The Art of Zen Living

It’s been two weeks since I first piled up my clippings, yard waste, and some kitchen scraps, sprinkled it all with a bit of (crappy) Florida dirt, soaked the whole thing in water and went away and let it sit.  And sit it did!  It didn’t seem to be doing much of anything.  Well, that’s not completely true.  I learned that you really can’t put bread into a compost pile unless you soak it in water and puree it, then dump it on when you water the pile.  If you just tear it up and think burying it in the middle of the pile will keep the birds from finding it, you’d be wrong.  I still don’t know who was more startled - that poor blue jay that popped it’s head out with a big crust of bread and saw me hovering over him, or me, when that head popped out wings all a flapping and beak all a squawking.  Suffice to say it was a rather unique moment, and I felt very much in the now.  I also screamed like a school girl.

I digress.  Two weeks yesterday I set my compost pile up at a total cost of about $4.25.  3 tomato stakes, about 7 feet of a 50 foot roll of plastic fencing, and a few twist ties.  A little American ingenuity, a little America frugality, and we were ready to go.

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My sister looks at things differently than I do, and often will see things I don’t.  We were talking about how sustainability fits into frugality, and she asked why I wasn’t posting about my bread baking experiences.  She made an excellent point that home made bread is not only frugal and healthy, it’s also one of the very basic tasks that we no longer do for ourselves.  Two months ago, I couldn’t have baked a loaf of bread - my sister still can’t bake one.  I’ve learned to bake regular bread, a nice “no knead” bread that has sort of an artisan texture to it, and Irish soda bread.  I’ve been having a blast trying new things (as an example, my basic bread recipe seems a little dry for my taste, so my next loaf is going to include a bit of olive oil for moisture) and learning different baking tricks.  My sister suggested I do a series of articles on my adventures with bread - her reasoning was that if I could do it, then anyone could.  Sometimes I think she sees me as kind of a big, sweet semi-trained chimp.  I’m not sure she wouldn’t be mostly right.

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