#31. The Richest Man in Babylon, by George S. Clason (audiobook, nonfiction)
A somewhat cheesily-written book about financial planning, told in simple terms. I think the financial advice is pretty sound, if you can get past the corny Babylon stories. Recommended.

#32. WWW:Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer (SciFi)
Set in modern-day Canada, this is the story of a sassy, tech-savvy, blind girl who is contacted by a Japanese researcher who's developed an implant that could give her vision. The implant has an unexpected effect, though: when the device is receiving a software update, Caitlin starts to see strange patterns. She realizes she is seeing the internet, and soon realizes there's something else she can see, lurking among the sites and links.

This book was entertaining, but not amazing. There's no real character development, although the science and technology parts are really interesting. This was originally a serial novel in a magazine, and it's also the first book of a trilogy. I was less than impressed with the ending (which I read before discovering that this is supposed to become a series). I probably won't read the others when they come out.

#33. Skin Hunger, by Kathleen Duey (YAF, Fantasy)
This book freaked me out. It's about a fantasy world in which most people are poor, work on farms, and don't learn to read. People calling themselves wizards peddle quack serums and do palm readings. One poor farmer's daughter can read animals' thoughts. She eventually learns not to talk to people about this, but the story travels to the ears of two young men who are trying to rediscover real magic, which only exists in stories anymore.

Another storyline is intertwined with this one: A boy, the second son of a cruel father, is unwillingly sent to a school for wizards. Unlike any other school he's been to, this one is full of strange tests and seemingly meaningless tasks. The catch is that if he doesn't succeed at these tasks, he'll starve to death.

Very creepy, but well-written and gripping. I found the double storyline distracting; at the start I was into one storyline but found the other an annoying interruption, and later in the book I switched to preferring the other storyline. However, the book as a whole was so engaging that I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended, but fair warning: it's the first in a series, with an inconclusive ending, and the second book isn't out yet (but is available for preorder).


Currently reading: Throne of Jade, by Naomi Novik
Currently listening to: Collapse, by Jared Diamond

An update:

"Just 75 miles west of [Colorado, where certain rainwater collection has now been legalized], in Utah, collecting rainwater from the roof is still illegal unless the roof owner also owns water rights on the ground; the same rigid rules, with a few local exceptions, also apply in Washington State. Meanwhile, 20 miles south of here, in New Mexico, rainwater catchment, as the collecting is called, is mandatory for new dwellings in some places like Santa Fe."

I love the idea of building in mandatory rainwater collection systems in new buildings in arid places. As water shortages grow and groundwater sources become increasingly contaminated, I expect to see this in more and more areas, even those that aren't arid.

If you're not already a fan of Jay Smooth, you should be. Here's one good reason why:

( transcript behind the cut )

I just have to point out this quote, which is my favorite out of the whole very quotable video. I don't think this applies just to rappers; it's something that our society as a whole needs to think about more carefully.

"when we find ourselves believing that killing a man makes us more of a man, but loving a man makes us less of a man, it's probably time to reexamine our criteria for manhood."

I can't help but look at that in light of our nation's seemingly-endless wars and its current "don't ask, don't tell" policy and the previous even more despicable policies it had towards queer folks. Why is violence rewarded while love is derided?

Tonight I wanted some veggie pot pie, so transversely and I made a variation on this recipe. Here's how we did it. This could be made vegan really easily by substituting oil for butter.

Ingredients
Filling:
* 1-2 tablespoons veg oil
* 2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
* 1 medium stem broccoli, coarsely chopped
* 1 turnip, peeled and coarsely chopped
* 1 small bunch greens, stemmed and chopped

"Gravy":
* 2 tablespoons butter or oil
* 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
* 1 cup milk or plain soymilk
* 2 cups vegetable broth
* 1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
* 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
* 1 teaspoon dried sage
* salt & freshly ground black pepper

Biscuit topping:

* 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 3/4 cup buttermilk, yogurt or plain soymilk
* 2 teaspoons honey or maple syrup

Directions:
1. Make the filling: In a medium skillet over medium-high heat, heat the oil. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the other veggies and cook, stirring often, until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, dump into a 2-quart casserole dish.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

3. Make the gravy: In a small pot, melt the butter or heat the oil. Whisk in the flour gradually, forming small lumps. Cook, whisking, for 1 minute. Slowly add the milk, whisking constantly. The sauce will start to thicken. Gradually add the broth while continuing to whisk. Add the tamari, marjoram, and sage. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. It won't become very thick, but if necessary add flour one pinch at a time to thicken. Remove from the heat and pour over the veggies in the casserole dish. Stir to coat veggies.

4. Make the topping: In a large bowl or an electric mixer, mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Using a pastry blender or fork, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal. In a measuring cup, combine the buttermilk and honey. Add to the flour mixture, stirring with a fork to form a stiff dough. Add more buttermilk if the dough is too dry. Knead lightly in the bowl for 3 to 5 minutes, until the dough is no longer sticky. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out into a shape to cover the casserole dish.

5. Lay the biscuit topping lightly over the filling. Do not seal the edges. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling.

6. Remove from oven and let cool for 10-15 minutes before serving.

(x-posted to borkborkrecipes)

In some states, it is illegal to capture and collect rainwater that falls onto one's roof or property. I find this mind-boggling.

"Opponents of the practice argue that if rain or snowfall is captured, less water will flow to streams and aquifers where it is needed for wells and springs. If enough people hijack precipitation, the thinking goes, it would be cheating downstream users who are legally entitled to the water."

I tend to think that this is a band-aid solution, and that the real answer is to not try to force land to support more people (or agriculture) than it is capable of handling. If places are living this close to the edge in terms of water consumption, that indicates a much larger problem.

Water conservation should be a much bigger deal than it is. If people are using rain barrels, they are at least thinking about the amount and source of water they consume.

People don't think enough about water. If we use it up, we'll be recycling human waste and/or desalinating ocean water (both of which are already happening in the US), which is expensive in terms of equipment and power. Where will that power come from? How much will it cost?

What do y'all think? Should rainwater collection in places with water shortages be outlawed for the "common good"? Or should people be allowed to do what they like with the rain that falls on their property? And, as a bigger picture, what should be done about water shortage problems?

"The city already diverts 72 percent of the 2.1 million tons of waste its residents produce each year away from landfills and into recycling and composting programs. The new ordinance will help the city toward its goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2020, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city’s Department of the Environment."

I've been wondering why more places with trash problems haven't started composting all food waste, food-stained paper and other non-recyclable paper products, and other organic matter. I'd think it could be used to generate methane for power, too. Granted, I know extremely little about this, so maybe the costs of implementing such systems are high.

As my town faces landfill problems (our landfill accepts waste from about a dozen surrounding towns and is rapidly reaching capacity), I'd love to see them take steps to divert more waste away from landfills instead of their current harebrained scheme to expand the existing landfill... over our aquifer. This is particularly disturbing since older parts of the landfill are already leaky and have contaminated the groundwater around the dump.

One thing that struck me in the quote above is San Fran's ambitious plan to send zero waste to landfills by 2020. As part of a household that only takes about one 10-gallon bag of trash to the dump every month, I am curious about how the city plans to eliminate all trash. I am under the impression that not everything is recyclable or compostable; for instance, plastic wrap, tiny pieces of plastic like milk caps, some types of styrofoam, etc. What are the city's plans for dealing with these types of waste?

Municipal composting (and mandatory recycling and composting) are a great step in the right direction. This has been in place (in a much more extreme way) in Japan for many years; space and resource problems hit little island nations sooner than giant continent nations. Hopefully these types of measures will become more widespread in the US, particularly in population-dense areas which already have trouble disposing of their tons of trash.

Dinner tonight:

Quinoa pasta with sauteed onions, baby bella mushrooms, and bok choi, tossed with garlic scape pesto.

Steamed fiddlehead ferns tossed in a dijon vinaigrette.

Both = delicious. :)

Started setting up a cage-free bird room for the little harpies yesterday. I've recently gotten back on the horse about making sure they have stuff to keep them entertained during the day; my routine got thrown off by the move, but things are pretty much settled down now.

Yesterday while I was taking all the toys out of the bird cage to rearrange it and put new toys in, I decided to start hanging things up outside of the cage. I don't have any good ceiling hooks or ceiling protectors yet, so I mostly hung things from the curtain rods and off the top of their cage. Still, it's a much better jungle gym than they've had since the old apartment.

I've also been leaving their cage doors open more and more while we're out of the house. We often leave them out in their room while we're home, so I've had a long safety test run.

I gave them free run of their room last night and today, and all went well. Now I'm itching to hang up more toys and perches and get rid of the cage!

Yesterday: Finally went strawberry picking for the first (and probably only) time this year. (We've still got three gallons of frozen strawberries left from last year, a couple quarts of strawberry-rhubarb pie filling, and a ton of jam.) We picked 8 heaping quarts, and have already polished off the "heaps."

We had friends up visiting from NYC with their little brown dog. Chaucer is okay with dogs, but Milton finds them horrifying: his tail gets huge, and he hides under the bed. After the dog had been in the house for a few hours, though, he got brave enough to sit in the same room as her with his tail a normal size. (I encouraged this behavior by sporadic application of dried chicken bits.) The dog and I worked on targeting, sitting, and lying down.

Today I pushed the mower around the lawn and did all but the little back yard strip in about 2 hours. The reel mower is almost infinitely more pleasant to use than a gas mower; I listened to my audiobook the entire time, and found the noise of my neighbors' lawn tractors unpleasant.

The only time the reel mower was annoying was on a small patch of long grass. It's been raining so much that the grass has grown in leaps and bounds, and we haven't gotten much chance to mow. I'm glad I did it today, or it would have gotten unmanageable.

Now my shoulders and upper back have that slightly achey worked-out feeling, and I didn't even have to set foot in a gym. Double bonus!

Now off for a Father's Day dinner with the sin-laws.

My garden beds are thriving in all this rain. Almost everything in the new, third bed is up, including:

Radishes
Peas
Edamame
Scarlet runner beans
Butternut squash
Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Cauliflower
Spinach mustard (although it'll probably get too hot for this before it's ready)
Marigolds

We'll see how it goes. Most of these seeds got planted because I accidentally left the packets outside, where they got rained on and started to sprout. (Oops.) Oh well, it'll be an experiment.

The bees are buzzing happily, and the whole area around my gardens smells deliciously of honey. I haven't checked the hives in a week or so, but I'll bet Hive 1 has made good progress on drawing out comb in their second hive body. If Hive 2 hasn't finished drawing comb and putting in brood in its first hive body, I'll have to swap in a frame of brood from the strong hive.

The fruit trees have tons of happy little fruits growing, and I'm becoming convinced that the Mystery Fruits are plums, not cherries, as the neighbors had told us.

The patch of knotweed my dad cleared is growing back frighteningly fast. I need to get out there and dig up some more roots before it catches back up with the rest of the stuff, which is about 10 feet tall. Yeeks.

The day lilies behind my house are just starting to bloom. They look like this:


I dug up a big pile of them to make way for my garden beds. If any locals want 'em, they're yours.

Our local co-op grocery store sells this, and it is so freaking good that I asked them for the recipe. Here it is, cut down from store proportions to "large household" proportions.

Ingredients
1.5 lbs orzo (I've also made this with 1lb, since orzo is sold in 1lb boxes, and it's fine.)
1 C sesame seeds
1.5 C toasted cashews (almonds and pecans work well too), chopped small
1 C green onions, diced
1/4 - 1/2 lb parmesan cheese, shredded (leave this out to make it vegan-friendly)
1.5 Tbsp crushed red chili flakes
2 C shredded carrot
1/4 C mirin (available in the Asian section of grocery stores)
3/4 C tamari (use less if using less orzo)
1.5 Tbsp sesame oil
1/2 C vegetable oil (use less if using less orzo)
1/2 - 1 tsp black pepper

Directions
Cook orzo according to package directions (or if you bought it bulk: bring water to a boil, add orzo, boil for 10 minutes, drain). While it's cooking, prepare the other ingredients. Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. This keeps well, and is even more delicious if you let the flavors blend in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

Note: To toast the nuts, spread them on a cookie sheet and bake them at 350*F for 6-8 minutes, depending on the type of nut. Watch them carefully toward the end; when they start to smell toasty, take them out.

(x-posted to borkborkrecipes)

My family has made this recipe for years, and always called it the "New York Times Pancake."

New York Times Pancake

Preheat oven to 350*F.

Mix together:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs

Put butter in bottom of 9-10" round pan (or pie plate) and put in preheated oven to melt.

When melted, pour in batter and sprinkle with nutmeg.

Bake 20 minutes.

The “pancake” will puff way up, so don't bake it on the top rack.

To eat, top with powdered sugar, maple syrup, or your sweetener of choice.

(x-posted to borkborkrecipes)

Every night when we give the cats dinner, we feed Chaucer first because, being a delicate lady, she eats slowly and daintily. While she's eating, we distract Milton by making him stand on his hind legs and lick the spoon. He's remarkably good at it! Also, check out transversely telling him to sit at the end.



(x-posted to clickertraining)

I installed my new bees a few weeks ago, and 3rdragon took some pictures of it:

I've finally uploaded the pictures of me and my folks painting our new house, plus a few shots of the finished product. Enjoy!

#23. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (audiobook, nonfiction)
I was somewhat disappointed by this book. It's about using economics tools (which means statistical analysis, from what I could tell) on things other than money. Some of the questions asked were interesting; others were pretty dull. I think if I'd been more in the mood for a long-winded non-fiction book I would've enjoyed this more; as is, I found it unsatisfying.

#24-29. Dead to the World, Dead as a Doornail, Definitely Dead, All Together Dead, From Dead to Worse, Dead and Gone, by Charlaine Harris
This series is very up and down. Some books are action-packed and plot-ful, while others seem to be purely filler and aren't very compelling. Harris also has a really annoying habit of leaving out huge chunks of story, to the point where I thought I had missed a whole book. A coworker told me this was because Harris wrote short stories in addition to the books, but the stories aren't published or referenced anywhere in the books. I'll be glad to take a break from these for a little while, although I will be watching the TV series with nuclearvenus and midnights_sun12.

#30. Graceling, by Kristin Cashore (YAF, Fantasy)
In a world where children born with two different colored eyes are Graced with special gifts, Katsa finds herself Graced with killing. Her uncle, the king, uses her to intimidate his enemies, but Katsa hates playing the bully. She starts an underground movement to right some of the wrongs done by the warring kings. Little does Katsa know that rescuing the kidnapped father of another king will lead to making choices that will change the course of her life.

Graceling is by far my favorite book of the year. Thanks to yix for recommending it!

1. We got our shiny new reel mower. It works well, as long as the grass doesn't get too high. Unfortunately, while we were waiting for it to come, some of the grass got too high. Good thing I don't really give a crud about the length of my grass. Reel mowing doesn't seem to me to be much more challenging or time consuming than gas mowing, and it's dramatically more pleasant (no hearing damage! no fumes!). Since we're mowing close to an acre of lawn, we'll see how this goes throughout the summer. Like biking, I see push-mowing as a practical form of exercise. Why should I spend time in a gym when my lawn needs mowing anyway?

2. Rain barrel is set up and works like a charm. I bought a drip hose, which seems to work reasonably well, although not as quickly as I'd like. Many of my garden plants are not doing so well, and I'm not sure why. However, my kale, chard, and Chinese cabbage are growing like crazy. Woot!

3. My beehives are thriving. In fact, Hive 1 got up in arms when I removed some excess junk comb last weekend, and a couple of bees got stuck in my hair. While I was jumping around the yard doing the Bees In My Hair dance, another bee stung me on the eyelid. Normally I have very little reaction to beestings... except when they're on my eyelids, and then my face swells up. Pretty. Fortunately for me, the swelling was almost unnoticeable by the time I had to give a talk on Tuesday.

Speaking of which, I'm off to hack Moodle code!