Sleeping in a cave

Well alright, not really a cave, but pretty close. The last 4 nights my family and I have been sleeping in the basement. My wife and I have been sacking out on a futon in the theatre, and my boys have been sleeping Gilligans Island style in the hammocks that we got for them in Mexico in their playroom (which is really a 5'5" finished storage area in the basement.) We wanted to do this because we have been having unseasonable warm summer weather lately and we just can't make ourselves run the AC all night. In doing this little experiment we have found a couple of things that I wasn't expecting. Our basement stays just the right temperature all night with only a fan running on low. Our perfect temperature is something like the cool nights of fall or early spring when you can have a thin quilt on and not sweat, or be cold. We've also found that without the sun shining in our bedroom window, that we can sleep really really well. Too well infact, I was almost late for work today because I was sleeping so soundly.
I don't know if we'll keep this up all summer or not, but we will most likely do it until the weather cools a bit. It will be interesting to see how or if this will affect our electricity usage this month, but I has certainly been worth it.

Local Food

I have been researching lately where I could satisfy some of our household foods with locally produced alternatives. Utah, is no California, but we do have a surprising amount of locally produced foods if you are willing to look. I have been first off trying to find a place where I could get milk and other dairy items like cheese and eggs that are not from far away since I know that these things are produced locally, but mainly because I want to try to eliminate all of the hormones that are being used, and because I want products from grass fed animals that don't need all of the antibiotics and supplements that corn fed animals do. (Read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma for more information.) I think I may have stumbled onto a local dairy that can provide milk, cheese and eggs from local cattle and chickens. I was pleasantly supprised to find that while the cost of milk at our local walmart is at around $3.40-$3.50 gal, I can get this much healthier alternative delivered to my door for around $3.20 gal.

Another pleasant suprise that I came across through another local dairy outfit that I checked into was that they are also selling grass fed, hormone free beef. I have been trying to eat less beef as it is, but I have just about gotten to the point of not eating meat at all unless I have either harvested it myself, (Yes I hunt. Note, I said hunt not get; that's like saying fishing not catching.) or if it comes from a healthy source preferably one that I can drop by and check out operations at.

I will let you know what we decide to do. I don't think that I have any Utah readers, at least not any that have ever commented, but in the case that I have any local lurkers, I will give the info on the options at that time in case anyone is interested.
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Thought for today

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

~ John W. Gardner

You like me... you really like me

C'mon, haven't you just always wanted to say that?!
I was tagged by "Farm mom at children in the corn" with the honor of a Bloggers for Positive Global Change Award much to my surprise. The award originated with Climate of our future, and is to recognize blogs that are trying to make the world a better place for all of us. Thanks so much for the kudos! I don't really know what to say to this. I started blogging with no intent to even go down this path, and yet here I am. I get so much enjoyment out of sharing the journey with so many of you, learning and sharing from each other. I will certainly have to give some thought to whom my tagees will be and may go back and seek out some of the other links before me. Thanks again to Farm mom, and to all of you that drop in and put up with me!
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So Sorry

I'm so sorry for not being on top of my blog recently. I got back and had a lot of catching up to do around the house. For the many of you that have shown concern for my garden rest easy, It made it! My lettuce bolted like mad, and my peppers are a bit parched, but all in all, I couldn't have asked for more. As a matter of fact, some things did better than others; my weeds went nuts (Of course it didn't help that I have a yard full of weeds next door at the construction site.), and my raspberries did great. I thought for sure that they would all be dead and dried by the time I got back but they weren't and I've gotten two good bowls full since I got home. A little vanilla yogurt and granola and you've got a real treat.

Another change is that my office, which blocks a lot of the internet has now blocked all blogger.com sites. so I have no way of posting during the day other than through emailing. This does work but my formatting is a little lacking. I need to change my schedule of posting, but I'll get it together. Again, I'm sorry for being so behind. bear with me.
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Thought for Today

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

~John Howard Payne (1791 - 1852)

We're back!!

We made it, we're back. no major issues, no problems to speak of. It was a great vacation, certainly one for the record books! best part is that we took time to make sure the house was clean before we left, so we came home to a nice clean and very hot house. No A/C in the house for nearly 3 weeks and it was hot in here. I took a shower when I got in and the towels from the closet felt literally like I had just taken them out of the dryer. I have to say that I think we were all ready to get back to the house. Vacations are a great thing, and I have to say that I consider myself truly blessed to be able to leave work for 13 work days and 20 days total, but at some point you just get tired of hotels, road food and driving driving driving. I haven't yet checked the total mileage, but I suspect that we logged nearly 2000 miles on this journey. I plan to optimize a bunch of the photos that I took and will share them with you as I get them done.

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