small town life

I had a small fit earlier this week and decided, after mulling it for a long time, that I have to get rid of all my plastic food containers. Even though they’re #5 plastic, which from what I can find on the internets, aren’t leaking bisphenols into my food — but how do we...
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The San Francisco Chronicle had an article a couple of weeks ago about pastured chickens, followed closely by this article in the NY Times questioning whether “cage free” as it’s practiced in chicken houses around the country is really any more humane than battery chicken. I’ve been buying eggs for a couple of years...
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There’s no ground lamb in town right now. You don’t think of meat as being a seasonal product, but around here, lambs are slaughtered in the early fall, and last years supply seems to have run completely dry. I was looking for lamb because it’s also that time of year when we all look...
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When I first moved here, I joined the gym because, well, everyone tells you joining a gym is a good thing, and it wasn’t very expensive, and it was only a block away from my house. Like most people, I went pretty regularly for a while, and then I think there was a span...
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We’ve been having a little dispute here in Livingston with a local developer — he accused those of us who disagree with him of being victims of “class envy” — oh, and he called us stupid too. We were a little pissed off, and I wrote a letter to the editor of our local...
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The Fourth of July is a three-day-event here in Livingston, although this year things kicked off a day early with the unbelievably great concert called “A Song Runs Through It”. It was worth the three hours in the blazing sun to see my beloved Rosanne Cash sing four songs off Black Cadillac“, acoustic, backed...
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Sam over at Becks and Posh did a little comparison shopping, and discovered to her surprise that by shopping at the Farmer’s Market last weekend, she saved 29% over what it would have cost her to buy the same items at the supermarket. Considering that she was shopping at Ferry Plaza Market, what’s so...
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My next door neighbor and I have not always gotten along very well. We both have dogs, and her George and my Raymond play a particularly annoying game of barking-along-the-fenceline. It’s been a source of some tension, but the last few months at least, thing settled into just cool instead of our previous state...
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I’ve been seeing reviews all over the place of Barbara Kingsolver’s new book about eating locally — she’s not necessarily one of my favorite writers, but between this interview over at Salon, and  this piece she wrote for Mother Jones I might just have to go get a copy. Here’s a quote from the...
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The MH called this morning to tell me there was a bear in his neighbor’s yard last night. Looks like it came up the creek from the river, and took out the neighbor’s birdfeeder. He said there wasn’t too much damage, but the sliding glass door is covered in big bear paw prints. We...
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