Author: jennynazak

Another thing I find incredibly handy and fun (and cannot do without, for reasons mentioned below) is a little outdoor kitchen setup.

For years — almost 20 years now actually, come to think of it! — I have cooked with a solar oven as my main oven. It’s like a crockpot that uses no electricity.

But other than that, I haven’t cooked outdoors much on a regular basis till recently. I’m not great at barbecue grilling, and current housemates are not all that into it, so we don’t do it much.

One housemate recently took off for a long term interstate walking trip. He equipped himself with the lightest possible gear, and he left me some items such as a butane camp-stove that are really good but didn’t quite make his “gram-shaving” cut.

The last time I had a camp stove was some years back. I had was one of those Dragonfly stoves that ran on an MSR bottle. Easy to use (and I like the fact that the bottles are refillable) but there is no denying the convenience of this butane baby!

Doesn’t have to be primed or anything. Don’t even need a match or lighter, as it comes with its own built-in ignition switch so all you do is turn the fuel on and hit the built in switch, and presto! Such a breeze, I started getting very spoiled from the very first day of use.

My current plan is to use up a couple of canisters left to me by housemate, and then get myself back used to cooking on the twig stove. It’s been some years since I was really smooth with the twig stove. It takes a little practicing but the fuel is available everywhere, (like everywhere if you have a forest yard!).

At one point when I was living in Santa Fe for six months (permaculture / eco school including practicum component on my chosen area of focus, solar cooking & renewable energy), I got so casual with the twig stove that I could have a friend over for dinner, be chatting with them over drinks while cooking the meal. Just casually with a drink in my hand and feeding twigs to the little stove.

As most of you probably know, outdoor kitchens can be quite large, spectacular, and high-end. With full-size ovens and stoves and everything. I’ve been to some friends’ houses where I can’t understand why they would ever bother with the indoor kitchen, because the outdoor one is so lavish.

But even a little simple setup like mine is really fun and convenient.

I do a lot of food prep outdoors for the solar oven, and over the past couple years have minimized food prep in the indoor kitchen, especially during the summer season. In an open-air house (no A/C, so windows mostly stay open except on our few cold nights), even if the screens and such are good, it just seems like bugs find their way into the kitchen when there are too many food smells.

Interestingly, I came across something the other day where people in some tropical country (the Philippines maybe?) were saying they use an outdoor kitchen because if they cook indoors it gets overrun with ants. I’m OK with ants, but palmetto bugs I would really rather they stay outside lol!

Another advantage of an outdoor kitchen is that it can be good for building community. Same as doing yardwork, or taking one’s coffee outside, or any other thing that brings a person outdoors for extended times. There are a lot of neighbors who I only know, and who only know me, just because I tend to be outside working or sitting in the yard a lot. This street gets a lot of foot traffic, and it makes a real difference in people’s pleasure and sense of safety if someone happens to be out on their porch.

Because of the urban corner lot that I live on, which being a 1/10 acre makes the house very close to the sidewalk on two sides, I sometimes refer to my place as an “Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm” — except that the “ant” on view is ME. This configuration serendipitously furthers my eco educational mission because I am never far from the sidewalk when I’m doing my various everyday activities.

Before I started using the little camp stove my housemate left me, I had started cooking outdoors by bringing the toaster oven and stove burner out there. I would plug it into an extension cord and run that to the wall outlet inside the porch room. However, that doesn’t allow the door to be closed all the way, and so it lets in too many mosquitoes.

Plus I really like the “wireless” setup! Just find it very appealing.

Yesterday I cooked greens and sausage on the butane stove-ette. This morning so far I have made coffee. It seemed to me like the water got hot almost as fast as my electric kettle does!

Today I might also use the stove to boil up some greens.

I will also be using my solar oven to cook some fish fillets. Extremely high-quality frozen whiting fillets that a neighbor got via the food distribution system but didn’t want. It’s a package of eight. I am thawing out three of them in the fridge and will cook them up with sliced potatoes, onions, carrot, butter, seasonings.

See photos here, for as long as the will of Zuck shall allow! You know the drill!

Outdoor wash stations for hand-washing and other minor tasks are such a handy thing! When rain volumes allow, I keep mine filled with water from the rain collection tubs. Sometimes in the dry season I refill them from the tap so I can save my dwindling rainwater reserves for watering the trees & other plants, and for washing my own self.

After filling the wash stations, I then add a tiny bit of plain chlorine bleach, particularly if it’s a translucent or transparent container. To keep algae from growing, and also add a bit of disinfectant power.

The green canvas cover on the white jug also helps keep algae from growing, although its main purpose is to have the container aesthetically blend in with the yard.

The canvas cover is half of a giant duffel bag that somebody tossed at the curbside. It had a broken zipper and some busted seams.

I actually like the visibility of the silver coffee urn. (The urn was given to me along time ago by a departed neighbor, and I think it used to be a coffee urn – I cut the electric cord off and turned it into a water dispenser). I think it’s pretty and don’t mind it being visible.

I had the tall white jug sitting on a stool. Sort of like a mini water tower. However, the other day when I was filling it from the bounteous rain tub, it went off balance and almost fell over, and my shimming skills were not up to leveling it. In any case, even if it hadn’t been for the problematic top-heaviness of the setup, the tallness of the jug made it hard to fill. It’s much easier to scoop water into it when it’s not above my shoulder height ha ha. So I decided to omit the stool and just put it on blocks a convenient height about a foot and a half above ground level.

It makes a handy foot-wash station, and also it’s easy to stick a container under it and collect some water for minor washing tasks. (I say minor washing tasks because a washing station is more useful if it doesn’t have to be refilled constantly.)

There are wash stations in other parts of the yard as well. Biggest one is about a 30-gallon rain barrel with a faucet. (Most of my rain barrels don’t have faucets; I just remove the lid and scoop the water out with a pot or can.)

The amounts of water per use are small, just enough to sometimes create an evaporative cooling effect on the hot concrete.

Back in the “aughts,” when I lived in a little RV park in South Austin, the park manager kindly allowed me to place a barrel to collect rainwater off the roof of the laundry/restroom building. (He was an all-around great guy.) I’d keep a few small limestone chunks in the barrel to harden the water a bit. I sometimes do that with baking soda in my little hand-wash stations here.

See photos here on my deep green Facebook page.

… Is not going to cut it as an excuse to our children and future descendents.

In response to a post on my Facebook page, where I wondered allowed if any studies have been done on the correlation between manicured lawn obsession and a preference for extreme authoritarianism, one friend and fellow activist pointed out that often it is beyond the control of the residents. Lawn services are hired by HOA’s, apartment managers, condo boards, and so on.

I responded:

Glad you brought this up. This is actually part of our work. (I mean we as in a very broad umbrella. Native plant societies, rewilding groups, permaculture guilds, people who live with dogs & other animal companions, people who aspire to have fruit trees & fresh vegetables in their immediate environment, etc.)

By the way, thank YOU for being a major force for awareness and voluntary change. In this arena as in many others.

Residents of condos, apartments, planned communities etc. — the more they start realizing what’s at stake, maybe they will be more willing to engage with the “Boogey Man” — the management of their residential complexes. 

We (the “umbrella” movement) can help them with that.

We (citizens in general) can’t keep using HOA’s etc as an excuse why we are powerless to stop the extinction of insects and birds, the killing of waterways etc. “My HOA wouldn’t let me” will not cut it with our children and future descendants.  HOAs and similar entities have become a handy scapegoat. Sort of like “the dog ate my homework.”

Regarding HOAs, I do think they tend to attract a kind of person who favors authoritarianism or at least doesn’t mind it much in exchange for certain “benefits.”

I have been dismayed to see so many fellow environmentalists, old activists from the 60s etc., choose HOA life. I understand that people want a turnkey home where things don’t break as much. But I wish more people would’ve been willing to choose older homes in the historic areas rather than endure the boot of the HOA. The housing market might be shaped differently if that had happened.

I first noticed it when I moved back from Tokyo in the 90s and was integrating back into USA life, including environmental activist organizations. I was surprised to see so many environmentalists living the suburban “big house and big car” lifestyle, with all that entailed. Probably the reverse culture shock made it stand out more for me.

Of course a lot of people choose HOAs “for the better schools.” Which often is code for “whitey-tightey.” We, white people, have tended to withdraw our presence and secure our own little enclaves rather than work to push for necessary change in the whole system. And I’m talking here about liberal white people!

My driveway won’t fit a car, but it now has short-term bicycle parking! For both guests and residents. I even added a kickstand prop! (L-shaped piece of cinderblock on the ground. Same approach that I used to use for parking my little Honda Rebel in the driveway, during my brief stint of motorcycle ownership.)

I got the idea to create an exterior short-term parking space when a housemate’s guest was having trouble threading her bicycle up through the shade trellis area. (The path used to be a lot narrower, more difficult to get a bicycle through; I widened it a bit yesterday before getting the idea to create an exterior parking space.)

The bicycle pictured here is mine. I usually keep it parked in the garage.

In the USA American culture, sometimes we think we don’t have space for something, but we actually do. I think we’ve just been conditioned to take up a lot of space. Because of how much land this continent that we invaded has. I was able to create this bicycle space without encroaching on the trellis shade zone, and without eliminating the little chairs and mini table at the front of the driveway.

Was reading a nice chewy thread in the permies.com forum. Lots of great tips about household time-saving hacks, and energy-saving hacks (our own human energy, as much as fossil fuels or any other resource).

Lots of good tips.

Most of them boil down to what I would consider ergonomics. I used to think ergonomics was just is this chair optimized for being able to sit and work for a long time; is this desk height conducive to spinal health; etc.

But it’s really a much broader thing and to me encompasses logistical pathways in the house and yard and community, and how stuff is positioned etc. In Permaculture design, one of the cardinal principles is location. Relative location: placing things close and an optimal relationship to one another.

In our mechanized world with access to cheap fuel and electricity and running water, we sometimes forget that this is still an important principle.

Here’s a nice article I found from Light Guide, “What Is Ergonomics?” Very helpful overview of ergonomics and what it encompasses. I like how they mention cognitive and organizational ergonomics as well as the physical. The emphasis is on the industrial setting but it’s still an extremely helpful article for considering the arrangement of pathways and flows in your household and yard. And community.

In the thread, someone posted a chart of age-appropriate tasks for young people. That’s definitely one good way to save energy, is to have all household members participating according to their abilities. You can take a look at the chart here on my Facebook.

We often underestimate the ability of kids, even little kids to help, and often forget that they actually want to help especially if they get started at a young age. I wrote a post on here a while back, and shared some articles about how kids in indigenous/traditional cultures help with a lot of tasks that we would think would be too advanced, too much responsibility.

Anything you would add to this chart, or change regarding the suggested ages?

BTW terminology note: I personally avoid using the word “homestead” (aptly described by EcoPunks as “an inherently racist concept rooted in colonial violence”); I say smallholding or household.

(Why not to use the word “homesteading,” post by Eco Punks https://read.ecopunks.live/homesteading-an-inherently-racist-concept-d169adc03574 )

The Permies forums (founded by Paul Wheaton) are a vast resource. And relatively low-bandwidth since it’s mostly text and some photos. Also have found the site pretty straightforward as far as user-friendliness. I’m not the most tech-savvy person in the world.

• car ownership

• air travel

• “hustle culture”

• moving to some remote acreage to “live off grid”

• “My grandmother, <mother, father, grandfather etc.> is so active and feisty! She’s 95 years old and still driving!”

Regarding car ownership:

In many parts of the USA, most people are basically forced into car ownership. Even fellow environmentalists. Still, I would like to see more of my fellow environmental activists treat car ownership like a necessary evil or a non-ideal situation, lamentable systems design failure, etc. — instead of some cause for rejoicing. Bragging on social media when they get a new car, when their kid gets their first car, etc. It’s always jarring to see fellow eco folk unconsciously reinforcing the consumerist and anti-public-transport social norms.

Regarding moving out to remote acreage to “live off-grid”:

I’ve actually never done this, and don’t aspire to – but it’s grating to constantly hear people rhapsodize about how it’s their dream etc.

Come on, just unplug your TV, turn off the lights, light a candle and fire up the barbecue. And get some rain barrels.
You can do it in your own home, in your own neighborhood, right now! I do it all the time — it’s how I live. And many other people as well. If you Google “off-grid in the city” you’ll find some very interesting content.

For additional off-grid fun you can just sleep in your garage sometimes when you feel like it. THAT, i do enjoy.

And you don’t even have to give up the convenience & connection of living in town. (BTW it’s totally possible to be a hermit and still live in town, ask me how I know <wink>.

We can choose our level of reclusiveness and still live in healthy interdependence with our neighbors; contribute to our communities.

Regarding elderly people still driving, and that being a bragging point:

Feeling happy that our elders are still getting around and active is a natural thing. However, the fact that elderly people are having to drive is not something to brag about. It’s a sign of bad design of our towns and cities; hollowing-out of neighborhoods and communities. Do we really want to keep living in a world where our beloved elders are terrified to give up their car keys because it means losing their independence?? People of any age should be able to walk out of their dwelling and go to the library, food store, park, and other places that make up the fabric of their life.

If I were going to brag that an elder is still “feisty,” I would want to be able to brag that they were instrumental in arranging a shuttle service for the residents of their retirement home. Or that they spoke to their city commission and got some improvement in public transportation. Now that is some GOOD feistiness!

(This post was my response to a prompt from a Facebook page called “God,” which asks interesting and thought-provoking questions. You can navigate to the original post from my post here. The prompt was “Things you wish people would stop romanticizing because you’ve lived the reality of it.”)

A person could have a whole full-time occupation just trying to use and / or give away food that’s being discarded but is still good. Oftentimes the surplus food ends up being far away from the hungry people.

Today it’s 15 little cartons of skim milk and about as many cartons of juice. All have been sitting in a friend’s freezer as they were unwanted by clients of a meal distribution service.

If any of this sounds like blaming anybody, it’s not. This is a reality of life in a society where people are spread out and the distribution doesn’t always match where the needs are.

My friend hates to waste food as much as I do, but she didn’t want to drink the milks and juices herself.

The church down the street wasn’t answering its bell or phone. And a friend I called from another church said his church probably wouldn’t want them — which I understand because it’s perishable and they don’t know where the stuff has been.

I share a fridge and freezer with two housemates so there’s usually not freezer space for so many items.

For various reasons, today I have taken the approach to keep the juices and use them up soon in some sort of beverage to share.

And to try making homemade evaporated milk from the milks. I’ve never made evaporated milk before but I have seen instructions online. In short, you cook it down by simmering for 45 minutes or an hour or so. Don’t let it boil.

Today I’ll try doing one batch in the solar oven and one on the stove burner. I’ll reduce it to as small a volume as possible and then use it in cooking and baking.

BTW I’m really happy because as of yesterday I finally have a nice little swivel stand for the solar oven. I took apart a chair someone had thrown away at curbside. Removed the wheels, and the chair back. This was after trying to use the chair as is. The oven kept slipping off and being hard to keep level and so on. My latest version of the swivel-stand consists of only the horizontal part of the seat, plus the legs with the wheels removed.

Fun fact (NOT!): Did you know that sometimes people maliciously tamper with food before giving it to homeless / hungry people? Like as a hideous ghoulish prank.

So even if there were a bunch of people around right now possibly wanting a little carton of milk or juice — which there aren’t because they are laying low, understandably — it’s gotten harder to distribute surplus food.

The craziest examples are for example sometimes pounds and pounds of whole shelled pecans or walnuts will show up, then make its way through the neighborhood as unwanted surplus. Some fancy thing that retails for $15 or $20 a pound but there’s a huge surplus and it just ends up at the curbside. Dried cranberries and so on, I kid you not. Or cans and cans of salmon.

(I love all kinds of fish, fresh or canned, and was able to use a lot of the extra as bait for the trap neuter release effort in our neighborhood where we are trying to get the feral cats spayed and neutered.)

Well, just some thoughts on using up surplus food that’s gotten jammed in the distribution system. I’ll let you know how the evaporated milk experiment goes.

I really admire people who run food pantries and can cook something and a bunch of people will want to show up and eat it. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and I really appreciate the work you all are doing.

Photos of the solar setup etc. here.

Update: The evaporated-milk experiment is working.