Lisa Zahn

I am so thrilled and honored that Verde chose me and my blog to award with the Brilliante Award! 1. The winner can put the logo on her/his blog. 2. Link the person you received your award from. 3. Nominate at least 5 other blogs. 4. Put links of those blogs on yours. 5. Leave a message on the blogs you’ve nominated 6. Bonus points, list 5 random things about yourself that we might not pick up from your blog. Now I get to nominate 5 other blogs! I choose: 1. Jessica at the RosieQ Family Blog because, well, first of all she is married to my cousin and we've only recently discovered that we are really kindred spirits in this urban homesteading thing and well at least that's two of us crazy folks in the family! (Thank God! And thank you, Jess, for marrying in...) 2. Devin and Heidi at the Quince Urban Homestead because they, too, are kindred spirits and we loved loved loved meeting them in Minneapolis in June. It's really nice to know another Minnesota urban homesteading blogg...

I'm no doomsdayer, but I am certainly watching the economy and government closely. We're in big trouble already and it's going to get worse. Dmitry Orlov is an American who used to be a Soviet. He writes a blog called Club Orlov . George found an old Energy Bulletin , which is basically a powerpoint presentation by Orlov and it's a good read. Here's the link: Closing the 'Collapse Gap': The USSR Was Better Prepared For Collapse Than The US . Here's a quote: Certain types of mainstream economic behavior are not prudent on a personal level, and are also counterproductive to bridging the Collapse Gap. Any behavior that might result in continued economic growth and prosperity is counterproductive: the higher you jump, the harder you land. It is traumatic to go from having a big retirement fund to having no retirement fund because of a market crash. It is also traumatic to go from a high income to little or no income. If, on top of that, you have kept yoursel...

And I'm not talking about the hens! Here they are in safe keeping in the dog crate yesterday afternoon while George gets all the locks on the coop doors, finishes building their ramp, etc. My friend Vicki was coming to town anyway so brought us four of her Rhode Island Reds. She thinks they're all hens. I keep calling them "the girls--well I hope you're all girls". They are 8-9 weeks old. They should start laying eggs in 9 weeks or so. I think we'll name them as we get to know them better, but so far we like Lucy and Lily for two of them. Enjoying food and water in their "luxury accommodations" coop. Rhode Island Reds are a medium-sized bird that are known to be very reliable egg layers and also make good meat when they're past egg-laying age (about two years down the road)--which makes them a "dual purpose bird". They were first bred in Rhode Island and are considered an Heirloom breed. Larger scale farmers today usually choos...

Click here, not up there: http://kucinich.us/

We are "Sustaining Members" of Minnesota Public Radio . We made the decision to donate monthly to MPR the year that George Bush bought the 2000 election and have been doing so since. I felt strongly then that public radio was the only news source that came even close to presenting balanced, in-depth news, and I still feel the same way. Not that I agree with everything on MPR but I still think it's the best somewhat "mainstream" news around. George, who'd rather listen to news than watch it on TV or read it online, listens to MPR literally all.day.long when he's home in the summer. So he heard that our friend Louis Johnston, Economics Prof. at St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict's , was going to be on the Midday talk show today. He's one of their resident econ. experts. I got the chance to listen this morning and it was such a good, sane discussion that I decided I'd post a link to it so others can listen. Here...

My cousin and his wife, Jessica, are native Minnesotans living in Houston, Texas now. Jess is very eager to garden successfully but could use some advice for her climate. If you can help, pop on over to Jess' blog and give her some advice on her July 29 "Garden" post...Thanks!

These scary numbers are all from the Automatic Earth blog that is listed in my blog links. Every day they post a very informative "Debt Rattle" with linked articles on the world's finances and economics. I won't vouch for their absolute accuracy because I haven't done the research myself, but I trust the bloggers have done their homework. I quote directly from their blog: "And when you're done reading the numbers, you might want to check your wallet. Cost of the various US housing bail-out programs to date, through the Federal Reserve, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal Housing Administration and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.: $1.46 trillion . Increase from 2006 to 2007 in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac part of the bail-outs: $621 billion (expected to be much higher this year) Total new financing the Fed has made available to markets: $446 billion Cost for (non-Fan and Fred) housing part of the The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. a new progr...

In small towns of Minnesota, the noon meal is called Dinner. The evening meal is Supper. The meals between breakfast and dinner and dinner and supper are called "a little lunch". I grew up with the tradition of Sunday Dinner after church around noon or 1:00 p.m. Well, I'd love to revive that tradition at my own house and these days since we're staying home more it may just get done. It was a shame not to share this meal with others. Everything we ate was either from our backyard or at least from Minnesota, with the exception of the mayonnaise and an apple--you'll see why we needed those below... We made a whole chicken (from a farm just outside of town) in the crockpot, on low for four and a half hours. George rubbed it with salt and pepper and a little bit of sage from the garden. He put a halved onion in the crock, too. The chicken made its own juices which was delicious as a light gravy over the potatoes and meat. We ate the first of our potato harvest. Yester...