This page has been designed specifically for the printed screen. It may look different than the page you were viewing on the web.
Please recycle it when you're done reading.
The URI for this page is { http://meaningfulpursuit.com/novella }
Archives -
Posts tagged as 'urban life'
Been sick all week with a head cold which turned into fever with chills. I've had to stay in bed and the farm has been neglected. The goat shed needs mucking out, the garden watered, the rabbit cages are begging for a cleaning, the buffet of yummy greens that go to all the animals has been halted and boring processed feed will have to do. The worst thing is my sinuses are so plugged up, I can’t smell anything. Hence, I can't taste anything. Is this a life worth living? Amid these frustrating developments on a sweat-inducing break from the bed to check my email, I learned that I had been crowned Best Hippie 2008 by the East Bay’s locally owned free weekly.
You guys!!
A few years ago, maybe even a year ago, I would have scoffed at the word ‘hippie’ being used to describe me. Hippies! that’s my parents! I would say. I don’t listen to the Dead, I listen to the Dead Boys. But, if you think about it, I *have* been milking goats, making cheese and planting chard--all tell-tale signs of hippiedom. So I’ve learned to live with the moniker, and wonder why there isn’t a better word to describe my urban homesteading tendencies in a way that doesn’t reek of patcholi or come wrapped in tie-dye. Anyone got a better term?
While we contemplate that, a sauerkraut instructional.
Get some nice heads, tight ones. Half the cabbages, then chop into thin strips. Add the cabbage to a large bowl and sprinkle with kosher salt. A TB of salt per cup of cabbage is the rule of thumb. Once sprinkled with salt, pound the cabbage so that it starts to release some water. I use a pestle from a mortar and pestle that my roommate left behind. Add this ...
Tagged as cooking, random thoughts, urban life | 11 Comments » | Continue 
There's probably nothing more uncool than driving a car. It makes me sweaty, in a bad way. It turns me into a robot. I can't admire other drivers' footwear or fashion. I'm not enjoying the sun, the breeze, the hellos from other people on bikes or on foot. Nope, there I am, a big dumb-ass steering a big machine around the city.
This weekend we had blow out party for my friend Willow. She's going on a sabbatical. I roasted three pigger loins all day long in an low oven after marinating them with various rubs and brines. Then we hung up some decorations, and wheeled out the juice making shopping cart. That's right. A shopping cart that makes juice (sorry, no photo). In Caracas, Venezuela I first encountered this miracle machine. It involves filling a shopping cart with oranges, then mounting a juicer where the toddler would normally sit while you shopped for lentils. And a place to cut the oranges (and grapefruits). When you want juice, you reach into the cart, cut an orange, then squeeze. It's totally mobile, and if these hit on, will provide the greater Oakland area with plenty of Vitamin C. Can't you imagine a fleet of shopping carts filled with citrus, not aluminum cans? But first I had to get the oranges. Which meant driving (I thought) to the Friday farmer's market. I circled a five block radius for 20 minutes. I got sweaty. I even wanted to yell. I felt competitive and I think I even cut someone off. Just for some oranges! In the time it took me to find a parking space I could have ridden there and back on my bike at least two times, which would have been enough ...
Tagged as random thoughts, urban life | 3 Comments » | Continue
I hate this weed.
Mostly it grows in pathways, but occasionally the burmuda grass and foxtails get into a garden bed, and that sucks. So I was outside pulling up these weedy grasses, which have invaded the parking strip even though I covered the parking strip with straw then wood chips up to six inches thick. Weeding can be satisfying work. Passers-by say hello, chew the fat, ask me for a quarter. Because remember, I'm not living some rural lifestyle with baby goats and rabbits. I'm living some urban lifestyle with baby goats and rabbits.
A reminder of my urban farm: gun fire. Two shots, very close. Somehow muffled. Now, it IS firework season, but I knew those were bullets. Eventually the cops came.
I went upstairs to take the photos, because I think the police don't like cameras.
Then I went back downstairs and kept weeding. "What happened?" A guy in a reggae hat asked. I had been eavesdropping on the cops, so I knew a man had been shot, not killed, upstairs in the apartment across the street. I became the town crier. A family who frequents the goat area drove by and asked. I grew tired of telling the news.
Then a guy named Kilo who squats in the big brick building came out and asked what happened. He seemed shocked, in awe. Since I had absorbed the information for over an hour, I said, "No big deal, it happens all the time." Kilo and I have a strange relationship--he wants to hate me, but he can't quite. But my casual observation set him off. "You say that--that it's no big deal because they're black," he said. He sneered and looked ...
Tagged as ghosttown, urban life | 5 Comments » | Continue
This weekend we had blow out party for my friend Willow. She's going on a sabbatical. I roasted three pigger loins all day long in an low oven after marinating them with various rubs and brines. Then we hung up some decorations, and wheeled out the juice making shopping cart. That's right. A shopping cart that makes juice (sorry, no photo). In Caracas, Venezuela I first encountered this miracle machine. It involves filling a shopping cart with oranges, then mounting a juicer where the toddler would normally sit while you shopped for lentils. And a place to cut the oranges (and grapefruits). When you want juice, you reach into the cart, cut an orange, then squeeze. It's totally mobile, and if these hit on, will provide the greater Oakland area with plenty of Vitamin C. Can't you imagine a fleet of shopping carts filled with citrus, not aluminum cans? But first I had to get the oranges. Which meant driving (I thought) to the Friday farmer's market. I circled a five block radius for 20 minutes. I got sweaty. I even wanted to yell. I felt competitive and I think I even cut someone off. Just for some oranges! In the time it took me to find a parking space I could have ridden there and back on my bike at least two times, which would have been enough ...
Tagged as random thoughts, urban life | 3 Comments » | Continue 
Mostly it grows in pathways, but occasionally the burmuda grass and foxtails get into a garden bed, and that sucks. So I was outside pulling up these weedy grasses, which have invaded the parking strip even though I covered the parking strip with straw then wood chips up to six inches thick. Weeding can be satisfying work. Passers-by say hello, chew the fat, ask me for a quarter. Because remember, I'm not living some rural lifestyle with baby goats and rabbits. I'm living some urban lifestyle with baby goats and rabbits.
A reminder of my urban farm: gun fire. Two shots, very close. Somehow muffled. Now, it IS firework season, but I knew those were bullets. Eventually the cops came.