Re: Things to do; David M's methods.

At 22:41 13/09/99 -0400, tully wrote:
>Here are some of my solutions and ideas of ways to work against that list 
>I wrote.
>Consider the average washing machine and dryer.  The job could be readily 
>done with some swishing in a sink or bathtub and then rinsing.  Hang the 
>clothes on fat hangars and place over the bathtub.  When dry, no need to 
>fold, simply hang on a rack or a closet.  It could actually take less time 
>than the standard washer/drier, needs no mining of metal, no fossil fuel 
>plastic, no electricity, no extra plumbing, and frees up a lot of floor 
>space. 

**  To some degree I agree with you; I had no washing machine for most of a
year when I was living in the furnished end of our barn ('96). However,
your drying "over the bathtub" (a very good idea) works for a not-uncommon
but minority of cases: where there are few clothes to be washed, and where
the house is heated in the winter (so the air is dry enough to get the
clothes dry in a few days with no sun or wind). In my case, I did do my
washing at the end of my bath/shower, tromping on the clothes to get them
clean (and later rinsed), but I then wrung them out by hand and hung them
outdoors - a bit of an effort and extra time, I admit.
**  Nowadays, I wouldn't be willing to do the washing for the whole group
as I do now, if it wasn't for the washing machine. There's got to be a
balance between cost and value including all costs. If the machine lasts
long enough, i.e. provides good value for every year of a great many, I
don't see the necessity to go all the way to: "no mining of metal, no
plastic, no electricity, no extra plumbing". Of course, I've hung clothes
outside to dry, all my life.


> If we wore our clothes a little longer (there is no reason pants 
>can't be worn for two days or more), we can save a great amount of 
>time, effort, resources, and cost.
>
**  Absolutely. I've lived that way all my life too; as I think I said not
long ago, in the '40s Saturday was wash-day; we changed underclothes more
often, but these days I still wear pants and outer shirt for a couple of
weeks, though I wash the inner shirt about every 5 days. I only do physical
effort about once a week now - walking an hour and a half to the grocery
store, but I washed my shirts only twice a week when I was a physics 
teacher.


>Dishwashers can easily be avoided... that appliance is gone, less metal 
>and 
>plastic manufactured, and again more floor space.
>
**  Again I agree, though you don't have to go as far as I do now -
dish-washing once a week since I use bread (sandwiches) only, so I just
shake the crumbs off. The rest of the family has now gone past the
once-a-day hand-washing of dishes, and they collect on our sink-bench for
at least a week, on average; somewhat mad-hatter-ish, i.e. we use so few
dishes that our store of them easily lasts that long. They eat mostly
sandwiches too, with the occasional cooked food (potatoes, pasta, rice,
pancakes). Sometimes (a couple of times a month) some fried meat, e.g.
ground-beef or sausage. They have fruit instead of vegetables (except for
raw carrots and cabbage) most weeks.


>Much smaller refrigerators can be used. ...

**  We get milk delivered 3 times a week, and get bread at the corner store
about as often, so we don't really need a fridge; we certainly don't need a
freezer. However, my wife's plans for our retirement home include a small
top opening freezer, reset to run as a fridge.


> ... Smaller water heaters, getting talented with very sharp knives 
>instead of food processors, fewer pots and pans, a single set of plain 
>dishes and simple silverware.
>
**  Yes, just so. 
**  I'd add: look seriously at pre-heating your hot water with a solar
water heater; it has a major effect on your (CO2-producing) energy usage,
and depending on your sunshine-hours, can completely replace
non-renewable-energy water heating except for (maybe) the 4 months centered
on mid-winter-day, when you'll probably need some boosting (gas or 
electric).


>I also have a fancy dehydrator ...  I found it far better to just put 
>the trays in the oven.  My oven has a pilot light and is the perfect 
>warmth 
>at all times to dry food (or rise bread) very nicely. ...
>
>I use an old threadbare washcloth for washing surfaces in the kitchen and 
>bathroom, which I wet all the surfaces first, so by the time I get back to 
>the first surface, it has had time to soften any dried stuff, so rarely is 
>real scrubbing necessary.  I never use anything more than water.  The 
>washcloth wrung out and the surfaces rewiped and the job is done.
>
**  Again: just so!


>I think wood surfaces are the safest to use in the kitchen.  A study done 
>on wood cutting boards versus plastic showed that bacteria simply couldn't 
>live in the wood once it dried, while it could live on the plastic. ...
>
**  There's _far_ too much attention paid to bacteria and other
micro-organisms as threats. All living things constantly live in a sea of
them; we've developed very effective defences where necessary. The best I
know of, even able to handle new organisms that didn't exist before, is the
immune system. It also handles viruses, which antibiotics can't.
**  So being generally healthy and never over-stressed (& plenty of sleep)
should be the focus, not trying to make the house a sterile place. The big
advances of public health were mainly to do with segregating sewage (though
it doesn't need a water-borne system), and a certain degree of hygiene in
food preparation. Taking it further really isn't necessary, and I think is
counter-productive. We brought up our babies with the expectation they'd
put stuff in their mouths, soil etc.
**  You don't need to do what we did (outlined in a moment), you just keep
yourself exposed to the local pathogens, e.g. by letting the cat
occasionally dig its claws into you, or working in the garden, etc. We
found it worked even in India, Malaysia and Thailand. Although we boiled
our water, we bought the local bread and ate in the same restaurants
everyone else did. When we moved (each 3-4 weeks) to a new town, we
expected to get a "tummy-bug", "Delhi-belly", so one of us would be the
"control", eating sterile food (boiled rice, tinned meat/fish, no
vegetables) for a few days in case all the rest got so sick they had to be
cared-for by that person (we never actually got that sick), while the rest
ate the local food. Usually at least one of us was hardly affected (slight
diarrhoea for part of a day), so the "control" could join-in quite soon.


> ... Gardens of Eden, essentially developing food sources that grow by 
>themselves year after year.  Jerusalem artichokes used to grow wild ... 
>Asparagus, nut and fruit trees, blueberry bushes, strawberries, cherry 
>bushes, fern fiddleheads, potatoes, etc.  Many ... plants like 
>tomatoes (especially cherry tomatoes), peppers, beans, etc., will 
>reseed themselves. ... If instead of lawns, we cultivated edible 
>plantings in artful arrangements, we could actually provide a great amount 
>of our hunting and gathering right in our own neighborhoods. ..Rabbit, ...
>are very tasty protein sources.
>
**  Very nice idea; our friends do something like this.

David.
(David MacClement) d1v9d @ bigfoot.com (remove nospam spaces)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/3142/Pg1-AD11.html#top
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