Author: louisaenright

I am passionate about whole, nutrient-dense foods, developing local markets, and strengthening communities.

Mainely Tipping Points 23: TAPPED: Bottled Water

Mainely Tipping Points 23

Note:  This essay is the first in a series of 3 essays on water, which started with viewing the documentary TAPPED and reading Elizabeth Royte’s BOTTLEMANIA.

TAPPED:  BOTTLED WATER

The movie TAPPED demonstrates that drinking water and bottled water are much more complex issues than I had realized.  I had been somewhat aware of industry’s ongoing attempts to commodify water.  I was aware that an argument was raging about whether access to drinking water is a human rights issue.  (Only one percent of available water worldwide is drinkable.)  Apparently the World Bank places the global water market’s value at $800 billion. 

I was beginning to hear more arguments about local watersheds being part of the public “commons.”  Indeed, TAPPED  begins with the history of Nestle massively pumping water from local springs in the Fryeburg, Maine, area, bottling it, and selling it under the Poland Springs label.  This pumping is draining the local watershed.  The Fryeburg municipal water system has experienced periods when its system goes dry suddenly.  And, the property values of local people living alongside a steadily diminishing lake have dropped.  Nor is Fryeburg benefiting financially as Nestle’s business is wholly private. 

Battles like the one between Nestle and the citizens of Fryeburg are happening in small communities all across the United States as industry tries to legally define its control of local water.  Nestle alone sells the following regional brands:  Ice Mountain, Zepher Hills, Deer Park, Ozarkia, and Arrowhead.  By 2007, bottled water in America had become a $11.5 billion business for, mostly, three big corporations:  Nestle, Coke, and Pepsi.    

Much bottled water is pumped from municipal tap water (40 percent) or its sources.  Industry then sells tap water back to consumers at 19 times the cost of their tap water.  Remember, those same consumers have already paid municipal water taxes. 

Sometimes, industry pumping of municipal water occurs nonstop during severe droughts where local people are living with necessarily stringent water mandates.  Pepsi pumped 400,000 gallons a day of municipal water in Raleigh, NC, during the 2007-2008 drought.  Coke, during Atlanta’s 2007-2008 Level IV drought, pumped 118 million gallons of water from a local lake source of Atlanta’s water.  The pictures in TAPPED of what’s left of this lake show the enormity of what has occurred. 

Industry employs both misleading bottle labels suggestive of pure water and expensive advertising campaigns to convince citizens that bottled water is cleaner than tap water.  Barbara Lippert, an Adweek Media critic, observed in TAPPED:  “Bottled water is the greatest advertising and marketing trick of all time.”  And Susan Wellington, president of Quaker’s U. S. beverage division, is quoted in TAPPED saying that “when we’re done, tap water will be relegated to showers and doing dishes.”        

But, is bottled water safe?  TAPPED covers the three major issues:  the nonexistent government regulation of bottled water, the water inside the bottle, and the bottle itself.  The latter two issues conflate since the bottle can and does taint the water it contains.

First, bottled water is largely unregulated.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no jurisdiction over bottled water produced and sold inside a single state.  It’s no accident that most bottled water is produced and sold within single states; that’s why there are so many local brands.  Further, the FDA has only one person overseeing all regulations over bottled water, and that person has other responsibilities as well.  Also, the bottled water industry is not required to submit reports to the FDA and is not required to report internal testing.   

Tap water, on the other hand, is highly regulated and is tested many times a day.  Yes, it may contain fluoride and chlorine mixtures, but those chemicals can and should be filtered out.  And, the practice of adding fluoride—a known toxin—could be stopped. 

Second, TAPPED reports that the National Resources Council tested the water in over 1,000 bottles of water and found bacteria and chemicals, including arsenic, in unsafe levels.  Another independent test of seven brands in two separate labs was analyzed by Dr. Stephen King, an epidemiologist and toxicologist at the University of Texas.  Dr. King found the results to be “horrifying.”  The labs found benzene, vinyl chloride, styrene, and toluene—all highly dangerous carcinogens which are also capable of adverse reproductive outcomes.  Toluene, used in gasoline and paint thinner, is a neurotoxin. 

The two labs found three different types of phthalates, all of which pose dangers to unborn babies and to both males and females.  Phthalates are endocrine disrupters.  Dr. King said bottled water was particularly risky for pregnant women and young children.  Plus, as TAPPED documents, there have been many bottle water recalls over the years.

The water bottles themselves have major issues.  Extreme health problems occur within people living near manufacturing plants, the toxicity of the bottles’ material components is not fully known, and the pollution caused by careless bottle disposal is colossal. 

Eighty percent of plastic water bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate derived from crude oil.  Labeled PET or PETE on the bottom of the bottle, this chemical is in the benzene family.  Devra Davis, in THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER (2007) devotes many pages to the terrible dangers for humans from the benzene family and from vinyl chloride.  So, when we buy a water bottle, we become partners with industry in harming people living near manufacturing plants or working within them.   

The 2007 work of William Shotyk, director of the Institute of Environmental Geochemistry at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, shows that PET bottles leach a deadly toxin called antimony which has chemical properties similar to arsenic (Randy Richmond, “Toxin leaches into bottled water in PET containers,” http://medicine.org/toxin-leaches-into-bottled-water-in-pet-containers; Adam Voiland, “The Safety of PET Bottles, July 26, 2007, U.S. News and World Report News). 

Antimony can cause headache, dizziness, and depression in small doses.  In large doses, it is lethal in a few days.  PET bottles, Shotyk reveals, continuously shed antimony, so the longer water is in the bottle, the higher the levels of antimony. 

Critics pose that the levels of antimony are below accepted safety levels, but recent work on Bisphenol A (BPA) by University of Missouri-Columbia scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons shows that miniscule amounts of BPA are dangerous for humans.  BPA, note, is used to make hard plastics, like the 5-gallon water bottles used in water coolers and baby bottles. 

So, in short, we do not know exactly how dangerous antimony is or if other chemicals are being leached into bottled water on a regular basis.  Additionally, Wikipedia analysis poses that antimony might be an endocrine disrupter.   

Reusing plastic water bottles is not wise.  Water bottles with narrow necks makes washing difficult and can result in both the build-up of unsafe bacteria levels and in increased leaching of toxic chemical from the plastic.  

Third, Americans consume 80 million single-serving bottles of water daily, but only 30 million end up in landfills.  Once in landfills, municipalities and taxpayers—not industry–have to pay to process them.  The rest of the bottles—50 million of them daily–are massively polluting the environment, especially the oceans.  (

States with bottle deposits do get more returned bottles, but they still have to fund disposal.  This situation is a classic example of how industry externalizes its costs.  And, I’m beginning to understand that if a product is cheap, elsewhere, other people are paying personally the actual costs of production.  

I bought a stainless steel water bottle with a narrow neck a few years back.  But, it seems, some metal bottles have plastic coatings inside.  I’m going to replace this bottle with one of the glass water bottles that has a reinforced webbing on the outside that helps prevent shattering.

One thing is for sure:  I’m never buying bottled water again.

Turkey Tracks: Making Yogurt is Easy and CHEAP

Turkey Tracks:  January 13, 2011

Making Yogurt Is Easy and Cheap

Yesterday morning  when I tasted the yogurt that had been “making” overnight in the oven, I was, again, reminded at how absolutely delicious it is when it is just fresh, when it has not yet been chilled.  This batch had thickened up to a custard consistency, and it was like velvet on the tongue.  John and I each had a big bowl of it drizzled with nonheated local honey and sprinkled with some dried fruits and “crispy” nuts.

CRISPY NUTS:  Crispy nuts have been soaked in salted water over night and dried in a dehydrator or an oven on very, very low heat until “crispy.”  One does this process to remove the phytates present in the nuts and seeds.  Phytates can inhibit the full absorption of nutrients in a serious way.  Plants are way more chemically powerful than people realize.  Put the nuts into a large bowl, fill it with water, and add about 2 tablespoons of salt.  Let them soak from 12 to 24 hours.  They will swell up.  Drain them and dry them.  I prefer to dry my nuts in a dehydrator as it’s easier than my oven.  I never burn the nuts, which are expensive, in the dehydrator.  I got a cheap one for about $30.  But, it’s plastic, and since I use it all the time and since I’m learning that plastic off gasses around heat, I’m saving for a good metal dehydrator.   You can read all about phytates in Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig’s NOURISHING TRADITIONS, which is a book that, among many other things, attempts to recover lost food preparation practices.

Anyway, here’s how you make yogurt so that you don’t even have to dirty a pan.

Milk–I use a half-gallon at a time.  And, of course, I’m using “real” milk.  Try to find milk that is NOT ultrapasteurized as it might not culture.  Ultrapasteurized milk is cooked milk; it’s a dead product.  You can read all about it in my essays.

2 packets of “yogamet”–which is a dried cultured yogurt product.  It comes in a box.  Inside are individual packets.  Look for it in the cooler section of a natural foods store or Whole Foods.  Trader Joe’s might have it.  After your first batch of yogurt, save about about 1/4 cup of yogurt for your next batch.  Yogurt you’ve cultured yourself begins to make the thicker, custardy yogurt that is so delicious–though all the yogurt you make will taste really good.  One packet will culture one quart of milk.

Find a big bowl–non metal–that will hold your milk.

Turn on the oven to 200 degrees, and when it reaches that temperature, turn it off, put your bowl inside and cover it with a plate.   (No plastic or foil please.)  Close the door and go to bed.  In the morning you will have yogurt.  On very cold days, sometimes mine is still too runny.  I put it in a warm place (like under a cabinet light or on the stove or back in the stove with the oven light turned on) and give it more time to jell.  You’ll know if it’s still too runny.  It will not spoil if you leave it out until it jells, and it will jell eventually, as it’s cultured.

****

Greek yogurt is just yogurt with some of the whey–a clear liquid–drained out.  You can make yogurt cheese by draining off all the whey.  Whey is full of protein, though, so when you drain off the whey, you are leaving the milk solids and fat behind, and they need protein to process properly in your body.  So, don’t eat too much Greek Yogurt.

I often drain some of my yogurt to get some whey.  I use it to culture sauerkraut (see that recipe elsewhere on this blog); put some in homemade mayo to culture it so that it lasts for weeks in the refrigerator; use a few tablespoons when soaking dried beans, grains, or flour; and so forth.  Whey is an amazing preservative and a detoxifying agent.   You can drain yogurt by putting a paper towel, a napkin, or some cheesecloth in a colander, putting in some yogurt, and placing the collander over a deep bowl to catch the whey.  I put a plate over the colandar.  Whey keeps for weeks and weeks in the refrigerator.  And yogurt cheese is great drizzled with honey and served with dried fruit (dates!) for a dessert.  Or, drizzled with olive oil and herbs for a spread.

Most prepared yogurt in stores is not only expensive, it is full of additives and sugar.  It is “jelled” with pectin, for instance.  And, the smooth taste comes from seaweed additives.  It won’t even drip out whey.

Wait until you taste your own yogurt.  You’ll understand what has been lost.  And, now, found.

Turkey Tracks: Pomegranate Ploy, Clementine Bliss, and Bioregion Efforts

Turkey Tracks:  January 11, 2011

Pomegranate Ploy, Clementine Bliss, and Bioregion Efforts

That big red fruit in the middle is a pomegranate.  It’s actually a berry with seeds.  It’s full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.  The seeds are delicious.  About the only thing wrong with it is that the only place it can grow in the United States is California–which means I’m eating food out of my bioregion, shipped here from many miles away.   Actually, pomegranates are from a really hot-weather plant that grows in the tropics and in, I think, places like the Middle East and India.  Nevertheless, I buy one or two a year for the sheer pleasure of eating the seeds.  They pop in the mouth, releasing a juice that I love.

For years, I didn’t know how best to clean them.  It’s really easy when you know how.  Just cut them in half–top to bottom–and put the halves in a large bowl or pot filled with cool water.  Push the leathery back of the fruit into the center where the seeds are, while pulling at the sides.  The seeds will begin to pop out, and the rind and white fibrous bits inside will float to the top where you can skim them off.  When you’ve got all the seeds free and the debris scooped off, strain the seeds.  I often put them on a towel to soak up excess water.   They refrigerate well for some days, if they last that long.  Children love this whole process.    

 

 

Another fruit that is NOT in my bioregion is the clementine.  And, I love them to distraction.  They begin to appear in our market in mid-fall.  And I cannot seem to resist buying them.  They come in little wooden boxes that are a composter’s nightmare.  What a waste of wood and effort.  Here’s a  bowl of them on the kitchen counter:

And  here’s what happens to them in short order as both John and I eat them as if they were cheeries:

 

What else falls into the “out of my bioregion” conundrum?  Avocados.  Almonds.  Bananas.  (Enjoy those because industry reduced bananas down to one variety which now has a disease that will wipe them all out in a predicted number of years.  I forget exactly why–it has something to do with establishing root stock since the plant maybe does not grow via seeds–but there isn’t much of a viable solution to the problem.  Here’s a real important lesson about monoculture agriculture.)   Coconuts.  Dates.  Olive oil.  Lemons.  The pears in the fruit bowl came from Washington state.  As do a lot of the apples in the local, non-supermarket stores where I shop.  That’s a shame because Maine has really good apples.     

Mercy!

I am trying to improve how I can stick closer to my bioregion in the winter.  I freeze local fruit, and my freezers are full of it.  It’s so yummy in yogurt smoothies.  I freeze raw apple cider when I have room.  More and more of our farmers are raising winter greens in hoop houses now.  Even my cold frame is full of them.  Instead of olive and coconut oils, I can make better use of animal fats (chicken and duck fat, lard, tallow, and BUTTER!!!).  I put up fermented cabbage (sauerkraut) which makes a little raw-food salad on the plate for us.

Here’s what a recent dinner plate looked like:

 

The green beans and lemon came from away, of course.  I could have used my own frozen green beans, but we usually put them into soups.  The sauerkraut is from the jars I showed you in an earlier blog.  The butter on the beans, squash, and very-lean grass-fed sirloin steak is local and made from real cream (not pasteurized).  Our bodies need fat to process lean meat.  If you don’t supply the fat, your body will have to pull its own enzymes to process the lean meat, which robs the body of needed nutrients.  The squash was locally grown and was delicious.

So, I’ve gotten this meal at least half-way into my bioregion.  It’s a start.

What I absolutely refuse to buy is any produce coming from outside the United States.  Right now there are all sorts of fruits and vegetables in our markets from far-flung places like Israel and the Phillipines.  That carbon footprint is way to deep for me.  And, I’m highly suspicious about the quality of that food anyway.  That kind of food makes the Florida and West Coast food seem a little more appealing.  

But, in the end, I want to support our local farmers.  I want to create an interdependence in my own community as much as I can, because I do believe that the days are numbered when we can afford (in many more ways than just our pocketbooks) a food system that ships food all over the country and the world. 

Now I understand why my mother talked about the joy of getting an orange or some almonds in her Christmas stocking.       

Turkey Tracks: Jane Smiley’s PRIVATE LIFE

Turkey Tracks:  January 9, 2011

Jane Smiley’s PRIVATE LIFE

 I finished reading Jane Smiley’s new novel PRIVATE LIFE (May 2010) last night.

I highly recommend it.

It’s the work of a mature author writing at the top of her form.  It’s engaging at all levels:  character development, plot, mystery, profound engagement with issues and ideas. 

It’s a bit of an epic, since it chronicles the main character’s life from teenage years to mid-sixties–beginning in the late 1880.  Margaret is well on the road to spinsterhood in a small Missouri town 300 miles from St Louis, when a marriage is arranged with a locally famous, seemingly brilliant but socially awkward man from a prominent family who might become a nationally famous scientist.  They move to coastal California near San Francisco and live on an island with a naval base, and her decades-long discovery of who her husband is–and who she is–actually begins.  (No, he is not a serial killer–this is a serious study of character and the changing conditions for women and the culture in general through this period.)  The Japanese have a settlement just inland from the island, and the Margaret brushes up against a particular Japanese family for many years.  She is devastated when they are swept up and put into internment camps when WWII breaks out–an occurrence that brackets the novel’s opening and closing pages.

I wish I could go back and read it new once again.

Turkey Tracks: Taking the Sail Out of It

Turkey Tracks:  January 9, 2011

Taking the Sail Out of It

 

We have this huge white pine directly back of our house.  This picture does not do its height  or the steepness of the hill justice.

 

Here it is, looming over the back of the house.  As Tom Jackson, our resident expert said, ” it’sthe biggest boy in the woods so there’s nothing to stop it.”  Note the “sail” at the top of the pine–all the green lollipop growth at the very top. 

 

 

You can see the growth pattern of the pine–which is very typical of Maine woods, which are in many places, like around our house, new woods filling in where the land was clear-cut.  The first growth from cleared woods is all quick-growing trees for the most part:  ash, birch, beech, “prollies” (poplars), and white pine.  We do have some hardwood oak and sugar maples and a few old-growth conifers, like hemlocks.  The white pines grow very quickly, and as they are surrounded by quick-growing trees, they all develop “sail” tops and lose the green on their mid to bottom branches.  Thus, this white pine was scary because white pines have shallow roots, topple over easily in high winds or rain-soaked ground.  This situation is worsened by its location on a steep hill slanting toward our house.  

This tree gives me nightmares.  It’s big enough to cleave the house if it came down our direction.

So, the tree experts came, and their solution was to take out most of the “sail.”  They also trimmed up the dead branches.  They say it’s healthy all the way to the top, and with the sail trimmed out, unlikely to fall on the house.

You can see how big the tree is in this picture:

 

I hope they’re right!

Turkey Tracks: Liam Whittle’s “Teddy Bear Tales” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  January 9, 2011

Liam Whittle’s “Teddy Bear Tales” Quilt

 

 I fell in love with this quilt panel when I saw it a few years ago.  Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved Teddy Bears.  It told me it wanted to be sent to Liam Whittle, who is just the right age for teddy bears sleeping on his bed.  I made this quilt to be tough, washed, dragged around, and loved to pieces. 

This is the first quilt I’ve quilted on the long-arm.  It came out pretty well.  I just kept to the basics, but the machine is so much fun to work!

Here’s a detail of the front panel.  I hope Liam and his parents and his sister will make up stories that explain the pictures.

Here’s the backing fabric.  Is it perfect or what?  I really love the childrens’ quilt fabrics available now.

Enjoy, Liam.  Many hugs and kisses and love!  Your Great Aunt Louisa

Turkey Tracks: Ball-band Dishcloth

Turkey Tracks:  January 9, 2011

Ball-Band Dishcloth

I finished the Ball-Band Dishcloths I talked about some time ago as an unfinished project.  I have no idea why they are called “ball band” discloths.  Maybe it’s the pattern…

I used red and green Peaches & Cream cotton for potential Christmas use–though they are looking very pretty on top of my yarn pile at the moment.  I got the pattern from Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne’s MASON-DIXON QUILTING.  But, as they note, the pattern is on the inside of the label of many of the P&C yarn balls.

Here’s what they look like:

I added the little braided end. It’s easier than weaving in all the loose ends.

These beauties hold up really well.  I have some that are three years old now and going strong.   As Gardiner and Shayne say:  THEY MUST BE USED!!!  Plus, they’re fun to make.

Turkey Tracks: Elaine Gottschall’s Muffins

Turkey Tracks:  January 9, 2011

Elaine Gottschall’s Muffins

Since reading about the 1980 USDA food guide that changed the scientifically recommended guidelines for grains from 2 to 3 servings to 9 to 11 servings AND since realizing that my own food allergy problems are related to gut dysfunction, I censor grains in my diet.  I wrote about this USDA debacle in some of my Mainly Tipping Points essays which I have posted on this blog.  Along the way, other reading showed me a whole new way to get a bread-like product with ground nut “flours.”   

In the 1950s, Elaine Gottschall was, at first, a lay person with a seriously ill child when she discovered Dr. Sidney Haas’s work on gut dysfunction in the 1950s.  She adopted his Specific Carbohydrate Diet, now called the GAPS diet (Gut and Psychology Syndrome), and cured her child.  Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, among others, has discovered the connection with gut dysfunction and neurological disorders, like autism, ADD, ADHD, dyspraxia, dyslexia, depression, and schizophrenia, and is having a lot of success helping those impacted.  Dr. Joseph Mercola has a book called the NO GRAIN DIET.   

Anyway, this nut-muffin or nut bread recipe is from Gottschall’s book BREAKING THE VICIOUS CYCLE.  It’s delicious and very filling.   Two of these muffins hold me for hours. 

Use organic nuts if you can.  AND, you REALLY DO NEED paper muffin cups.  (Don’t use foil as it will be aluminum toxic.)  The recipe makes about a dozen muffins–more if you add bulky items like banana.

2 1/2 cups ground nuts.  (You can buy nuts already ground at co-ops and stores specializing in nutrient-dense whole foods.) 

 1/4 cup melted butter, or yogurt, or small amount of fruit juice, or pure apple butter (enough to moisten well)

1/2 cup (or less) honey

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt

3 eggs

Additions:  1/3 cup dried fruit, and/or grated lemon/orange rind, and/or flavoring (almond, vanilla).  Fresh blueberries are nice.  For a banana version, add two mashed, ripe bananas and an extra egg.  For coconut, add dried/unsweetened coconut for part of the flour.

For nut bread, add one extra egg (4 eggs) and put into well-greased 1-quart baking dish.

Mix all together and bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes. 

Gottschall’s book has many good recipes.  But, she wrote it at a time when we did not know how dangerous artificial sweeteners are.  Don’t use them.  Some of my essays cover artificial sweeteners as well. 

 

Turkey Tracks: Red Fish Quilt In Progress and Copyright Laws

Turkey Tracks:  January 9, 2011

Red Fish Quilt In Progress and Copyright Laws

 

Two summers ago, I took two quilting classes from Jo Diggs, at our state-wide Pine Tree Quilting Guild (PTQG) annual show.

Jo Diggs is an amazing quilter and an effective, caring teacher.  She cuts fabric free-hand and hand appliques the shapes to make her designs.  She does landscapes, floral compositions, and underwater fish and vegetation.  She relies on fabrics she can buy.  She does not artistically manipulate (paint, stamp) fabric.  You can an idea of the kind of work she does on her web site:  www.jodiggs.com.  But, there is no substitute for seeing her work in person.  And, she will be teaching at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show in Norfolk, VA, in February.

Before I took Jo’s class on landscapes, I had been doing landscapes.  I can clearly state that I will never be able to be the kind of artist she is.  Her visions are unique and enormously satisfying.  And I did learn more about method from her.  The fish class, though, was formative.  Prior to this class, I had no idea how to go about creating a picture of fish from inside my own head and with fabric available to me.  I did not know how to “think” a fish by combining various shapes in layers.

The small quilt top I started stayed pinned to my design wall for 18 months.  I finally picked it up and started hand-sewing just before going to Charleston for Thanksgiving.  Hmmmm, I thought.  Maybe I can do this work.  Last week, I picked up the top again, in the middle of two other quilting projects and three knitting projects, and quickly became obsessed.  Here’s what it looks like so far:

 I’m getting better at the applique as I go along.  My circles have improved immeasurably already.  The fish will all get eyes via embellishment at the second stage.  The large green fish, for instance, will get a button eye.  And, already, some of the foreground has changed.  It does have more depth when you look at it straight on… 

I haven’t a clue how to quilt it, but will figure it out. 

Meanwhile, if this quilt does turn out to be good enough to think about hanging it at the annual Pine Tree show, I will have to get Jo Digg’s permission since it was developed in a class she taught.  Pine Tree recently sent out new protocols for displaying quilts.  If you developed a quilt in a class, made it from a pattern in a magazine or book, or from a pattern you purchased, you have to get the permission of the designer to display the quilt.  I don’t think you can sell such a quilt without getting the permission of the designer either.  Exceptions involve using traditional blocks.  Amy Butler, who designs patterns and fabric, clearly states that if you buy one of her patterns, you may not sell the item to anyone without her permission. 

I’m all for a designer getting credit for his/her work.  I think having to get permission for using a pattern in a published magazine or a book is a bit silly and defeats the purpose of the said magazine or book.  One must give credit, yes, but getting permission is an overload for everyone.  I think selling products made from a published pattern should be ok, too, provided one gives credit to the designer. 

The big problem I have with how to negotiate this terrain with regard to taking classes is deciding where there is a novel, copywrited product and where there is a method to be learned.  No one else can combine fabric in the way Jo Diggs does.  She is an artist and the work she does comes from inside her head.  She can teach me “fish,” but I’ll never create them or put them into a quilt in the way she does.  I could not if I tried.  What she does is unique.  So, did I learn a method from Jo Diggs.  Or am I forever bound to call her for permission whenever I make an applique quilt using anything remotely resembling her fish method?

I don’t know.

But, I can tell you that I’m not likely to take any more classes if these interpretations prevail.  I already refuse to buy Amy Butler’s patterns or fabrics  and would encourage you not to do so as well until she mitigates her legal stance in writing on her patterns.  And, if my little fish quilt turns out ok and if I can reach Jo Diggs without too much trouble and if she gives permission, I might hang it at PTQG.  But if there is any hitch, I will not.  So it will be interesting to see how many quilts PTQG hangs this year.

Clearly this whole terrain has gone over the edge of sanity.  I will be interested to see how much of an impact it has on teachers, books, and quilt shows.

 

Turkey Tracks: Annie’s First Egg

Turkey Tracks:  January 8, 2011

Annie’s First Egg

Yesterday I was in hurry and rushed down the wooden boardwalk to my car.  The chickens were out, and I walked through them.  When I reached the end of the boardwalk, I was aware that our rooster, Napoleon, or Coq Au Vin, depending upon whether you are talking to John or the grandkids, was chasing me.  Mercy!  He has been so docile all winter, often letting me pet him while he makes all sorts of contented noises.  Here’s a winter picture of the chickens hanging out at a back door.  They are very social and come visiting on the porches often.  Annie is closest to the door.

When I got home, I visited the coop to check food and water levels.    There was a dark brown egg in a depression in a corner, under a lower roost!  It could only be Annie’s since it is the smaller size of a pullet just starting to lay.  Here’s a picture of Annie’s first egg  in the middle of Rose Thomas’s eggs.  (The blue eggs are from her wheaten Americaunas and the light brown ones are from, likely, her Red Sex-Links.)

The fact that Roo chased me suddenly made perfect sense.   One of the hens was laying again!

For those of you who don’t know chickens, when the days grow shorter, hens stop laying and rest.  You can see in the picture of the chickens that Annie’s comb is much redder than the older hens.  Depletion of comb and leg color happens because egg production takes everything out of the hens.  You can keep hens laying by artificially lighting them to extend what they think of is daylight.  We don’t do much lighting,  preferring to let the hens rest.  We only light (using a red light bulb if we can find one) for warmth on the coldest days and nights.  But, our days are already getting longer now.  And, lighting the coop with a white light recentlyfor a few hours at dusk to get it warm while we are waiting for ordered red bulbs to come may be a factor.

In any case, you can see why eggs were so valuable around the winter holidays because they would have to have been saved since about mid-November if one wanted a special cake.  And, you can see why Easter is a celebration involving eggs because eggs would, once again, be plentiful.