Targeted Ads
Yesterday afternoon my nieces & nephew came over for a visit. While I was chatting with my sister in the side garden we noticed 3 pre-teen girls stapling an ad to a tree right behind my mailbox. Then they proceeded to walk down the street yelling “Dog Walking, Dog Walking, Dog Walking”. While all this was happening Lucy was sitting in the front yard barking at them. The kids wanted to go over to read the sign, so we did:
What a great little flier, I love the “100% garenteed”. It’s kind of funny that they put up this flyer right across from our house, since have empty lots on both side and across the street. The only person that will see it is us – how’s that for targeted ads! I was always an industrious little girl. My sister and had always had a business going to earn money, our most profitable was a popsicle business.
What kinds of things did you do to make extra cash when you were young?
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Quote of the Day: J.R.R. Tolkien
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
Food – good, healthy, real food, is something that I value above many other things in life. There are a lot of things I would give up if needed in order to afford good food. There are a lot of things I don’t do so that I have the time to cultivate some of my own food in the garden. I’m willing to pay my local farmer’s more for their products because they’re better and healthier than their mass produced counter parts. In my life, food is high on the list of my priorities – maybe that’s one of the reasons our home is such a merry one.
What’s high on your priority list?
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Join Us for the $5 Challenge & win a Prize
As you know, I’m a big advocate for good, healthy local food. I keep up to date on what’s going on in the agricultural world, as well as the local and slow food movement. When Slow Food initiated their $5 Challenge I thought it was a great idea. I’m always trying to tell people that eating local seasonal food is not more expensive and this challenge sets out to prove just that. The goal is to cook healthy meal for less than what you would spend for a meal at a fast food restaurant. They emphasize that the food should fit the Slow Food ideal “food that is good for those who eat it, good for farmers and workers, and good for the planet.”
THE CHALLENGE: This September 17, you’re invited to take back the ‘value meal’ by getting together with family, friends and neighbors for a slow food meal that costs no more than $5 per person. Cook a meal with family and friends, have a potluck, or find a local event.
WHY: Because slow food shouldn’t have to cost more than fast food. If you know how to cook, then teach others. If you want to learn, this is your chance. Together, we’re sending a message that too many people live in communities where it’s harder to buy fruit than Froot Loops. Everybody should be able to eat fresh, healthy food every day.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED: Sign up for the challenge! You can cook a meal with friends and family, find a local event, or host your own event. When you sign up, we’ll send you $5 cooking tips.” Sign up for the challenge! You can cook a meal with friends and family, find a local event, or host your own event.
This isn’t really a “challenge” for me. We’ve been eating local, seasonal, slow food for quite a while. We even try to eat this way when we travel and when we’re on the run.
I’ll be getting together with a few friends tomorrow night and I’m in charge of the meal. Later today, I’m off to Local Roots to see what kinds of meals I could prepare for $5 a person. Of course I could make the entire meal with ingredients from my garden and some of the venison from the freezer and it would cost me only about $2 per person. But I think I’m going to purchase the ingredients for this challenge.
I have a few meal ideas knocking around in my head, like:
- Crispy Sticky Chicken Thighs from Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life
- Braised Beef Sandwiches like those ones I blogged about
- Simple Roasted Chicken with seasonal vegetables
- Pasta Primavera featuring homemade noodles with local eggs topped with seasonal vegetables and local cheese
- Beef Roast with roasted root vegetables
- Homemade pizza with various toppings & local cheese
- Beef Stew with a crusty homemade peasant loaf
- Caramelized Onion Soup topped with crusty bread and local cheese and a side salad
- Ratatouille from seasonal vegetables
- Mushroom Lasagna with local mushrooms and cheese with a fresh salad
Having a small edible garden is a great way to save some cash on your food bill and it’s the ultimate slow food. I have a collection of Botanical Interests seed packs to give away to one lucky reader. All you have to do is comment a great meal idea that would cost less than $5 per person using “food that is good for those who eat it, good for farmers and workers, and good for the planet.”
So, who’s in? Any great ideas for inexpensive, delicious meals?
Here’s a great Q&A with Josh Veirtel about the $5 Challenge and how it came about.
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And Just Like That….It’s Fall
Monday I spent the day cleaning out the closets, pantry, the floors and doing some general cleaning. It was quite nice outside, warm and sunny in the morning with thunderstorms in the afternoon, but I needed to get a few chores finished inside. By early evening, it was quite breezy while we were out on our evening walk. It felt like a beautiful late summer evening. Tuesday morning we woke up to a cool crisp morning and leaves scattered around the lawn. It no longer felt like late summer, it felt like fall.
It’s funny how that is, one day feels like one season and overnight it changes. There comes that day in spring, when you walk outside and you can smell the earth, winter is gone. A few months later you wake up one morning and it no longer feels like a damp cool spring day, it’s hot and humid, summer has arrived. Summer is replaced with the refreshing coolness of autumn and the winding down of the garden. Winter replaces the musty smell of fall on that day you notice there is no longer any distinguishable scent in the frosty air that burns when you take a breath.
It’s usually a feeling or a smell that triggers the change of seasons for me. It certainly feels like fall here at Chiot’s Run. The mornings are cool, the days are bright and sunny, the dying plants make a very specific rustling sound in the breeze, the air is filling with the smell of damp decay, signaling a time of rest and renewal. The coming of fall is filled with satisfying garden chores: clearing out the gardens, building compost piles, mulching, wrapping hydrangeas, planting cover crops and maybe a few last winter vegetables. I’m happy that it’s fall, even if it’s not “official” yet.
What things signal a change in the season for you?
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On Being Prepared
Mr Chiots and I are campers, we love to tent camp and now we enjoy camping in our little camper. As we were traveling across the country we stayed in some campgrounds that were very nice with showers, laundry and swimming pools, but the majority of the time we were in campgrounds with pit toilets and some had no running water. We had no internet or cell phone service for most of our trip. We actually appreciate that part of camping, it’s a great way for us to take time off from our busy technology oriented life.
Camping is great preparation for those time when you’re without power because of a storm. You learn how to cook unconventionally, live on small amounts of water, and to live without electric, phone, TV, internet and refrigeration. You learn what supplies are necessary and which are not.
September is National Preparedness Month and I thought it was important to take some time to encourage any of you that haven’t to come up with an emergency plan and to get your emergency supplies in order. For an in depth post, head on over to Your Day to read up on Preparing for Emergencies. Head on over and share your emergency plans.
Are you a camper or do you prefer more plush accommodations when you travel?
