Busy Hands Homestead

“I gave my home away today.” I'm hugging a stranger. She is crying and I'm trying really hard not to. In my hand is a rain spattered list of mobile homes that are delinquent on their property taxes. Everyone in this mobile home court received a six month eviction notice five and a half months ago, and I am attempting to figure out which homes on the list are still occupied, or planned on being moved, and can benefit from a community of strangers that raised $10,000 to keep folks in their homes. Folks who can leave, have left. The lots are a mix of occupied, empty, abandoned, trashed, and taken over by squatters. Her home is not on the list. Her mobile home, well maintained, loved and updated, is too old to move. Nine years as a owner of her own home are gone. Thirteen years working for the same employer and nothing is okay. She gave away her home. “I'm sorry.” I say. My personal, professional, and public office worlds have bee...

Sunday:  SNAP Challenge Day 5  Sylvan and I made Oatmeal Muffins. It is a recipe from another of my standby cookbooks. It is a cookbook that I grew up with. My mom had a copy of an earlier edition, and my Oma gave me the one I have. It is the More With Less Cookbook. To total cost for 12 muffins (we ate 8) was $1.78 . The cost of the coffee share $1.52 . Total cost of $3.27. Breakfast was late again. Very Late. Adam resumed working on the bus and I finished moving around plants, cleaned the kitchen, and started the weekly task of baking bread. My new favorite bread recipe is the Basic Bread from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jenifer Reese. It involves scooping a bunch of ingredients in a bowl, giving it a stir and dumping it into a loaf pan for a few hours to rise. To cost per loaf, is $0.60 . I also started the process of making Pork Liver Pat é . I first experimented with pat é, when I purchased a few whole chic...

I haven't ventured outside or changed clothes since I got up Saturday morning. Yesterday I went through the annual ritual of cleaning and rearranging the house to accommodate all of the house plants moving back into our living space. By the time I looked at the clock is was 5:30 and I figure I might as well spend the rest of the day in pajamas. The whole point of these posts and participating in the #SNAPchallenge is to raise money for Double SNAP Dollars, which doubles the purchasing power of SNAP benefits spent on fresh fruits and vegetables.  So please, if you have the resources and value expanding access to fresh fruits and vegetables, take a moment to DONATE HERE!   My family has lots of practice cooking on a limited budget, because SNAP used to be our food budget.  These posts might make it seem too easy, but it wasn't.  I am calculating the Double SNAP Program into my daily expenditures, which helps a lot! I also have the benefit of being raised in a fa...

I gave myself permission to delay posting about day 2. Day 2 was the day of the Northside vs. Westside Softball Challenge with I helped organize. There are still a few banners in the car that need to delivered back to the game's sponsors, but other than that, it is over.  It is a fundraising event for the North-Missoula Community Development Corporation , and I still need to tally up the final expenditures and earnings, but overall it was a success. The Westside won 18 – 9. Back to the #SNAPcallenge and food related issues. Breakfast was oatmeal. Oatmeal is a perfect breakfast choice for my family of picky breakfast eaters because it is easily customizable. Adam and I eat it as a savory dish topped with onion, cheese, eggs and greens, while the children opt for brown sugar and cinnamon. Oatmeal (4 x .043 = $0.172) Cheese (0.16 x 2 = $0.32) Eggs (0.21x 3 = $0.75) Swiss Chard (CSA) Brown Sugar (4 tablespoons = $0.096) Coffee (cost of my coffee ...

We got up a little earlier than usual. Today was ONE LESS CAR DAY in Missoula and rode my bike down to the end of the street to walk back through the neighborhood and scoop up kids along the way.  I wore cloth shoes and it rained, but the rain has finally cleared the wildfire smoke from the air, and everyone was in good spirits.  Breakfast was quick. 4 tortillas (0.15 x 4 = $0.60) 5 eggs (0.25 x 5 = $1.25) 2 ounces of cheddar cheese (0.16 x 2 = $0.32) Coffee (cost of my coffee share per day $1.52) Cherry Tomatoes (FREE – no really – I have been saving these seeds for 5 years now.  These were tomatoes that volunteered in my yard when we moved to our house and I have replanted them every year since.  I grow them for the cost of water, except I have a flat rate water bill that doesn’t change based on use…  so we will just call them FREE!) Total Breakfast Cost: $3.69 for a family of 4 Wet shoes and all, I walked to the Clay Studio to get a...

So, we bought a school bus. I'm hoping its not the worst decision we have ever made. Adam has slowly, much too slowly been morphing it into, what hopefully will be a living space.   And I have been trying to pack up our house, sew a million curtains, and keep life normal.  We have successfully (what is success anymore??) been navigation the line somewhere between a mess and a disaster. Some days I drop both of the kids off at the bus stop, other days I drop off one at the bus stop while the other would rather hold my hand the whole way, since I walk past the school on my way to work anyway. We always arrive just at the front just as the buses pull up to the back. I spend more than I ever imagined staring at a computer screen, navigating an entirely new and foreign world of a federally funded affordable housing project. Damn, that shit is complicated. Late August, I received an email about participating in the Community Food and Agricu...

Today is President's Day.  This kids are off school, wrestling around the bedroom as I am typing, because sleeping in on a day when there is no school just is not an option.  We are going on a road trip.  We are going to return to a few of our favorite Helena places.   I might be bribing the kids a little bit, because I have an ulterior motive.  We are making a quick jaunt over the pass to make an appearance at a legislative committee meeting to make a public comment on House Bill 361 .  This bill revises the criteria for who is eligible for SNAP benefits cutting benefits for many low income Montanans while also costing the state upwards of $500,000.  Go figure.  I can only assume that the sponsoring legislator likes poor people even less than he likes being being fiscally responsible. Driving two hours to go speak for a few minutes about proposed legislation is a a new adventure for the three of us and I have to admit that I am ...

"I am sorry, I can't help", she says sliding my tax forms across the table. I don't remember if she wore glasses, but if she, did she would have been looking at me above the rims. "What is it that you do again?" I wince and opt to believe that the condescending tone was only in my imagination. Sylvan is sitting on my lap. "I am a mom", I say embarrassed.  Was I blushing?  I scrape a bit of dried clay off of my fleece, " I do lots of things." I am between day one and two of three days in the kindergarten classrooms at my daughter's elementary school.  I had spent the last two nights in the studio rolling out clay slabs until the wee hours of the morning. What do I do? I am a non-entity on a tax return.  I don't exist.  I am invisible. I do things. The thoughts run through my head. I am productive. I consider myself a valued member of my community.  Really. I smile. "Well.  Thanks for taking time out of your day t...

I am face down on the floor in child's pose, inches away from the furnace warm air blowing over my body, tears pooling on the floor. Adam took Ivory to the bus stop.   Sylvan is playing.  I am crying.   I have been crying and crying and crying.  I got the day wrong on which I was to deliver the salad to the staff lounge at Ivory's school and it was the last tiny little snow flake to land on a mountain of snow and set off an avalanche.  It is rushing down and nothing will stop the force of gravity until it reaches the valley floor.  I will be the first to admit this is one part hormones mixed in with a million other things:  The feeling of failure that has been building for months.  The feeling that I am okay at many things but not great at anything and not being able to figure out at which skill I am supposed to excel.  The years of sleepless nights.  My constant battle against the natural state of the universe -...

I remember walking the home from my first WIC appointment. I felt happy and proud. I had taken the initiative and was contributing something to the well being of my family.  Over the next two years we have walked through the tunnel or over the pedestrian bridge to check in, say hi, weigh the kids, annually measure iron levels and print out new vouchers.  I look forward to the visits - because - I get to chat about kids and food with folks that deal with kids and food. I don't feel that using the vouchers is difficult.  I just try to come up with a way of using this resource in a manner that is compatible with the nutritional goals that I have established for myself and my family. (No Corn Syrup, No Hydrogenated Oils, as much real, unprocessed food as possible)  Along the way I have tried many different things. Some of those things I have not repeated: African Ground Nut Stew for example - good - but we have some peanut butter based recipes that h...

I have two children on the WIC program between the ages of 2 and 5. Every month, per child we receive: 3 gallons of skim, 1% or 2% Organic Milk 36 ounces WIC Breakfast Cereal 2 64 ounce Plastic Bottles of Juice or 12 ounce Can Frozen Juice 2 16-14 ounce Whole Grain Choice 1 16 ounce Package WIC Cheese 1 18 - 16 ounce jar WIC Peanut Butter 1 dozen large "A" or "AA" White Eggs $ 6.00 Fresh Fruit and/or Fresh Vegetables and/or Frozen Vegetables Before Sylvan turned two he was allowed no peanut butter (he had the dry legume option) and whole milk.  I wish the whole milk was allowed for older children, especially since there is established research linking lower fat content in milk to higher rates of obesity on children . My solution - I allow the kids to add half and half to their milk on request. I always get the 8.9 ounce box of cheerios, and the regular size of rice chex and corn chex.  It used to take me half and hour to select cereals.  But af...

A few weeks ago I sat in the noisy gym at the Y (during family fun time) listening to a voice mail from one of my WIC counselors asking me to call her back regarding the online session I had just completed.  At my last visit I had been offered the choice between a follow up in office visit or an online session on wichealth.org after which I would just email the office. I took the online choice and all I could think was: SHIT!... because there is nothing like an online, blank, anonymous appearing box to solicit my honest and uncensored opinion on a subject, especially a subject related to food.  And that opinion had NOT been kind.  In my mind the person reading my criticism was not received by the sweet lady I look forward to chatting with every few months but rather the creator of the lack luster content I had found when I clicked through the segments of my Meatless Meals Section I had chosen to complete. When I finally did speak to her, I...

Some days are just hard: full of worry and stress. Sometimes, those days full of worry and stress happen to coincide with important days - Sylvan's birthday - to be precise.   We opened Sylvan's first birthday present before breakfast.   Slam dunk!  Adam fixed us all french toast and then we mulled over what to do.  I had not planned our usual birthday pot luck because, well, it was Thursday and Adam was supposed to be working until five and I had class at six.  My plan had been that we would have cake between Adam's work and my ceramic class, but our was wide open, too open, but we were going to make the best of the day.  We picked up and headed downtown to take dizzying ride after ride on the carousel.  When we ran out of tokens we strolled on.   We ducked into Taco Del Sol (you know it is a celebration when the Wests actually eat out), where both Sylvan and Ivory love the bean and cheese burritos. ...