The only regrets I have are ones where I feared not being good enough to reconnect with old friends when life threw them back in my path. So I took the numbers but never dialed figuring next week, month, year I’d have something exciting to say

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I have found I am many things in this life, yet none define ME.

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I know this sounds like something that you find anywhere but in a major metropolitan ares in the US but I found this interesting poster stapled to a tree at a local park:

On a tree in Cox Point Park

That’s right it’s a health advisory poster from the Maryland Department of the Environment stating the amount of servings that are healthy for the general population, women, and children for the year. The most of any fish you can eat is 33 8oz servings of the bullhead followed by 22 for the white perch and then a big decline to 7 for eel and 6 for the catfish, and don’t even think about the carp….they are a total no no.  Of course if you are like any fisherman I know you can’t tell which fish to jump on your hook, though they do try with their lures, so  what happens when you mix them?

I find a few things very disturbing about this sign and wonder that I have never heard any out cry about it.

1. It was posted at least 2 years ago if not more as we changed Governors in Jan 2007 and it hasn’t been up kept or taken down depending on new data.
2. It was posted in the park itself not next to the fishing pier or boat launch. Though to be fair it could have been when first posted of course.
3. The local recreation arm of Baltimore County actually advertises that you don’t need a license to fish in the park on their website, as a way to bring people to the park.
   
4. With people trying to find ways to save money I wouldn’t be surprise to find more people going to our local fishing areas to catch dinner, especially as spring is here.
5. Finding more information at the website it sent me to is like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. And what I did find was dated 2007 and it didn’t match exactly…it was worse.

Yes according to the most recent information I could find eel has joined the carp in the don’t eat category and the others have been lowered as well. The bullhead is stayed the same but only the general populations can eat the catfish.  I would think that this information would be something that would be easy to find and stapled everywhere fisherman could see it.  I know they sink signs in the water to say no swimming so why not the safe servings of the fish being caught?

My biggest wonder is if we have all become so used to living in a polluted environment have we now accepted the consequences as part of everyday life.  In other words have we as a population become so numb to the health problems we encounter due to living in a unhealthy world have we given up trying to be anything but sick?

My friends and I have always shared ways to help us save money and stretch our budgets till they squeaked.   So a few months ago we decided what better way to keep track of some of our advice and share it easily with each other we would start a blog that we could post our recipes and suggestions on so that whenever the rest of us had the time we could go and read about it.  Because like most mothers our free time hardly ever is at the same time and usually late at night when speaking on the phone was just not a good idea, plus the odds of remembering what amazing idea we had or thing we found we definitely against us.

So Cheapskate Moms was born.  It was not orginally intended for others but we figured we leave it as a public one as others could use the information too.  We have used it off and on but me being curious went and looked at the stats of it.  We had people coming from all over the United States and a few differnet countries to boot.  So we talked about it and added some adsense and found some books we liked and wham…there you go…..a website that will hopefully pay for itself.

I have to admit that it has been a little harder then we all thought as life seems to always find a way to take us away from our computers when we have a great idea. So I have started carrying around a notebook for when we are together so that I can post our ideas later.  We still share our idea and then forget who we told and to finish our draft over there.  Though Kim is starting to be a slave driver to remind us that we didn’t finish a post.  Since our friends can read the draft we sometimes froget that we need to go back and make it readable for those that might not understand the typos and stunted sentences that you can use between friends.

But as with life we have all renewed our efforts to make sure we post over there and have even found some new guine pigs, I mean friends, who are willing to put their two cents in.  We figure the more who are involved the less we have to find time for.  Right now with everything going on in the world, country and our families extra time has become something of a mystery to us.  But here’s to the info we already have up for the world to see and I’m off to see if I can make one of drafts pretty over there.

I was browsing the web today to look for good ideas for my planned vegetable garden as it was to wet outside to get anything dones and I found some great things. One is the idea of sharing land with other to do a small community farm so that you can all share in the bounty of your work.  That of course sounded wonderful to a person know to have two black thumbs, though I swear that a streak or two of green is finally breaking through.  I have tried to fix my yard for the past five years and it still looks like no one cares for it.  Though in my defence I have been batteling 40 years of live and let grow from the previous owners, but I still admit that my knowledge of how to make things grow can be summed up as green (and not in the growing sense:-( ).

I think back to the days when I was growing up and spent most of my free time at my grandparents where half the yard was devoted to food growing and wish I had paid more attention and not rushed to get through daily chores to play.  I see the garden and every once in a while I remeber something my MeMaw told me about growing but she probably is looking down on me shaking her head and wondering if anything stuck in my thick skull or if it seeped out my ears.  In her defence she tried but I was more interested in the tools in my PopPop shed then helping her in the gardens.  Now I want my children to know what it’s like to eat what you grow and it’s a basic skill I think everyone should know a little something about.  Only I’ve come to realize that the little I know seems to be seed goes in the earth, add water and sun and then wait for it to die.

 So far I have grown sunflowers without to much problem but as they have little to no disease or bothersom pest I can’t take much more credit then planting the seed and occasional watering.  Anything else hasn’t really made it to the end stage.  Though I got one out of four or five of those unroll and watch it grow ready made gardens to grow last year.  That still puts my average way too low to be anything but an enthusatic black thumb garnder.   

My little garden to-be...I hope

So this year I am determined to work at it till I get it right.  I’ve already shown that I can keep a plant alive for six months in the house (that is my all time best record so far) and it still looks happy.  So last fall we went to the local dump to get the free compost and mulch to set the garden up for this spring.  My yard is lucky if I have 6in of soil before you hit clay so we decided a raised garden made the most sense.  Last weekend we started our seeds for the garden as we are hoping to get two harvest from the garden as we do have a long growing season here in Maryland. We also got a dwarf apple tree to be planted to shade our a/c unit and give us some nice apples.  I’m all about duel purpose if possible.   So enough backstory, for now, on to what I found today.

 One thing I found is two social networks that are trying to help people looking to grow food to people who have the land but not enough time or experience.  Of course there was none seen in my area but hey at least they are out there.  I may be up to sharing my land if I can find people on there that I can get along with.  Wish I could open my land to everyone who wants it but I’m a mother to four children and the extra lot to share is attached to my home so that is just not feasible or responsible in my opinion.  Of course one can hope to find people that it would work out with but at this point it’s a no go.  Below is a link the the one social network I joined to see if I connect with others.

Visit Hyperlocavore

The other place I found which I am even more excited about is Cromwell Valley CSA which let’s people in the community help through either working a set amount of hours or give a finicial commitment to share in the bounty of the farm. The CSA in the name means that it is a community supported agriculture farm that let’s community become members of the farm and in return for their finicial and or  hard work they are entitled to a weekly share of it’s bounty. I’ve already sent inquires to see how how much I can get involved as even the commitment of a full non-working member is only $500.  I know that can seem a lot but take into account that in my area 24 weeks is the miniumal amount of harvest weeks.  So that means I can get a full share of whatever is harvested that week for only a little over $20.  Thats is not much when you look  at the prices of fresh produce in your local suppermarket, added to that the farm is dedicated to organic farming so the value just keeps climbing.

 I am hoping to actually opt for the work program which just requires 75 hrs per full share and can be divided among family and friends. So my hubby and I and even my oldest all can share the work and it comes out to 25hrs over the spring and summer.  That is definetly within easy range for us.   My other excitement about working the farm is that they will teach you what you need to know as you do it.  The jobs needed are varied and can be as easy as sitting behind a computer and being a techie, to running the stand at the local farmers market, to including atcual physical labor around the farm.  So in other words as becoming self-sufficient is in my plans and I have been working towards it this would be a great way to increase my knowledge for it, and yes you guessed it, I’m essentially getting paid in food to learn a skill that would copst me money to take classes or workshops.  So for me I’m hoping for a win win to come out of it.

I’ll check in to let you know how it’s going and post pictures of my hopefully personally bountiful garden to come.