Knitting: I finished my sister’s baby shower present and I’d love to show you pictures, but I have to wait until after the shower so she won’t find out what it is. It took me longer than expected because I’m still not a competant knitter and my gauge swatch wasn’t big enough for an accurate gauge so I had to start all over. Oh well. It’s done now and I love looking at it, with its smooth stockinette stitch. Yay! I’ve also started my husband’s scarf; he expects it some time around 2020, so I aim to get it done before Winter starts. Due to time constraints and the fact that it’s knit using fine yarn and size 3 needles, I might get it done by Christmas, but only if I work hard.

***

Going outside: Haakon has decided that being outside is the BEST THING EVER. We go outside every day. If it’s raining, we try to stick to the balcony or wait for a break in the downpour before heading out, but rain or shine, he loves it. We go out once in the morning (usually to the play ground and a walk up and down our street watching animals and picking berries), once in the afternoon (to the pool if it’s warm and sunny or a repeat of the morning if not) and occasionally after dinner as well (to Livingston Park, where he can watch the  dogs and then play on the equipment). Even so, he pitches a huge fit when we go inside. The outdoors are where he wants to be and I dread Winter. He’s also walking now and has officially moved past the Zombie stage to the drunk stage. I’m sure any day now he’ll be a normal human walking.

***

Cooking: I rendered my own lard! I got tired of using the hydrogenated crap from the store, found a farm that has it and got a big thing of fatback for free with the skin still on. The bristles were scrapped off but it was still a bit disturbing. But the lard is awesome; white, creamy fat that has less bad fat than butter even if it has more fat overall.

I’m trying my hand at croissants today. We’ll see how that goes.

***

Gardening: We have tomatoes growing! They’re still green but they’re there. We have 8 at last count and my heirloom tomato is getting ready to blossom finally. Our store bought pepper plant blossomed but has formed no peppers. It’s simply too cold and our balcony doesn’t get enough sun. We harvested our cucumber and now have two more growing large. The smaller ones seem to just wither away. I wish I’d planted more than one.

I checked out a book about gardening in northern climates and it’s filled with such gems as:

“The climate up north is often known as 8 months winter and 4 months rough sledding” and “Some days, it’s even hard to rejoice over a south wind, because just as often as not it’s only the north  wind coming back.” It’s full of good advice on  wind breaks, where the best place to have a garden is if you live on hilly terrain, windblocks, micro climates, etc.

***

House hunting: As soon as my husband gets a full-time job, it will go “richtig los”. We’ve already started scouring NNEREN . We found a house we fell in love with and thought it was awesome, perfect, a real fixer upper, let’s ignore the fact that neither of us are skilled contractors….and then found out that it had actually sold around the same time we discovered it and the system just hadn’t updated. We were extremely bummed out, but renewed our search and have found a few more houses that have potential and hopefully we will refrain from falling in love with any of them. It will be hard though—we do this sort of thing constantly.

***

Armchair politics. I didn’t go to the “Town Hall meeting” in Portsmouth. Haakon hates his car seat and I wasn’t going to subject him to an hour of it just to stand in a loud crowd when he hates loud noises. But it would have been worthless. Our dear leaders have already made up their minds; we’re going to have universal health insurance. Those of us against it are simply misinformed and obviously don’t know what’s best for us. I’d care more than I do, but I don’t because of two things:

1) At least nationalized healthcare will prevent people from pretending that the problems with our healthcare system are all due to the free market. Over half of the healthcare dollars spent in this country are from the government and the numerous regulations surrounding the health care industry make  it nothing close to free market.

2) We can’t afford it anyway, so it’s kind of like my husband and I debating whether or not we should buy a BMW. or a Lexus. Who cares, we’re not going to get one. The US has $70 trillion in unfunded obligations and debt. We have no way of paying that, short of inflating the dollar to toilet paper and raising taxes to about 90%. Health care for all? Sure, why not! I’d also like a BMW with a leather interior and sunroof while we’re at it. They’ve conveniently set the healthcare to kick in in 2013 because “the  recession will be over by then.” So will the next election, so Obama won’t be face with the consequences of the bill until after he’s re-elected. Or if he’s re-elected. His approval rating is about as high as Bush’s, so let’s not expect too much.

***

Reading blogs: I discovered a great blog, A Homesteading Neophyte. I clicked on it originally because it said she was from Kansas and since I’m from Kanssas, I figured why not? Then I found out she voted for Ron Pau l and I fell in love. I read the blog back to 2006 before stopping and just waiting for regular updates. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s enjoyable, they have animals, they’re in Kansas. They talk about Kansas-y things. Go to places I know of (Yoder? Exploration Place? The Zoo!) and deal with tornadoes. They also get to plant outside in April. Gr. I’m not bitter….technically, we’re in the same planting zone as northern Kansas. They’re in southern Kansas and have like, an extra four weeks. Odd, it seems longer than that.

There are times when I hate living in New England and times I love living in New England. I love it when people complain about how hot it is outside and how they’ve had the A/C on all month long and their electric bill is $500. I hate it when I realize that we had exactly 4 days in June without ran. July is slightly better: I think we’ve had 5 so far. Apparently the last two years, we’ve suffered from less sunspot activity than usual, resulting in cooler weather. Judging by the last two winters, last summer, and this summer, I guess astronomers know what they’re talkingabout.

Needless to say, this has negatively affected gardeners in the Granite State. A friend of mine’s garden is half dead and completely waterlogged with her zucchini barely clutching to life. My garden is doing slightly better. It  is suffering from a lack of sunlight, but not all of that is due to rain. It’s a covered balcony facing east, so it only really gets a lot of morning light. We overestimated the amount of morning light while planning our garden. This was before the sun moved all the way up in the sky and the trees in front of our building sprouted green things that apparently function as some sort of solar panels for the trees or something. All I know  is they’re stealing our sunlight. I need someone to go guerilla chop them down, but I think the property managers would take issue with that.

So, thanks to the rain and really cool crappy summer weather, we haven’t actually harvested anything from our balcony this year except for herbs. Our Rosemary is actually dying and I have no idea why. Our green onions also aren’t doing all that well for the same reason. I have a few buds on my pepper plants. My tomatoes have started to blossom but despite the fact it’s mid-July  I have no tomatoes growing and this makes me sad. All of you who live farther South and have tomatoes have my complete envy. Actually, my friends who have tomatoes here in town have my complete envy.

My cucumber plant, of all things, has turned out to be the star of the balcony garden. It is happily growing and weaving its way along the balcony railing, sending out tendrils and blossoming like it’s going out of style. At last count, I had 15 cucumbers growing on it and I’m sure I have more now. We’ll probably get to harvest the largest in a couple of weeks.

Overall, this has been a good learning exercise for my husband and me. If we’re still living here next growing season, we’re going to do things a bit differently:

1. Only put tomatoes and peppers in our topsy turvey containers. We have 5 and could easily fit one more. We’ll have no tomatoes and peppers in pots on the balcony–they don’t get enough light. I never intended to but Lasse transplanted the last seedlings from our grow tray while I was gone so here we are now.

2. No carrots or green onions or chard in Window boxes. The green onions were a wash. They take too much space and give to little. THe carrots I’m just plain iffy about. Maybe in a pot, but carrots are so inexpensive that I could buy them instead. My chard just isn’t doing well in the Window box, so I might try another batch in a pot on the balcony come September. It’s a cold weather crop that is hardy down to 20F.

3. More vines! THis should have been obvious from the get go. Vines love my balcony. So next year we’ll do more cucumber, maybe a melon (because I love melons and they’re expensive up here so we should try them), maybe some beans. We’ll see. I have a natural trellis that I’m just not taking advantage of.

4. Herbs and vines will go in the window boxes, along with some flowers…maybe. My garden is really not astheticaly pleasing. It looks weedy and insane. Even I cringe while looking at it. I’m hoping that next year, I’ll be able to change that. I’ll grow basil next year but no cilantro. It’s inexpensive and just looks too weird on the balcony. Lasse wanted chives…but again, they look weedy so we’ll have to see.

5. We’ll start growing our seedlings at the beginning of march, possibly earlier for things that are currently taking forever (read: tomatoes and peppers). The growing season is short up here and you really have to take advantage of starting things inside like the nurseries do.

6. Heirloom seeds! I only found out about these after I bought our seeds already. I have a few heirloom tomatoes I got from a friend. I first told her I had no room for any more tomatoes but when she said they were brandywines, I figured I could make room. I’ve heard awesome things about heirloom tomatoes and I really hope I get to try some this year.

Doing this really makes me wonder how early settlers up here managed to live. We get our last frost so late and the growing season is so short, the ground is so rocky, the trees are so many…they really must have been desperate to make a go up here of farming. Nowadays we still have some farms that produce really yummy food, but even then most of those farms produce yummy meat, not yummy vegetables. I’ll give another garden update once we get some tomatoes.

The tea parties in April were well-publicized events attempting to draw attention to the high tax rates in the United States and they sure didn’t do a very good job of it. Most people went, waived their signs around,applauded speakers and were very patriotic before returning to their real lives of going to work and paying taxes. In other words, they weren’t very serious when they said they were upset at the high levels of taxation and government spending in the U.S.

But what if you really are upset and are looking for a way to opt-out of mandatory taxes? Obviously, you can’t just stop paying them. I mean, you could, but since you’re not a high-ranking government official, you’d actually go to jail. But there are certain things you can do to avoid paying taxes and are perfectly legal.

1. Excise Taxes

Excise taxes are taxes levied on specific items; consequently, they are very easy to avoid. All you have to do is stop buying those items. Stop smoking. Barring that, grow your own tabacco for personal use. An advantage of doing so is that tabacco water is a natural pesticide. Stop drinking, or better yet, brew your own liquor. Quit driving so much and either carpool, walk or ride a bike. Remember 0-2 miles is walking distance, 2-10 miles is biking and anything above that is driving distance. This should dramatically cut down on the gasoline tax you pay.

2. Sales Tax. Obviously, no one can completely stop buying stuff, so this tax is harder to avoid. Most Americans can, however, decrease the amount of things they do buy. There’s an old saying that says “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” This is a great way to avoid sales tax. Instead of buying a new pair of shorts when one rips, sew it up or patch it. Buy used, at garage sales or thrift stores. While you might still pay some tax, it will be less than if you bought new items. Do your shopping in states with no sales tax or a lower sales tax. In New England, this means driving to New Hampshire. If you live in Wichita, KS, it means doing your shopping outside of Sedgwick County, which has a ridiculous sales tax to fund their stupid arena. Grow as much of your own food as possible. While some states have a lower sales tax on food, a tax is still a tax and most people have a bit of land they can use for food growing purposes. It also tastes better.

3. Income Tax. This one is still harder to avoid. Unlike a lot of people, I recommend always filing your income tax return, for several reasons. First off, while you’re not required to file it if you earn under $5,000 a year (or has it gone up now?), they still withhold income tax from that amount and you won’t get it back unless you file. When I was a poor college student earning very little, I filed and they sent me a check for around $13. If your goal is to impoverish the government, making them review your law-abiding income tax filing and then pay to mail you a check is definitely worth it because they lose money on the scheme. Other than that, maximize your deductions. Ever wonder why the rich don’t protest much when the government raises taxes on the wealthy? It’s because they deduct so much, they never pay close to the percentage the government pretends they are. I’ve heard forming a LLC is a great way to do this, but I’m not a tax accountant so don’t take my word for it. Other than that, seek to minimize your income. I know, most people want to maximize it so they can be rich, but what’s the point if earning more just means you have pay more of your income to the government? Ideally you should seek to earn at a point where your deductions are maximized and your taxes minimalized, but if you want to get really extreme, you can set up your expenses so that you can get by as little money as possible. This means having no debt, and in all likelihood followin the advice outlined in the first two sections: grow or make everything yourself as a sort of modern day Thoreau. It’s extreme, but I know people who do this and who pay no taxes. There are also other taxes, such as a capital gains tax, that are closely related to income taxes but are easier to avoid. If you don’t want to pay capital gains tax, don’t invest.

4. Property Taxes. The hardest to avoid, property taxes mean that you are rent to the government for the right to continue living on your private property. If you don’t believe me, stop paying them. Just like a landlord whose tenants have stopped paying rent, the government will evict you. There really is no way to get around it, but you can minimize it by owning minimal property, owning marginal property (say, property located next to an airport, railroad track and highway), and doing very little to improve your property. Unfortunately, this might  hamper your ability to become self-sufficient and avoid paying other taxes. You could always rent, but then you just pay property taxes indirectly via rent to your landlord. I guess living in your car would be a reasonable solution, but you pay taxes on it, too, in order to register it. Several homeless camped on some islands in the middle of the Merrimack in tents, so I suppose that’s one solution.

Does all this seem a little crazy to you? A little extreme? I mean, come on, who would go to those lengths to just avoid paying taxes? And, what about all the good that comes from paying taxes? The gas tax pays for our roads, for example, the property tax is for education and the income tax does everything  else!

Oh, I’m sorry…you mean, the gas tax we pay despite the fact our infrastructure is crumbling and government continuously uses that money to pay for other stuff? You mean the property taxes we pay so that we can spend $8,000 a year pretending to educate children, who still remain ignorant? And the income tax? Is used to pay interest on our national debt. As far as getting all the bang for our buck, American tax payers have been royally screwed.

Taxes we pay are not being used to provide valuable services for the people. They’re being used to invade other countries and to bailout Wall Street. What we don’t pay in taxes today, we’ll pay in taxes tomorrow in the form of money our government is borrowing from other countries. Governor Meldrim Thompson of New Hampshire was fond of reminding everyone that low taxes are the result of low spending. Remember that the next time you’re at a Tea Party or the next your government insists that all they have to do is spend a few billion more dollars and the economy will be hunky dory again.

Well, I was going to write a post about how to not pay taxes, but I delayed too much and now I’m writing a post telling you about how I’m going to Germany.

I’m going to Germany.

I wasn’t going to go so that we could save money, but then I talked to my host family on the phone and realized how much I missed speaking German, being in Germany, and I really wanted to see them again. Add in the fact that this is probably going to be the last time I can travel easily, since we have one kid already and are planning more and we decided I ought to take the opportunity and go. Fortunately, plane tickets are pretty cheap still pre-memorial day. They’d be cheaper if it weren’t for stupid taxes and fees. Tickets for Haakon and I total cost $250. Taxes and fees were $300 some odd. Talk getting ripped off.

In preparation for my trip, I’ve been watching lots of German TV shows so that my German doesn’t sound like I haven’t been speaking it for 3 years. As a result of this, I have some really funny news stories my libertarian readers might be interested in.

As a result of the “Wirtschaftskrise” (economic crisis), many Germans have seen their retirement funds oblitarated and while there is a similar Social Security scheme, many have private funds as well. So, in order to ease their pain, the German government is guaranteeing all retirement funds. This means that they won’t lose any value at all, ever. They won’t sink below the amount that you put in them (if I understood correctly) and this will be in effect until the economy recovers. Kind of makes me hope it doesn’t so I can see what they try next.

But that’s not the funny part. The reporter than stated that this was causing somewhat of a divide between old and young people and they interviewed a young person who stated that he did not think it was fair that the government was doing this. Then they interviewed an old person, who said, “I think it’s completely fair, but then again, I’m already retired!” That, my friends, should sum up the entirety of transfer payments.

The second humorous report involved a bunch of cars being smashed up that had “schrott” written on them and the reporter discussed something about “Umweltprämien” and a “Abwrackprämie” and how hundreds of thousands had yet to be paid them. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered that the German government has been doing what the American government is thinking about doing: paying people to get rid of their old cars and buy new ones! The perceived benefits of this act are many fold: 1) people will buy new cars that are more friendly towards the enivornment (dubious, but ok) and 2) the autoindustry will be strengthened, since obviously only cars from the European 4 (analogous to the Big Three) can be purchased.

Sigh. Bastiat is spinning in his grave. It’s been hundreds of years since he first disproved the idea that doing such things could have any economic benefit whatsoever but politicians apparently know better. I mean, heck, the people get money for new cars so they’re happy and the politicians get more power, so they’re happy. It’s a win-win situation!

It’s a chilly, rainy May morning here in New Hampshire, one that provides no motivation for me to do anything other than sit on the couch and waste time on the internet while my husband and baby sleep. Haakon woke up around 6 am this morning, despite going to bed at 9 and, despite my best efforts to convince him otherwise, really wanted to be up. So we got up. And he fell back asleep before 7. Then he woke up a little after I laid him back down in bed, and then fell asleep again and is currently laying next to me on the couch. If it weren’t for that, I would be laying down sleeping, too.

He’s a funny little guy, really. He is absolutely determined to explore everything and be a part of whatever Lasse and I are doing. He loves to be in the sling while I’m working in the kitchen, preferably carried on my hip so he can see everything I’m doing and lend a helping hand, when necessary. And it’s always necessary, as far as he’s concerned, which means I really can’t hold him while I’m cooking. He likes to touch raw meat, he likes to touch the pans (fortunately, thus far they’ve never been hot) and he loves to help clean out the dishwasher, regardless of whether the dishes are clean or not. It’s amusing to watch him. He knows I do stuff in the kitchen and he knows it’s vaguely similar to what he’s doing, but he hasn’t quite grasped the fact that the things I do rarely end with “…and put it in your mouth.”

Using the laptop has become dangerous around him. He has decided that my laptop is the coolest thing in existance and he likes nothing more than to pull the wires out of it, knock it over and grab at the keys. Thus far, he has pulled off the backspace key and the 1 key. My husband put them back in, but the backspace key is irreparable. I know have to delete instead of go back. I’m also trying to avoid using the laptop in front of him as it just provides too much temptation.

The plants are mostly out of reach now on the balcony, so our ever fun game of “how close can I get to the plants before Mommy pulls me away?” has ended its season with the answer “close enough to pull out a few plants if I’m super sneaky and go towards them while mommy’s distracted, with a minimal amount of excited baby squeals.” Any time I was watching, he would start crawling towards them, I would ask him here he was going, he would pause, look at me, grin and start baby speed-crawling towards them. I’d say  “ei!” which is Finnish for no and he’d pause, look at me again and I’d move him away. This would continue until he got frustrated and realized he just wasn’t going to be eating the plants today.

Walking is his current frustration. He started pulling himself up when he was 6 months old, started crawling right at 7 months and then started cruising shortly thereafter. He has learned to go from the coffee table to the couch using a quick turn and reach. He stands alone for a few seconds before falling over. Falling over has been a painful thing for him. After landing on something bumpy and uncomfortable, he’s learned to look before he sits down and then backs down as slowly as he can before gravity takes over. Unfortunately, he has not learned that head first is not a recommended method of getting down from couches, beds, and other elevated objects. I’m sure he will eventually, though.

He has learned to climb onto the futon by himself, using the printer as a step. He’s only done it once and I missed it, but Lasse called me in to witness the proud baby sitting ontop the futon with a grin on his face. Success! The coffee table is next in his list of mountains to climb. A box sitting right next to it is the desired platform and if it were upside down would almost certainly provide enough support to get him where he wants to go. But, alas, it’s open-side up and all that happens is he gets stuck in the box and I have to free him. He’s working on this problem, however, and I’m sure he’ll find an adequate solution, or find something easier to scale.

Now that  it’s warmer out, Haakon has been introduced to the great outdoors and discovered that it’s delicious. He makes more expressions of disgust eating real food than he does when he puts woodchips, gravel, grass or pine needles in his mouth. Fortunately, he spits most of these items out and the ones he doesn’t I sweep out of his mouth for him, officially making me Party Pooper Mommy. I’m sure he thanks me when he isn’t pooping out woodchips. But being outside is a joy and as soon as we exit the apartment, makes baby gasps of joy and excitement and jumps up and down in the sling. Can you imagine how much more fun the world would be if everyone maintained such an open display of joy? He gets overwhelmed with joy–and sadness–by the tiniest of things. Swinging is a delight, especially when he sees others swinging. Sliding he isn’t so sure about. But being outside—absolutely.

It’s fun to watch him learn and discover. I’m so glad I get to be around to see it (except at 6am when he pops his head up, sits up, meets my eye, grins, and then pulls himself up using the headboard so he can look out the window and assess the new day. Then I contemplate baby sleeping pills.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately.

This partly happened by chance. You see, my husband and I have been anti-high fructose corn syrup for quite a time now and we avoid eating anything that includes it. One evening, my husband went to the bathroom and I leapt onto his computer and began browsing Netflix instant view to see if there was anything I could watch really quick in the 5-10 minutes before he got back. Sitting there, in my suggestion, was King Corn. I pressed play. My husband returned and looked slightly crestfallen that I had ursurped his computer again but as soon as I mentioned it was about corn, he sat down and watched.

From the video we learned that thanks to the corn subsidies, America’s food chain is totally messed up. You’ll have to watch it to see for yourself, but I immediately became fascinated about where our food comes from. I then read “Animal,Vegetable, Miracle” and “The Omnivore’s Delimma,” both of which discuss organic farming and the importance of eating locally. As far as organic farming is concerned, I’m won over and I was a hard organic skeptic for many years. But basically, the evidence is that organic farming produces food that contains more nutrients than food produced on artificially fertlized land and it also makes soil that is healthier and less prone to erosion. I’m also completely sold on eating free range eggs and meat from pasture-raised animals, as they tend to have higher amounts of healthy fats and more nutrients than CAFO-raised animals and eggs.

What I am not completely sold on are these books’ arguments for eating locally and supporting local agriculture. Their only argument that resonated with me is that produce loses nutrients and quality the farther it has to travel before eaten. So a tomato consumed in January from Chile is less healthy and tastes worse than one from New Hampshire (well, for me anyway) consumed in July. Logical. I dig it.

The rest of their arguments…well:

1) It’s important to support American agriculture because it’s American. Yes, fine, let’s all take a break and chant USA! USA! USA! It’s still not a good reason. Why should I refuse to buy from other countries just because they’re foreign? My husband’s not American. I guess I shouldn’t have married him?

2) If you eat locally, you save blah blah blah barrels of oil that are used to transport food from way over here to way over there. Yes, and if I never travel more than a day’s walk or bike ride from where I live, I’ll save that much oil, too! It doesn’t, however, mean I’m going to do it. Ironically, Barbara from “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” drove from Tuscon to Virginia then up to Canada, then back to Virginia and flew to Italy during her year of eating locally. The fact she drove a hybrid takes away some of the oil, I guess, but sheesh. I guess that’s why the bi-line isn’t a year of living locally.

3) The Europeans  do it—and look how cool they are! Argh. I hate this argument. Americans have a love-hate relationship with Europe, meaning that half the population looks up to Europe and wishes we were more like them while the other half hates Europe and wishes they would go away. We have a very difficult time realizing that it has its faults, just like every where else in the world. But both books made points of glorifying how European countires have  their own food cultures that they still rely on to guide them when they eat (Finland’s revolves around only eating food that looks like shit) and how sad it is that the US doesn’t (never mind that it  does or did and, much like Britian, it suffered tremendously during World War 2). Europeans, they argue, support their local farms and are a lot closer to where their food comes from. Well, yes and no. My host family was very close to where their food came from. My host Oma kept chickens, so we always had fresh eggs, and she made tons of jam and marmelade. My host dad kept rabbits and got ducks before I left, all for food. And they had a huge garden and two cherry trees the supplied most of the produce in the warmer months. When we went to a Richterfest, the hosts slaughtered a sheep and had it roasting on a spit. The other two sheep remained grazing peacefully in a field nearby…

But this experience is not really the norm for most Europeans today, just as it isn’t for most Americans. My host family was exceptional being that my host parents were not only from small farming villages but also lived in East Germany, where being close to your food source was a big plus. When I lived in Berlin and visited Finland, just trust me when I say a lot of stuff is imported, frozen foods are eaten a lot and people don’t spend hours crafting the perfect midday lunch as Italians were portrayed in the two aforementioned books. Unless they’re professional cooks, they just don’t have the time.

Having said all that, I will most certainly check out the farmers market this summer to see what kind of produce it offers and will continue to patronize local pick-your-own farms for apples, blueberries and strawberries because the experience is fun and fesh strawberries are always worth it (I swear, everytime I buy them at the store, they rot as soon as I leave).

Furthermore, this foray into food and finding out where it comes from led my husband and I to decide that when we buy a house, we definitely want to get some land with it, anywhere from two to five acres, so that we can have a little farm. By little I mean a garden to grow vegetables, some fruit trees and some chickens. By farm, my husband means we-are-going-to-grow-everything-ourselves-including-wheat-and-I-want-goats-or-maybe-sheep-along-with-chickens. I think he’s insane because he has no idea how much work it involves, not to mention the fact that we’re both city folk, and not to mention the fact we live in New Hampshire, a land of trees, rocks, long winters and precious little topsoil. We have almost no knowledge of farming or raising animals. But we agreed we’d make a plan (we’ll call it our “Five Year Plan”) that will lay out step-by-step how we’re going to do this. We also agreed that if the chickens are a success, we’ll get a pig. This is due to the fact we both read an article discussing how good acorn-fed pork is. Lasse gets to do the slaughtering.

But it is exciting to have a plan, however crazy it may be. We have a goal to work towards while we live in our tiny little apartment, which makes it all a lot easier.

Gardening in New Hampshire is a lot harder than gardening in Kansas. In Kansas, you just went outside whenever it got warm enough, turned over some dirt, planted some seeds and then watered occasionally until you got a plant.

In New Hampshire, this process is complicated by a few matters. First, it doesn’t get warm enough to plant things that are suseptible to frost until May or June, so you have to start your seeds inside in trays or just buy the friggin plant. Secondly, if you try to just go outside and turn some dirt over with a shovel, the first words out of your mouth will be “f—-ing rocks!” They don’t call it the Granite State for nothing: every time you put your shovel in the ground, you will hit a rock. Sometimes it will be really small, other times it will be the size ofa table and you either get some dynamite and blast it out (unlikely) or work around it. This is why most landscaping in New Hampshire incorporates boulders. They had to do something with it. Aside from the rocks, you have the whole tree issue, which was also not a problem. Where there are no rocks, there are tree roots. There are also tree branches blocking the sun. Both must be dealt with. I get the feeling that farmers who settled in New Hampshire must have been really desperate, otherwise they would have never settled here to farm.

Because of these two issues, most gardeners in New Hampshire opt for raised beds. They buy dirt, build large beds above ground to put the dirt in, then tansplant the seedlings as soon as they’re big enough and the weather is warm enough.

Fortunately for me, I live in an apartment and don’t have to deal with these problems. Still, the husband and I want to have a bit of a garden. We want to try our hands at raising food. It’s been ages since I’ve gardened and I’m getting really tired of paying high prices for herbs at the grocery store, only to have them rot on the way home. I swear, they have some sort of built in sensor that says “Okay, we’re out of the store…turn brown now!” So, we’re going to attempt a balcony garden.

We have 6 window boxes which will be hung on the balcony, two containers on the ground, and four topsy turvey planters that I’ve heard work really well. We also have innumerable milk cartons that I’ve repurposed because I’m classy like that. But hey, whatever works works.

To begin with, I bought a few seeds (cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano, green onions, carrots and swiss chard) and planted the herbs in one window box to get them started. Then I knocked the darn thing over while shutting the blinds. I scooped all the dirt back in, but figured I’d better replant since who knows what happened to the seeds? A few days later, they started to sprout. A few weeks later, and I realize I have no idea what is sprouting since it good be the original seeds or the later ones. So I transplant out some of the seedlings to keep until I know what I have growing. Yesterday, I try some and realize that I pretty much have 8 plants of cilantro growing. A google image search told me that my basil had finally sprouted. So, I decided to take the sprouting tray we bought finally and try starting my herbs again in there, this time with labels.

In addition to planting herbs in the sprouting tray, we decided to try sprouting our tomatos and peppers in there, too. So, eventually we should have in our balcony garden Bell pepper, hot pepper, cucumber, big tomatos, plum tomatos, swiss chard, carrots, green onion and the herbs. Some people say start out small and see what happens. I say, start out big and learn from your mistakes!

If the bell pepper and tomatos don’t sprout or don’t get big enough soon enough (very likely, I should have started them in March), we’ll just buy the stinking plants. On the plus side, my swiss chard (planted at the same time as the others), sprouted yesterday. This means that the dirt is warm enough for swiss chard, which starts at 50 degrees but must not be warm enough for tomatos and peppers, which start at 70F. So I’ll be working to get that temperaturer up. Think happy, sprouting thoughts everyone!

I finally finished the scarf I started knitting a while back. It was kind of slow going, not only because I didn’t knit every day but because the pattern I used involved a lot of counting of stitches and rows. Gah. I had to start over 4 times before I finally managed to not add an extra stitch on the needle and then raveled many many rows when I miscounted or dropped stitches. By the time I got close to the end, my attitude changed from “let’s get it right” to “let’s get it done so I can move on with my life!” There is one dropped stitch (whoops) and a few miscounted stitches in the end, but whatever. It’s done. And it’s not really that attractive. But I knit it, so hooray!

I plan to be the future Madam Defarge.

I now have big plans for the rest of my knitting. First, I’ll be knitting for my sister’s very unexpected baby. Can’t say what because she reads the blog, but if I don’t screw it up, it should be cute. Fortunately, it’s for a newborn and should be really really tiny and knit up quickly before I get tired of it. Then Lasse will get his long awaited scarf and then I will attempt some socks. After that, I really want to knit a Hudson hat for Haakon, but we’ll have to see. I would really like to give people a bunch of knit things for Christmas but we’ll have to see how strong (and fast) my knitting-fu is by then. Not to mention my bank account. Apparently, good yarn is expensive.

As far as Haakon is concerned, he’s very happy to play and eat the yarn along with anything I try and knit. He’s also learned to crawl and we play a new game called “crawl towards mommy’s herbs and try and touch them before she pulls me back.” It’s great fun for him until the 5th time we do this and he realizes that he’s probably not going to win. Ah well.

With the advent of spring (hooray!!), I bought a new bike and attached the baby bike seat I got at my baby shower to it. I predict many fun bike rides ahead. Haakon has been on a short one so far and didn’t think much of it. He didn’t cry nor did he laugh. Lasse said the look on his face was one of indifference with a hint of “oh god, what are my crazy parents doing to me now?” He is a very tolerant baby. I think he got it from Lasse.

That’s not really the phrase I was looking for, but it was the closest my mind could come up with to describe what seems to be happening to many Republicans since Obama’s election. By this I mean that they all seem to have rediscovered the ideas of…liberty and limited government and constitution.

Odd, isn’t it?

We go eight years under a man who passed the Patriot Act, invaded several countries, passed No Child Left Behind, Real ID, allowed the torture of POWs, and started the first massive bailouts of Wall Street companies and Republicans cheered him on. I could go through and find a bunch of quotes from a bunch of conservative columnists, but instead, I’ll just quote my own mother. She’s a big neo-con, or was, and after 9/11 was pretty much convinced that every muslim is just waiting for their chance to kill Americans because they hate us for our freedom. She wanted Rudy Guiliani to win the presidency. In my visit in January (pre-Obama’s Inauguration), I blasted Bush bailing out all those companies and her comment?

“He just did what he had to do to save our economy! He’s a decent person!”

I replied that I know many decent people and not one of them has caused the death of millions, destroyed our civil liberties or any of the other things Bush has done.

I guess hapless Bushie just made some mistakes. But it’s okay. He’s a conservative.

Then Obama takes office and suddenly I get a ton of emails from my mom on how the Obama Stimulus and bailout package is going to ruin our economy. How the democrats are going to turn us into socialists! Gasp! Because we weren’t already 80% of the way there already. Then, after a while, I start getting emails from her discussing various aspects of Austrian economics, secession, and that sort of thing. She starts praising Ron Paul, when during his election, she was 100% against him and wouldn’t let my dad put a Ron Paul bumper sticker on his car.

She’s not the only one. Among a lot of conservative Republicans I know on facebook, they’re all suddenly completely against big government and want to work with the more libertarian leaning people to stop it.

I know, I know. This is a good thing. We could use the help. An enemy of our enemy is our friend, and all that. But…the problem is, they aren’t actually pro-liberty. They’re just faking it.

While it’s true that in New Hampshire, Republicans are slightly better than Democrats on pro-liberty issues (they have an average C rating for all the years data is available compared to the Democrats’ D rating), that does not a pro-liberty party make.

Ask them how they feel about ending the drug war. “Nooo…we can’t do that! Drugs are baaaad!” Or bringing home our troops from the 130 countries they’re currently in. “Nooo, we can’t do that. We have to protect America against terrorists!” Because terrorists are rife in Germany and Italy, I guess. Gay marriage? No! Because everyone knows gays don’t have rights. Abortion? Outlaw it federally! Privacy rights? That will lead to terrorism!

The only freedom they truly care about is their freedom to control your life instead of the democrats and I think they’re kind of bitter they have been so soundly trounced in the last couple of elections. And so, they’re returning to the message of freedom…as well as they can, anyway. But their message still seems a little confused. For one, they’ve turned on the Obama hate a little too strongly. I’m no fan of Obama, but good grief. For 8 years our president could do no wrong, now he can do no right? Hypocrits much? Twenty-eight states have bills affirming states’ rights and the constitutional limits of the federal government. Coincidentally enough, these bills have passed mostly in states that are controlled by Republicans. I rather doubt they would have been drafted much less passed were a Republican still in power.

I feel like I know too well how this is going to end. They’re returning to liberty because, as Ron Paul is so fond of reminding us, Freedom is Popular and if Republicans need anything at the moment, it’s popularity. But once they regain that popularity and regain that power, they’re going to once again forget about the Constitution, forget that individuals had rights, just like they did in 1996.

The only way this might turn out differently is if enough of them genuinely realize that freedom is what matters. As the bumper sticker says, it’s not left vs. right. It’s the state vs. YOU. Unfortunately, most of them seem far too partisan to realize this truth.

My husband and I have a running joke that revolves around the fact that Finland is always number one in every international study. PISA Study? Number 1. Least Corrupt? Number 1. Best social system in the world? Finland! Highest number of school shooting deaths per capita? Finland!

After reading the news today, (you can read a German account here) it looks like Germany has a serious contender looking to retake the number 1 spot: a 17 year old killed 17 people in a school shooting in the town of Winninden.

But that’s making light of a very serious and very sad situation. I can’t imagine how scary it would be to have this happen to me or one of my loved ones, it’s bad enough to read about it in the news. In the aftermath of this shooting, surely the same questions will be asked around the world: Why do kids keep shooting up their schools? What can we do to prevent it? Does Germany need stricter gun laws?

I can answer the first question very bluntly: Because school sucks.

Okay, too blunt? Allow me to expand on my answer. While school sucks, it does not suck 100% of the time for 100% of people, but the vast majority of attendees experience its suckiness at some point during their school career. For a small minority of attendees, school does suck 100% of the time and they are offered no way out from this misery. Add to that a pschopathic personality and you have Columbine, but I wouldn’t say that all school killers have some sort of personality problem. The vast majority of them are probably having a miserable time there and a miserable time at home. So they decide to end it all and take a few others with them.

Germany being Germany, it adds a few special ingredients to the school shooter phenomenon. The most notable is that in Germany, you do not merely have the right to go to school, you have the duty. Schulpflict is written into the basic law of Germany that from age 6, all children must attend school. There is no exception written in for homeschooling or independent education for children experiencing difficulties–all education must take place inside a school. It’s popular among homeschoolers to blame this on Adolf Hitler so as to discredit it and make it seem like a nazi thing. That’s completely false—mandatory education as it’s known today originated in Prussia and spread to the U.S. (beginning in Massachusetts) in the 19th century.

How does Schulpflict relate to schoolshooting, you might ask? Simply because there is no way out for someone who is miserable. The German system allows for zero flexibility and is designed, according to Wolfgang Drautz, to prevent “parallel societies.” In other words, all square pegs will be pounded into round holes.

You start school at age 6, your work then and your teacher’s recommendation will determine whether or not you go to Gymnasium or a Realschule of somesort. Gymnasium will determine if you go to university.If you go to a Realschule, you can then go to a Berufhochschule where you learn a trade and become an apprentice or later on a Fachhochschule, which is equivalent to a community college in the US. You might, as an adult, be able to go back and get a Gymnasium degree and then go to college via night school. But for most, your entire life is set out for you by the system. If you don’t fit in the system….

I get the feeling the school-shooter in Wenninden didn’t fit in the system. One kid at the Gymnasium I attended in Germany shot himself the day before graduation (not while I was there). I asked my host sister why and her reply was something along the lines of, “he had a shit life.” He lived in a system where he had no choices and was unhappy with the options presented to him, hopelessness set in…and he killed himself.

While children in the United States can get alternative education, be it long-distance education, private tutoring or homeschooling, for the vast majority, no alternative to traditional schooling is presented. For the majority of 7th and 8th grade, I could not fall asleep Sunday nights because each time I breathed I felt a tight, panicky feeling in my chest. I dreaded going to school because I feared my peers. Some of my friends had turned on me and made it their goal to make my life as miserable as possible. I didn’t think of killing myself because I didn’t know that was an option. My parents were otherwise distracted and wouldn’t have offered a way out aside from talking to the administration–a solution that usually brings more ridicule. I had no choice but to keep right on going and to keep putting up with it.

My point is that school shootings are simply a by-product of the system. We take kids and lock them away for 12 years and tell them what they must learn and how. They are not allowed to do anything that might distract from this and are banned from working until age 16 in most places, thus keeping them economically enslaved to their parents, to the state, and to the schools. Most people who find themselves unable to quit a job they hate consider suicide. In this recession, people who are losing their jobs, their homes, and are becoming financially insolvent are killing themselves because they see no way out. Some of them might even go on rampages. And yet we act surprised when minors do the same?

The answer is not stricter gun laws because it is not the guns that are the problem. Germany already has ridiculously strict gun laws, which were made stricter after the Erfurt school shootings. What we need are looser schooling laws. Allow children to seek out alternatives. Allow children who are miserable in school and are not reaching their goals in life to drop out. Allow them to get jobs. Allow them time to choose, time to make mistakes and time to learn. Allow them, simply, to be free.