The Homestead
the power of power
Power Rates Go Up for IdahoansIdahoans using electricity are soon going to see upcoming power bills rise.
Idaho Power Company customers will pay more for power supply because the Idaho Public Utilities Commission last week approved the company’s application to apply a one-fourth of one-cent per kWh surcharge to pay for extra power supply costs not already covered in base rates.
Because of a dry winter and spring, the water levels are low and the company’s hydroelectric dams can’t generate enough electricity to meet customer demand, so the power company has to get it from other sources.
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Prizes Prizes Prizes
Contest: Name My Dog
I went to the Idaho Humane Society (nee The Pound) over the holiday weekend. I went with the intention of checking out the stock for a future adoption, not to pick up a new best friend that day. But zing went the strings of my heart; I fell in love with a yellow mutt and brought her home that day.
According to her papers, she’s part border collie, part lab. She’s 13 months old, 48 pounds heavy, no plaque on her teeth, her coat is very soft, and she’s super friendly. She’s got it all…except a name.
This is where you come in: Help me name my dog.
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Column: Savagemama
Puree, Liquify, Squish: Making Baby’s FoodI never thought I’d be one of those people who made my baby’s food. I always figured some company had perfected recipes and processes and that I as a consumer would benefit from their years of research and trial and error. So when Eliza started eating solid foods we bought jars off the shelf of our local grocery store. It went on like this for a month or so, grocery bags with jangling jars inside. There is a sign in one of our local grocery stores that reads, "organic doesn't mean clean," and in the case of organic baby food I would argue organic doesn't mean tasty either. After a while, I noticed that most of this food was pretty bland, even for baby food. So we steamed some carrots one day, put them in the blender and within a few tries, came up with a creamy, sweet, electric-orange meal. We've been making her food ever since. [more]
Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Old Seeds, New Tastes: Growing Heirloom Plants Instead of Hybrids
Before the 1930s, farmers and gardeners around the world relied on open-pollinated seeds that came from previous crops. Carrot seeds were gathered from carrots and tomato seeds from tomatoes. Farmers would save seed from the plants that had done best and would continue to grow and collect those seeds, eventually passing them down to their children and their children’s children.
But in the 1930s hybrid seeds began to appear in seed catalogues. Hybrids were made by breeding two distinct and different varieties of the same species in order to bring out desirable traits. Hybrids were workhorse seeds, built for disease resistance and better yield, and these traits were desirable for farmers who were beginning to increase acreage and production. The seeds would not produce other viable seeds, and so while farmers were able to use the new hybrids to their benefit, they needed to buy them each year. Even so, the utility of these plants made hybrid seed the mainstay of agriculture in the United States.
As the food system became more industrialized, food processors and restaurants were looking for plant varieties that fit the standard shape and function of their machines and equipment. More hybrids were bred to handle long transportation or restaurant uniformity requirements. Tomatoes for instance were bred to be plump and perfectly red with skin tough enough to endure prolonged shipment.
Subsequently, many of the older, open-pollinated heirlooms were dropped by seed companies because they were not selling at the same rate.
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Savagemama
The Baby Is Eating Dirt, It’s a Lovely ThingLast week we planted carrots and greens. I sat Eliza in the dirt and moved quickly making rows in the soil I’d turned the week before. As I sprinkled seeds, Eliza grunted to be picked up.
“Just one more row,” I told her over my shoulder.
Her grunts turned to whines then to cries. It took us all day to plant one bed. Saturday we planted potatoes and onions. In the middle of planning the potato patch I turned to look and Eliza had a handful of dirt in her mouth.
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Column: Savagemama
Mama: Tune Out the Naysayers, Trust Your Gut“Trust your instinct,” a friend said.
It’s such a simple concept and one that we new mothers often forget. We’re inundated by advice – some well meaning, some not so much – and we want more than anything to do it right, to make sure our children are OK. And the fear and guilt that come from the newness of this endeavor make us vulnerable even to concepts that seem foreign, concepts that go against everything our gut is telling us.
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Column: Savagemama
How a Baby can Turn the Family Dog Into, Well, a DogLast summer Eliza was born and our poor dog Imogene has had to take a back seat both in terms of time and affection. I tell her to be quiet when the baby is sleeping, I won’t let her lay on the rug because she gets muddy paw prints on the baby’s blanket. Dinnertime is no longer the begging free-for-all it used to be, I usually tell Imogene to get out of the kitchen because she is just one more thing in my way. She stays outside most days now; she sleeps in the laundry room instead of our room. We’ve even talked about having her sleep in the garage.
Imogene’s status has shifted without any of us meaning for it to happen. She’s still the baby dog but there’s new angel-faced girl in the house. Lately it seems as though we’re treating Imogene differently. We’re treating her like a dog not the go-everywhere-we-go companion she’s always been and somehow that’s strange.
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Where Xutos picks the wrong bowl
Fishing for Some Air to Breathe
I always wanted a bird. Grew up with dogs. Never much liked cats. This morning, however, I settled for some fish.
Petra and I wandered into a fish store after a quick trip to the pediatrician. I’d thought about getting her a few fish, but hadn’t told her that was the plan. Just in case.
So we walked into the fish store. It smelled like fish. There were large tanks everywhere and I was immediately pleased with myself for not getting her 2-year-old expectations up about owning some fish.
I looked at the price lists posted on each tank and had total sticker shock. The fish in this store were like $30, $26.50, $85. Really cool fish, but c’mon. I’ll pay $25 for an Idaho fishing license. I’ll buy wild salmon for $11 bucks a pound once in a while.
But when I was a kid fish were, like, free.
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Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Urban Chick: Chickens in the City
There are more chickens than people in the United States. (And that’s just counting the chickens in large, commercial facilities.) In 2006, the U.S. people population topped 300 million, but there were already 450 million chickens (pdf) in large facilities.
While some of these commercial facilities are better than others, most concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFOs) use tight confinement of chickens to increase efficiency and production. Such concentration leads to a lot of manure, which carries polluting amounts of arsenic, ammonia and other chemicals. (The $40 billion a year industry is adeptly covered in the engaging new PBS documentary, The Natural History of the Chicken.)
This pollution and the often inhumane treatment of CAFO raised poultry are reason enough for many urbanites to raise chickens in their backyards.
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New West Energy Grok
Rural Coops Face Net MeteringYou'd think that utilities would get behind the movement across the West toward "net metering," which allows owners of small solar- and wind-power systems to put the excess energy they generate back onto the grid, and be compensated for it. The electricity produced by homeowners or ranchers, after all, is power they don’t have to generate or buy on the market.
Rural Electricity Associations, however, have lined up against Colorado's House Bill 1169, which would significantly raise the amount of user-generated power utilities have to allow on their grids. The measure passed the House in late March and is currently before a Senate committee in Denver. The associations argue that raising the net-metering caps would allows big-box stores and agribusiness to get into the energy business, and would raise rates for non-energy-producing ratepayers.
“What this bill does is blow the lid off the existing net metering law," Rep. Cory Gardner of Yuma said last week. "Instead of allowing individuals to produce power for their own needs, it creates a giant loophole for people to get into the power business on the backs of rural electric rate payers."
This, of course, is nonsense. The net metering bill would require REAs to allow just one percent of their electricity to come from net metering for the first two years, and only five percent in the long run.
In other energy news: Plains Exploration pays nearly $1 billion for Western Slope oil and gas wells; gas prices to spike up to $3 a gallon this summer; and Denver-based oil co. faces bizarre lawsuit by a venerable Texas ranching family.
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