The Joys of Doing Nothing

I read a great article this morning on making sure kids have enough unstructured time.  I am afraid we have fallen victim - I mean we have chosen - to let our kids become involved in too many extracurricular activities and the result has been a shortage of "free" time and family time.  We've begun our family transformation to a simpler life, but we're not finished reducing outside activities just yet. 

To read "The Joys of Doing Nothing: Allowing Kids Unstructured Time", click here.

Diagnosis

Today I am feeling really grateful and happy.  Rob has had these spots all over his body for the past 6 weeks and we finally went to the dermatologist to see if it was more pre-cancer (he had about 15 spots frozen off last year).  I have been quite worried about it because of his history and the skin cancer in his family.  We were relieved and grateful to find out that it's just psoriasis!  The doctor explained it like this: the top layer of our skin regenerates every 36 days.  We don't notice it because it is such a gradual process.  In people with psoriasis, the skin that is affected regenerates every 6 days.  The skin looks red and ultra-dry, but it isn't dangerous.  There isn't a cure and he can plan on having it off and on for the rest of his life, but that's no big deal compared to skin cancer.

I found this picture online of psoriasis guttate (the kind he has):

There are 4 types of psoriasis. Some are painful and look much more scary than this kind.

While we were there the doctor froze off another 16 pre-cancer spots on his head, several that were as large as a dime.  He also told him the skin on his head looks like that of a 60-year-old.  Rob didn't like that too much.  He said the only place Rob should be without a hat is in the shower.  Oh how I wish he would take the doctor's advice, but he still thinks he is invincible! Dang agency.  I'll keep nagging him though; I love him that much.

Rob got a prescription for some topical medicine that we put on him 3 times a day that will hopefully help, but if it doesn't we'll have to try the more effective medicine that is $350.  Rob doesn't have health insurance, so we're really hoping this first RX works.  He's also supposed to come back every 6 months for the rest of his life and was warned that if he doesn't keep his head covered he can pretty much expect to have large chunks of his scalp removed by age 50.

When I put his medicine on him today I counted the psoriasis spots - I found exactly 100.  Even as recently as last night Rob was trying to convince me that we didn't need to go to the doctor.  Let me just say this: it's a good thing he has me!  And I'm glad that I'll still have him.

My Adorable Kids

These two love to be in front of a camera!  Notice the real roses in their hair!

The kids before church one Sunday.

My New Garden

This year I went to a little gardening class that our Relief Society arranged.  I got really enthusiastic about doing a "square foot garden" and - guess what - Rob wanted to make my dream come true!  Lucky me, huh? 

My dad ground up charcoal into a fine powder, then mixed it with some other stuff and then mixed it in with the soil.  Even though he has explained it to me several different times and I read an article about it, I can't get all the technical details down enough to explain it to other people.  The point is this: the plants grow better and the soil is much stronger in following years. The technical details, as written by my dad, are at the end of this posting.

Clockwise: 2 kinds of Lettuce, Onions, Cantaloupe, Cucumbers and you can barely see the Strawberries and Peppers.  The Marigolds are supposed to help keep some kinds of bugs away.  Plus, they add color.

Clockwise: Tomatoes, Peppers, Strawberries, Carrots

This year I learned how to grow lettuce!  Romaine apparently keeps growing back.  You cut it off in the center, leaving some outer leaves, then the new lettuce grows in right where you cut off the first bunch.  And it starts growing back really fast, too.  Awesome, huh? 

This is Alex's gardening box.  He wanted a box all for himself, so Rob built him his own tiny little (12" x 12") box.  He's growing carrots. 

Our tomato plants are already growing tomatoes!  I'm so excited to have fresh tomatoes!!!

Terra Preta Soil

While reading a National Geographic article two or three years ago about the depletion of soils around the world I learned of a particular type of soil, found along the banks of the Amazon river, that appears to be the best soil in the world.  It is called "Terra preta de índio" in Portugese and goes by the shortened term "Terra Preta" in English speaking countries.  After many years of scientific investigation into the origins of this soil scientists came to the conclusion that it is man made, using a process of "slash and char" (NOT "slash and burn") that loads the soil with high concentrations of charcoal. 

Charcoal is the key ingredient in terra preta soil that make is so effective for growing plants.  For most of my life I assumed that jungle soils were very rich soils since they appear to support such massive plant life.  While studying terra preta soils I learned that I was wrong about that.  Most jungle soils are very poor soils because the high volume of rain in the rain forests simply washes the nutrients out of the soil and sends them down the river to the ocean.  Terra preta soils, however, hold onto the nutrients and prevent them from being washed away.

Charcaol is used in industrialized societies as a filtration material that is capable of capturing all kinds of toxins and aromatic hydrocarbons and holding them within the carbon structure until they can be disposed of.  Charcoal is the key ingredient in filters used on kitchen range hoods that capture smoke and odors produced while cooking.

In terra preta soils, charcoal captures all the nutrients that plants need to grow big and strong and holds them there in the soil where they will be available when the plant's roots reach them.  In terra preta soils, along the banks of the Amazon, the charcoal can absorb the nutrients flowing down the Amazon during spring flooding and hold them there throughout the normal crop growing season where they are available to the plants that the native people plant.  The charcoal is not used up in this process, but it simply acts as a buffering storage medium to capture, hold and release nutrients as they are needed by the plants growing in the soil.

As scientists studied how terra preta soils work they discovered that charcoal alone will not enhance the soil's ability to provide nutrients to plants because charcoal alone captures the nutrients and then holds them and will not give them up to the bare plant roots.  Another symbiotic life form is needed to work with the plant to withdraw nutrients from the charcoal "nutrient bank".  Fungi, working in a symbiotic relationship with the plant roots (a mycorrhizal relationship) can pull the nutrients from the charcoal and make it available to the plant.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza for a description of this process/relationship.)

In Natalie's garden we added 2 bags of Cowboy brand charcoal, purchased at Lowe's after breaking it into small pieces and processing it through a wheat grinder to create very small particles of charcoal that we thoroughly mixed into the soil so it would be finely dispersed throughout the soil.  (If you choose to add charcoal to your garden, do not use normal charcoal briquets as a charcoal source since they contain additive binders that hold the charcoal in the briquet shape.  Use natural pieces of charcoal that are still shaped like the pieces of wood from which they were made.)

If you simply add ground charcoal to your garden it will suck up all the nutrients in your soil and not allow the plants you want to grow to use those nutrients - resulting in stunted plants that may not produce any fruit at all.  You must precharge the charcoal with nutrients so that it is already filled with nutrients when it is placed in your soil.  I used about two pounds of ammonium nitrate to precharge the charcoal we used in Natalie's garden.  In some parts of the world urine or urea is used to precharge the charcoal.  I used ammonium nitrate because it was what I had available at the time.  If I were buying fertilizer for this purpose I would use 16-16-16 fertilizer.

If you simply add charcoal to the soil without adding mychorrhizae it will also not produce the benefits you are seeking because the plant roots alone will not be able to access the nutrients held by the charcoal.  In Natalie's garden we made a "tea" using Sweet Earth brand organic root zone starter fertilizer mixed with 5 gallons of water and allowed it to sit for 24 hours before pouring it over our planting beds.  Any commercial product that contains added mycorrhizae will work to add the mycorrhizae you need.

The result, as you can see from pictures of Natalie's garden is lush, deep green growth that far surpasses the results of any other type of soil ammendment I have ever tried before.  Natalie's is the second garden I've tried this process in and the results have been identical both times - large tomato vines with an excessive amount of fruit growing on the vines.  In the past, whenever I  simply added ammonium nitrate to the soil in which tomatoes were planted without the charcoal and mychorrizae the result was massive vines but NO TOMATOES.  Creating Terra Preta conditions in the soil gives you massive vines that support the production of massive amounts of fruit.

The added charcoal also holds more water than normal soils will hold so you don't have to water quite as often and you do not have to fertilize at all during the growing season.  With most gardens, to get maximum yields, you have to refertilize the garden several times during the growing season and to get maximum yields you have to give the soil just the right amount of fertilizer at exactly the right time so the plants never starve for nutrients during their natural growing cycle.  With terra preta conditioned soils you don't have to do this because the charcoal will hold large quantiites of nutrients in the soil but those nutrients are not available to "burn" the young plants because those nutrients are not loose in the soil, they are tied up by the charcoal, waiting in place until the plant roots reach out to them as they grow.  When the plant roots reach them, they are instantly available to the plant as they are needed.  If your soil has excess nutrients in it that are not tied up by charcoal then, when you water the soil those nutrients are redispersed throughout the soil where they can be taken up by bits of charcoal that were previously emptied by the plant roots. This ongoing buffering action continually replenishes the "nutrient bank" held within the charcoal.  If you are using secondary water to water your garden instead of cullinary water, then that water very likely contains many nutrients that were washed down into the acquifer or reservoir where the water is stored and those nutrients, dissolved in the water, are available to be stored by the charcoal rather than simply washing them through the soil each time you water.

True terra preta soils are self replenishing . . . they do not break down and they do not have to be constantly replenished with commercial fertilizers.  In the Amazon basin, owners of terra preta soils periodically harvest and sell off the top layers of their soil and the soil actually grows more soil to replace the soil that was sold.  As the mychorrhizae die off they put more carbon back into the soil.  Terra preta soils get better and stronger each year, rather than being depleted like normal soils are depleted.  I don't have enough experience yet with the creation of terra preta soil here in Utah to know when it will be fully self replenishing so I'll continue to add some commercial fertilizer to the soil in the fall of the year for the next few years, after the harvest is over, so that I know the charcoal will be fully replenished with nutrients during the winter.

Here are some helpful links to read about Terra Preta and the production of Biochar (various forms of charcoal used to create terra preta soils):

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060301090431.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/research/terra%20preta/terrapretamain.html

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/research/terra%20preta/Flyer%20terra%20preta%20landuse%20strategy.pdf

http://biochar.pbworks.com/FrontPage  (Terra preta and Biochar FAQ page)

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/

http://132.180.112.26/bodenkunde/terra_preta/

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Making-Terra-Preta-Soil-R-by-Ramona-Byron-080821-153.html

Hundreds of sites are available to study Terra Preta soils and other people's experiences with them.  Just Google "terra preta".

Fairy Wings!

My creative darlings made fairy wings out of cardboard, colored paper, glue, elastic and tape.  They just got an idea and turned it into reality.  I think they did a lovely job of creating nicely-shaped, proportionately-sized, and beautifully artistic wings.  They are so lucky to have each other; I'm certain every girl who doesn't have a sister longs for one.

Oh, yes, Alex decided to make some too.  His are small, yet powerful!

Just Playin' With The Camera

We were all hangin' out on my bed and I snapped a few pictures. 

My beautiful Ashlie is growing up before my eyes. 

I like this one because it looks like he took the picture himself!  He was actually just trying to get the camera from me.  Don't you just want to touch that ultra-smooth skin?

Best Buddies, Ashlie & Avery

 

"Addicted to a Real Bad Thing"

There's an old song called "Addicted" by Cheryl Wheeler.  She sings, "I'm addicted to a real bad thing...".  Her "addiction" is a guy who isn't good for her but she can't seem to live without him.

I, too, am addicted to some real bad things.  Stuff.  I have too much of it.  My kids have too much of it.  I feel claustrophobically crowded in a house that is adequate for our needs.   My girls each have their own rooms - the same rooms that 40 years ago were probably occupied by at least 2 children each.  My boys share what used to be a master bedroom and it still feels too small.  Their rooms are filled with things -  all sorts of things. My almost-seven year-old recently told me he doesn't want very many toys for his birthday because it's too hard to keep his room clean.  He told me this a couple of months ago when he was cleaning his room, but I didn't think he meant it.  Now I realize having too much stuff wears on him, too.  And yet, I pushed him for a list of things he wanted for his birthday so I would have ideas when I was asked about it.  That's just not right! I should have run with him reminding me that we don't need more stuff, but now it's too late. 

I'm afraid I've found myself coveting larger homes with room to breathe, but perhaps the problem is as much that we have too many things as it is that our home is too small for the number of people living here.  I am sick of organizing and reorganizing because we have so much stuff that we have to keep inventing new ways to organize it so it will fit in our house and so that we can live in a semi-orderly home.  What a waste of time.  When you consider what makes a truly meaningful life, organizing and reorganizing can really get in the way.

I am particularly afraid to make my kids get rid of all their junk stuff. I worry that I am raising a new generation of overstockers (nice way of phrasing it, huh?) because I don't know how to teach them to live with less.  I don't want to be remembered as the wicked mother that made her children part with their beloved belongings.  In fact, Olivia (age 9) just reminded me today about when I traded her old, way-too-tiny bicycle for one that would fit Alex when she got a new, bigger one that fit her.  This happened two years ago and I'm still hearing about it!

We accumulate stuff in so many ways:

• Retail therapy - there's the thrill of the hunt, or finding something that is perfect this week then change our minds next week.  Or there's the awesome deal that we simply cannot pass by.  And once we've spent money on something, for some reason it seems like we have to keep it for some period of time before we can get rid of it, even if we know shortly after we brought it home that it was a mistake. 
• Gifts - from Happy Meal toys to elaborate birthday or Christmas gifts these things add up quickly.  How about dumb little toys we give and get for our kids and their friends for birthdays?  We end up with tons of stuff we just don't need.  Their parts get strewn about bedrooms and yards and cars and we spend half our lives reorganizing our too-much-stuff .  And then there's all the time we spend nagging our kids to put their things away.  Even though most years I help my kids go through their things before Christmas to find things to donate to the D.I. before all the new stuff gets dragged in I'm certain we aren't taking as many things out as we're bringing in.  How do I know?  We have way more stuff than we used to have.
• Donations - People give us things we'll probably need in the future so we won't have to spend money on them later.  But then we have to store them and hope we remember we have it when we end up needing them.  These donations have helped our family spend very little on clothing for the past dozen years, but sometimes I wonder about saving things for a couple of years (storage), not knowing if the sizes or styles will even work for the child they're intended for.  I have a beautiful system for rotating clothing and keeping track of it by size and gender, but even with my great system I have a huge pile of Rubbermaid containers in my garage waiting for my kids to grow into them.  For the record, I love hand-me-downs and so do my kids (really!)
• Sentimental Stuff - I am not very sentimental about things (pictures don't fall into the "things" category for me, by the way) but this is a huge reason for overstuffed houses. I am not making any judgments here, I'm just pointing out another reason we accumulate.

And we keep stuff we don't need for many different reasons:

• We don't want to offend the giver
• We might need it "someday"
• We intend to eventually get to that project
• We don't know how to get rid of the things that accumulate a little at a time
• We keep adding things without getting rid of things at the same rate

Of course neither of these lists are complete - I just wanted to get you thinking.

In my extended family I am likely the one that gets rid of excess stuff the most frequently and the fastest, but I am still woefully overstocked because I don't know how to get rid of enough.  Maybe I'll get rid of a box of junk each week for the rest of the year.  Or maybe I should do it all in one fell swoop.  Or maybe I should put it all in a holding spot for a while to see if I end up needing it.  (Side note: because we can't seem to part with our stuff, storage units are apparently the business to be in right now in our society!)  Or maybe I'll invent a device that counts and categorizes items in and items out of a home so we can all manage our stuff before it gets too out of control  (somehow I think that wouldn't help the underlying problem). Or maybe it's time for a big yard sale (then again, maybe selling our junk teaches our kids that we can't get rid of it unless we get something in exchange for it).  What to do?!

The other day my sister was telling me how much she wants to get rid of things to simplify her life, but then she starts working on it and finds a reason for keeping almost everything.  I told her if she took care of my family for a week I could do it for her.  And then I realized I want someone to do the same thing for me at my house.  It would be immensely easier to get rid of someone else's stuff because each person has a tendency to keep different kinds of things (while we're on the subject can I just say that I would love to go through my husband's closet to weed out a ton of his stuff, but can't seem to part with much of what is filling my side of the closet, even though I don't wear it). But if someone else were to come in and de-clutter my house I'd probably end up being mad that the stuff I had saved for a reason was no longer at my disposal every time I needed it.  Or maybe it would be worth not having something at my fingertips once in a while in order to keep a more simplified home.  I think this is the direction I'm headed.

I'm reminded of a phrase I heard frequently in my youth: "All of life is a trade-off."  (Thanks, Dad, for this timeless phrase.)

And so I ask my readers..how do you (or have you in the past) dealt with the stuff in your life?  Any tips and tricks you want to share would be appreciated!


UPDATE, ADDED A FEW DAYS LATER:
So far I've cleared out two big garbage bags of clothes and shoes out of my side of the closet and have gone through several drawers in my hallway and got rid of enough stuff that now I have an empty drawer just waiting until the next time I need some space.  Next on my list: craft supplies.