City hall she went, seeking the ordinance that prohibited vegetables in the front yard. But alas, there was no ordinance to be found. The city ordinance says that " all unpaved surfaces shall be covered with grass, shrubbery, or suitable live plant material."

Apparantly a code enforement officer had decided that, absent any legal definition, vegetables were not suitable live plant material.

Mrs Bass was cited, and charged with a misdemeanor. She has now been informed that since she requested a jury trial, the city prosecutor intends to ask for the maximum penalty, which could be up to 93 days in jail.

That's right, 3 months in jail for planting a garden.

In her blog, oakparkhatesveggies Julie writes:

"rumor has it that the city will not back down on our case because they are afraid it’s a slippery slope.

i’m not sure what that means, exactly, in the context of our garden. are they afraid someone might decide to grow bigger tomatoes? more aggressive strawberries? i have heard whisperings that they are afraid of… (imagine the most menacing vegetable possible!)- corn. yep. if they give us permission to have a garden, someone might grow corn.

so, i guess based on the need to protect the citizenry from rampant cornstalks, they are probably right to be concerned…

i’m being sarcastic, in case you haven’t read this blog before…"

I spent the last hour reading her blog and shaking my head in amazement.

I have seen some boneheaded things done before, in the name of government, but this one breaks the cake.

When people started to find out about this, letters of encouragement started coming in, prompting Mrs Bass, to discuss with her attorney how people could best help her cause.

It was determined that the best thing those who are not local could do is make sure that their local news agencies get the story. Make sure Oak Park knows that the entire nation is watching with bated breath to see if they will really put a mother in jail for 93 days for planting a garden for her children.


So here you have it. I am officially letting the city of Oak Park know that I and my readers are watching.

Perhaps you can do the same.

You can read the story and watch a newsclip here

ABC 4.2.8 T

OK, Here it is, ABC Wednesday time again. This is the day to join in the ABC Wednesday Challenge, and share a little bit of our world with friends all over the world, and learn about them as well, one letter at a time. You can participate too, in either the sharing, or the learning, or both, by visiting ABC Wednesday,Where this week, the letter is



But first, for those who collect my signs, here are the last two, I have been terribly delinquent, and have missed two weeks.

If Denise finds out, I will be in so much trouble!





Now, on the the letter T.

I wanted to talk about the THREE TYPES of THYME that we are growing this year, but then I realized that we have four, not three, and I could never admit that I have more THYME than I thought I had.

After all, we are all short on THYME.

So instead, I decided to repost an old, old, post from way back in the dark ages on my blog.

This originally appeared in August of 09, when I had less than 10 loyal readers, so I though I would share it with you now that I have made so many new friends.

T is for ...

TIRES!

OK, This post has nothing to do with herbs.

For some of you this may be boring, for some it may be interesting, for some it may be a review, but I wanted to share it.

We had to replace the tires on both of our vehicles this week. They have both been riding on a wing and a prayer for several thousand miles. The Original Equipment tires for our F150 were rated for 40,000 miles and we just passed 60,000 on them.

As for the tires on the Ranger, I have no idea how many miles they had, but they were dry rotted so bad that they were starting to leak, and I had to keep adding air to two of them. We put it off long enough. It was time to bite the proverbial bullet and buy new tires.

Some things to keep in mind when buying tires.

When comparing the cost of tires between different dealers, make sure and ask for "out the door" pricing.

Some shops will charge you for mounting, balancing, valve stems, old tire disposal, and anything else they can sneak in, while others will just charge a flat rate for tires. This is important to know when comparing prices.

For example. WalMart sells tires. They charge $5 to mount and balance, $2 for new valve stems, (they won't mount a new tire without a new stem) and $1.50 to throw away your old tire. So there is a minimum of $8.50 per tire added on to the price they quote you. They also do not include sales tax in their quote. So, a tire that they sell for $100 will cost you "out the door" $114.51. That $14.51 doesn't seem like that much until you multiply it by 4.

If a Mom & Pop shop tells you $450.00 out the door, for four tires and Walmart tells you the tires are $100 each, the Mom & Pop shop costs less.

The most important thing to remember however, above anything else, and I cannot stress this enough.
Never, ever let a salesman sell you a tire with a lower service description than your vehicle had originally. Even if they have them on sale, for a really great price, this is never a good deal.

How do you know your service description? It's one of that big string of numbers on the side of the tire. Have you ever looked at all those numbers and wondered what they mean?

Because I delivered tires for years, all those numbers made sense to me, but it occurred to me, as I was tire shopping, that not everyone delivers tires for a living. Before I had that job, those numbers would have all just been a meaningless stream of mumbo jumbo.

So, let's take a minute and explore the number on the side of a tire.

Our F150 Tires are P265/70R17 100S

For those who like secret codes, get your Goodyear Decoder Ring and lets go to work. First let's break the string up a little.

P -- 265 -- 70 -- R -- 17 -- 100 -- S

Now lets go to work:

The first letter indicates the service type, or what the tire is intended to be used for.

P = Passenger tires.
They could also say "LT" for Light Truck.

The difference between Passenger and Light Truck Tires, is the thickness of the rubber in the sidewall of the tire. An LT tire has a thicker sidewall and can hold more air. This allows your truck to carry more weight without damaging your tires. If you haul a lot of weight, if you use your truck for industrial work, or if you pull a fifth wheel trailer, LT tires may be a better choice.

If you use your truck mostly for light hauling, P Metric tires (as they are commonly called) will do the job just as well, and, as they have less rubber in the sidewalls, they will be a little more flexible and therefore will ride a little smoother.

If the first letter is a "T", these are temporary tires, such as an emergency spare, and are not intended for long term use or for highway speeds. (In the tire industry, these Mini spares are often referred to as Donuts)

"ST" indicates a Special Trailer tire, designed for use on a trailer. These tires should never be used on cars or trucks.

There may not be a letter at all. In that case, you probably have a Euro-Metric tire. Although they are used mostly in Europe, a few have found their way here, mostly on mid sized SUVs and mini vans. Euro-Metric tires are comparable to "P" metric tires, with only very minor weight differences.

The next number is the tread width.

265 - Means that the tire is 265 Millimeters across. This is the measurement of the amount of tire that touches the road, and not, as some people believe the width of the tire from sidewall to sidewall.

For those of us non metric people, 300 millimeters is about a foot, so 265 is about 10 inches. Those of you who are perfectionists can figure it our exactly if you want, but for most of us, That's close enough.

The next number is known as the Aspect Ratio.

This is a fancy term for the height of the sidewall, or the distance from the road to the rim. This number is a percentage of the tread width, so 70 means that the sidewalls of my tires are 70% of 10 inches, or about 7 inches tall.

The R indicates that these are Radial tires.

This used to be much more relevant than it is today. Most tires on the road today are radials.

This is a reference to the internal construction of the tire. There are cords, generally steel or fiberglass that run back and forth inside the tire and add strength. Radial tires have those cords running straight across the tire, while Bias ply tires have the cords running diagonal and criss crossing.

Radial tires get better fuel economy, and wear longer, since the cords do not rub back and forth against each other as the tire spins. Bias tires are almost obsolete.

The next number is the rim size.

For whatever reason, tires are measured in millimeters, but rims are measured in inches, so 17 means my rims are 17 inches across.

I was never much of an artist, but this may help:


The final numbers are what is known as the Service Description

The first part is the weight capacity and the second is the speed rating.

There are charts and tables available to break down service description codes, in fact you can find a good one, (and a lot of other helpful tire information) here
Click Me

By looking it up on the chart, I can see that the 100 S on my tires means that each tire can carry up to 1764 pounds and be safe at speeds up to 112 miles per hour.

If I ever decide to drive faster than 112 mph, I will run the risk of overheating my tires. My tires are simply not capable of dissipating heat at speeds higher than 112 mph.

Of course I also run the risk of getting a ticket, losing my license and having my wife take my truck keys away, but those are all insignificant when compared to a blowout at over 100 mph.

So, to recap,

P265/70R17100S Breaks down like this:

P..........Means my tires are designed to be used for standard highway use,
265/70......are about 10 inches wide and about 31 " tall (7+17+7)
R...........are radial tires
17..........Have a 17 inch opening in the center
100......And should be safe carrying a vehicle no more than 7056 lbs (1764 X 4) S ..........at speeds of less than 112 miles per hour.

Now that you understand my tires, you should be able to figure out your own. Armed with a basic understanding of what the numbers mean, you should be better equipped next time you have to go to the tire store. Remember, knowledge is power.

And the most important thing to remember? Above everything else, do not EVER put tires on your vehicle that have a lower service description code than the original tires.

If you do, your tires will not be designed to carry the weight of the car at the speed the car is designed to run.

Putting a lower Service Description tire on a car is like asking for a blowout.

As for the rest of the numbers, be familiar with what they mean on a general basis, but a good rule of thumb is to just buy the same size, and type that the vehicle came with.

You can find more helpful information about tires at these places:

How Stuff Works

Tire Tech, Tire Info.

If you want help with metric conversions, a handy guide can be found here:

Memorial Day 2011

Some call them veterans, I call them heroes.


The men and women who have answered the call when it came.


Who placed themselves in harms way.


Who wore and wear, our country's uniform.


From those brave colonists who took a stand against the British Government in our revolution, to those who fought side by side against neighbors and brothers in our civil war, to those who answered the call, and fought in WWI and WWII, to those who fought in a series of less and less popular wars in the last 60 years, and all those who wore the uniform in times of peace.


No matter why they wore it, no matter what they were asked to do, they are part of something bigger than themselves.


They are part of the great force that stands between me and the loss of everything I hold dear.


I thank them each for their service, pray for their safety, and dream of the day when their service will not be necessary.




Yeah, he's my brother, yeah, I'm proud of him.

Have a Happy Memorial Day everyone.

ABC.4.2.8 Q Quandary

OK, Here it is, ABC Wednesday time again. This is the day to join in the ABC Wednesday Challenge, and share a little bit of our world with friends all over the world, and learn about them as well, one letter at a time. You can participate too, in either the sharing, or the learning, or both, by visiting ABC Wednesday,Where this week, the letter is


But first, several people have told me that they like the little letter signs I make each week, and are saving them and using theme in teaching, so since I was away from my files last week and couldn't make the letter "P", I promised I would do one this week. So here it is:



Now, back to Q.

I am in a bit of a quandary and I need advice from my loyal readers.

I recently got some new herbs to add to our garden, among them soapwort and some medicinal herbs that are good for skin conditions: Feverfew, Lamium, Yarrow, along with the Comfrey we already grow.

So I wanted to make some herbal soap and shampoo to sell at the Farmers Market.

There are a couple of different directions I can go with this, and I need some advice.

Traditional soaps are made by adding Lye to fats and oils. This causes a chemical reaction, called saponification, which makes the oils water soluble and solidifies them so the can be molded into bar form.

A by product of saponification, should one choose to take the steps to separate and reclaim it, is s substance called glycerin, which is used a lot in making clear soaps and liquid sops.

Soaps made from glycerin, or saponified fats have a very low water content and are relatively shelf stable.

But they are made with Lye, which is a harsh chemical. Although the lye is no longer present in finished soaps, it is, nevertheless a component of the process.

However, using soapwort root, I can make a soap and a shampoo that are lye free and chemical free. I can use herbal extracts and tinctures to add the herbal elements.

These are a water based solution, and as such have a short shelf life. They should be kept refrigerated and will last for about 2 weeks. Or I can add a chemical preservative, glycerin based, that will prolong the shelf life substantially.

So that is my QUANDARY.

And here are some QUESTIONS:

Do I sell a chemical free soap product, that has a short shelf life, or do I add preservatives?

Or, do I sell a dry package that can be added to boiling water, allowed to stand for several hours and then strained? Kind of a do-it-yourself shampoo kit?

Or do I just go ahead and use traditional saponification methods with lye and oils to make bar soap?

Would you rather buy a completely natural chemical free product, that must be refrigerated and will only keep about 2 weeks, or would you rather buy a product that is mostly natural, but has a few chemicals to prolong shelf life?

This is my QUANDARY.

I need your help...

Hidden Treasures.

Today I am going to be joining my very favorite blogger in the whole world, Diann, at The Thrifty Groove, for her recently adopted blog party, Thrifty Things Friday.




While camping this last week, I had to go into town to get a few little things and I stopped at the library, just to see what it was like.

Like we always do when we go to any library, I looked at their used books for sale. I found one I liked, A gardening book, so I took it to the desk to pay for it.

The librarian suggested that I look in the cabinets in the back room, where they had more books that wouldnt fit on the shelf in front. So I did, and I found a treasure trove!



Any one of these books would have been enough to get my attention, but all of them at the same time made my heart all aflutter and my knees weak.









And then, just when I thought it couldnt get anybetter, what did I find???





And to top it off...






And the best part...

Softcover books are 10 cents, hard cover 15 cents, so I paid 15 cents each for these books.

A quick tally of cover price shows these books at right around $195 if I bought all nine of them new.

Now, head on over to The Thrifty Groove, to see the finds, steals, bargains, deals and thrifty escapades of other reades this week.

ABC.4.2.8 P Parade

OK, Here it is, ABC Wednesday time again. This is the day to join in the ABC Wednesday Challenge, and share a little bit of our world with friends all over the world, and learn about them as well, one letter at a time. You can participate too, in either the sharing, or the learning, or both, by visiting ABC Wednesday,Where this week, the letter is

Sorry, I'm away from home so I dont have all my fancy files to work with so I cant do my regular letter with the ASL, Braile, Morse Code letter on it, I'll do a P for next week.

Speaking of being away from home, we spent the weekend at the Maple Syrup Festival, which ended with a PARADE.


(Does it PERTURB anyone else that nobody seems to stand up anymore when the flag goes by?

This PARADE had everything PARADES need to be successful:

PATRIOTS


PETS
(Yes, It's a goat, so what?)


POLICE CARS


PRINCESSES


PLAYHOUSES


PONIES


and a PINK TRUCK.


What more could anyone want??

ABC 4.2.8 O

OK, Here it is, ABC Wednesday time again. This is the day to join in the ABC Wednesday Challenge, and share a little bit of our world with friends all over the world, and learn about them as well, one letter at a time. You can participate too, in either the sharing, or the learning, or both, by visiting ABC Wednesday,Where this week, the letter is:



This weekend we head up to OPEN our trailer for the season.

It will also OPEN the market season, as we kick off a weekend selling herbs and crafts at the Maple Festival.

We have five OPEN AIR markets scheduled this year, so once the Farm Market season OFFICIALLY OPENS in about six weeks, I will be at the market every Tuesday through Saturday until OCTOBER.

But what I really wanted to talk about today was OLIVE OIL.

There are many ways to make Herbed Olive Oil.

Some ways are wonderfully safe and some are an invitation to botulism.

Which should we choose?

OK, that was OBNOXIOUS.

Lets review, the way to make Safe Herbed Olive Oil.

First of all, any herbed oil can be kept in the refrigerator from one to three days and be reasonably safe.

But beyond that there are some things to keep in mind.

While herbs themselves do not make very good hosts to botulism, water does. Any herbs with a high water content are more prone, therefore, to Food Borne Bacteria.

How do we start?

Well, there is no secret recipe to share. But here are a few tips.

The intensity of the flavor varies with the season, whether the herbs are wild or domestic, how the local growing conditions have been, etc. The oil will pick up the flavor fairly quickly, in the first few weeks, and then slowly intensify. It is fine to leave the herbs in for a long time; eventually all the flavor leaves the herbs and the oil flavor stabilizes.

But remember: It is unsafe to put anything in the oil that contains any trace of water or moisture. That would include garlic, lemon peel, fresh peppers, fresh herbs and spices.

Now I know, somebody will come along and tell me that their Auntie Grizelda has been making lemon peel and basil oil with fresh garlic and jalapenos for years and hasn't died yet. So maybe the odds are only 1 in 1000 that I will get sicker than a dog.

That may be fine for the other 999 people, but I always seem to be the 1 (except for when it comes to lotteries), so please be safe.

If you choose to use fresh dense moist ingredients, just make sure you store it in the refrigerator, use all the oil within a few days, and never, ever keep it longer than a week.

If you simply MUST use fresh garlic, pickle it first in a strong vinegar and salt solution. Commercial brine used for this purpose is as much as four times stronger than traditional pickling brines.

Or,(and this is the method I prefer) you could dry the herbs and other ingredients first. This will remove the water, while leaving the essential oils intact. A food dehydrator is faster than sun drying, and for this purpose, the less air exposure time your ingredients have the less chance they will have to pick up any other bacteria, so wash them thoroughly and dry them in a dehydrator. In order to dry Garlic completely it should be sliced thinly. Big chunks don't dry thoroughly throughout.

Try putting sprigs of dried rosemary, and thyme, and a dried red pepper into a bottle, then filling it with olive oil and capping it. Make sure you sanitize all your utensils and containers before you do this.

Oil made this way should be stable in your refrigerator for several months. But if you just make a small bottle at a time, it will never last long enough to worry about anyway.

Use it over potatoes, fish, on meats to be grilled, on bread, or get really creative and use a tablespoon of it to scramble eggs.

Once you taste it and start using it, it will be gone before you know it.