Archive for the ‘Home Ecology’ Category

Hi folks!

Call me sappy, but it’s true: One of my favorite signs of Spring is the sight of pewter-colored sap buckets hanging on the sides of old maple trees along a scenic muddy road in my native Vermont.

The photo above depicts an early American sugaring scene. Though many technical advancements have come into play, such as sap tubes, vacuum pumps, and reverse osmosis machines, key elements of this native scene are still prevalent in our modern sugaring experience.

The basics of sugaring are still the same:

• Tapping maple trees (although other trees have sugar-laden sap, maples are the sweetest and the sappiest)
• Hauling and collection of sap
• Boiling sap in a metal vessel (or do like the Abenakis and hollow out a log and supply it with fire-hot rocks to boil off the sap; or let the sap evaporate in the air until only sugar remains. For more Native American sugaring lore and history click here!)
• Maintaining a fire
• Gathering of community around syrup making

Those things are all still true. Go to any sugar house and you will see family and neighbors gathered around a sweet-smelling steaming boiler, usually being maintained by a core group of sleep-deprived people!

Here are the basic how-to’s for DIY maple syrup:

1. Find a maple tree at least 10″ in diameter
2. Number of taps depends on the size of the tree: 10″=1 tap; 18″=2 taps; 28″=3 taps, etc
3. Drill hole 1.5″ or 2″ deep. Try to drill above a big root or below a big branch, about waist-height without snow
4. Tap on the SE- or SW-facing side of tree first
5. Angle the hole upward so the sap flows down
6. Collect the sap and boil it down until it thickens into syrup

By the numbers:

• 40 gallons of sap=1 gallon of syrup
• Each tap can generally yield 5-15 gallons of sap
• Maple syrup has a boiling point of 7 degrees F above the bp of water; Therefore the syrup is done at 219 degrees F

Or you know what? You can skip the boiling if you’re short on time and fire and just collect it to sip or make sweet ice cubes.

Have fun!

-Holly Rae Taylor, Compost Maven

(Cool view outside our Time Square hotel room…Empire State Bldg peaking out over the far rooftop)

Hi folks,

It was our turn to shop and shop we did! Anne and I traveled to New York City in mid August to find some new products for the store at the New York International Gift Fair. Which was way more than a gift fair. It was everything, including pet stuff, garden, bedding, jewelry, clothing, decor, stationary, handmade items, and massive amounts of cookware. We had a ton of fun and found some really terrific things to bring back to you all. Our goal was to flesh out our kitchen, tabletop, and home decòr categories.

Here’s Anne at her favorite booth: Zen Zen fair trade home goods.

The one in the middle is Andrea, owner of Zen Zen.

The crown jewel of our trip is a toss-up between the fair trade Zen Zen and some really gorgeous Finnish cookware by Iittala.

It was great to meet all the people and hear the stories behind the products. Stop by the store and we’ll give you an earful!

Cheers!
Holly, the compost maven

Hi folks,

The local food movement didn’t just materialize. Rather, our collective journey back to what pre-industrial cultures have always known about living in harmony with nature was blazed by lots of people and traditions, including Yankee ingenuity, Victory Gardens, Deep Ecology, A Sand County Almanac, Scott and Helen Nearing, hippie communes, the Shakers, All Creatures Great and Small, Walden, and the Whole Earth Catalog, just to name a few.

Add to this pantheon the work of Joan Gussow, who blazed a path for living in a connected way while in a traditionally disconnected environment. Joan Gussow has been writing about food policy and the relocalization of the food supply since the early 1970’s. In 2001 she wrote This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader, just in time for the rest of us to catch up and hop on the local, slow food movement.

Here’s a great little video of Joan:

Joan Gussow Interview from Shelley Rogers on Vimeo.

Happy canning!
Holly Rae Taylor, Compost Maven

Great news, folks!

Our Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, has created a sea change in federal policy that gives cyclists and other non-motorists a place at the table in transportation planning and in the selection of projects for federal $$$.  This should come as very good news for cities like Davis, CA which, if you can believe it, has more bikes than cars!  Thanks, Ray!

Happy trails!

Holly, the Compost Maven

On the Net: http://www.bikeleague.org/blog/2010/03/lahood-you-have-a-full-partner-in-ray-lahood/

Hi folks!

My name is Holly Rae Taylor, the Compost Maven.  I’m the founder and one of the owners of Home Ecology and I’ll be writing this blog.  In my usual unorthodox style this blog will be an exercise in creative writing, connecting unusual dots, and hopefully it will be a fun and informative eco-adventure!  You’ll find posts about every ecological topic under the sun including composting, backyard homesteading, global warming, and green trends.

Please be sure to check back often and be sure to sign up for the RSS feed and our e-newsletter so you can keep tabs on all of our antics and musings!

See you soon!

Holly, the Compost Maven