Bowed Psaltery

After wanting one for 3 years...
Wait, let me start at the beginning of this story. It is short, but makes more sense this way. (Clicking the image will increase the size.)

I live in Maryland. We have one of the best Renaissance Festivals around. Anyway, three years ago, my wife and I went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival and enjoyed ourselves very much. It was a wonderful day, and we saw many shows, and heard lots of music we liked.

As Mary and I were walking along, there was one stand where a young lady was playing an instrument that I had never seen, nor heard before. She was pushing a small bow across the metal strings, and it was making a fantastic sound. Very simple, and very pleasing. She let me try it. I was able to rough out a tune in just a couple of minutes. I was hooked. But the price tag at that time was more than my family budget could afford. So I passed.

I went back to the festival last year and heard the instrument again. Again I wanted one, but didn't get it. I wasn't sure that I would actually make time to teach myself to play it.

This year, we went to the festival on opening day, and I decided I wanted that instrument. I discussed the purchase briefly with Mary and she was supportive in this purchase, because I think she wanted to play it too. When we arrived at Unicorn Strings, we played a couple and chose the one pictured above.
So I bought it, with a soft padded case, and two bows (for advanced playing.) It came with a book, extra strings, rosin and a demonstration DVD.

I've been spending some time learning to play some simple tunes on it. I've been having a ball. I love the sounds it makes, and the way the strings resonate when they are played. Very rich sound.

I'm having a bit of a challenge with the music theory, and am teaching myself again how to read music. It is a C instrument. It has 2 1/2 octaves, and has the beautiful wood work on it. I've been looking on the internet for sheet music to old tunes, and figuring out how to make them work on the Psaltery.

How does this purchase fall into the frugal and sustainable areas of my life's philosophy? First the frugal. I've put off the purchase for 3 years. It isn't a survival item, but it does help pass the time, and also allows me to make my own beautiful sounds (I can't sing that well) when I want to. As for the sustainable aspects... I'm helping keep alive a sound from the Elizabethan and earlier times, as well as supporting the artists, woodworkers, and musicians who built the instrument.

APLS Carnival

I took part in this little exercise of definition. It's called a carnival. And APLS sounds so much better than leaf-lickin' tree-hugger!

So link on over and read a bunch of great posts on what others are doing to achieve sustainability and a simpler lifestyle.

Home Made Foods

I guess I'm a bit strange. I have a whole foods, plant based diet. I only rarely eat out. I don't eat meat, or dairy. I cook. I clean, and yes, I do laundry, but I don't like to. Anyway, I am one of those males in America that doesn't show up on the media radar, because I like to do so much stuff that would traditionally be called "women's work". I know, housekeeping and cooking and such really is everyone's work, but I didn't make this up, I only know that I have been labeled "Martha Stewart" and my own wife said I would make a good Mormon wife to someone. But I'm not Mormon... but I digress. You get the idea. I like to do things that are commonly thought of as "keeping house." And one of those things is making muffins and cookies.

Last night we had some guests over and I honored them with my Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Pecan Muffins. These are made with no added oil, and only as much fat as the chocolate chunks and the pecans have. And they are so good, everyone is always surprised to hear that they are vegan.

Anyway, since I made the muffins last night, and they were devoured for desserts and snacks and even breakfast this morning, I decided to make Apple Spice with pecan muffins for dessert tonight. And now the whole house smells like cinnamon and apples.

Oh, and did I mention that I ground the flour for the muffins too?

Sometimes eating good food is a BIG part of that simple life that I'm creating for myself and my family. I think we live a slower paced life than the "rat race" that so many of my coworkers aspire to.

Basic Muffin recipe:

4 cups whole wheat flour (any kind works, I grind mine into pastry-four fineness.)
1 cup rolled oats (quick cook or long cook, doesn't matter)
1/2 to 1 cup sugar, depending on how sweet you like your muffins
2 Table spoons baking powder
5 Table spoons ground flax seed
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup natural apple sauce (can be home made if you want)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


And to make Chocolate Chocolate Chunk:
Add to basic Muffin recipe above:
5 Table spoons cocoa
1 cup chocolate chunks
1 cup pecans (halves, pieces or ground fine. Optional) You can use any nut you like if you don't have pecans. This is a very forgiving recipe.



Heat oven to 400F.
I use silicone non-stick muffin pans, but if you use metal ones, you will need to grease them somehow. I'll leave that to you.

Combine the dry basic muffin ingredients in the mixer bowl, mix all dry ingredients so they are well mixed. Add wet ingredients, then add enough water just so the batter is wet through, and still thick, but not so thick as bread dough would be. The consistency needs to be loose enough to spoon easily into those muffin pans.

Spoon into muffin pans (this makes 24 muffins!)

Bake the muffins for about 30 minutes, then test to see if it is done with a wooden toothpick.


If you want Apple Cinnamon muffins,
add to the basic muffin recipe
1 chopped apple finely chopped
1 cup pecans (halves, pieces or ground fine. Optional) You can use any nut you like if you don't have pecans. This is a very forgiving recipe.
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Prepare as above muffins

You can try other kinds of fruits - Banana and Nut is good
Pumpkin and spice
And blueberry.
Add or remove spices as you want, until it sounds like it would be good for you.

Good luck.

APLS Carnival

Sustainable Living in my life takes on several forms. I've been on this path for many years now, and each time I get on my bike, turn on a light that has a CFL bulb, eat home grown vegetables or water my plants with water I've harvested from the roof, or flush the toilet with saved shower water, I'm putting into practice my version of sustainable living.

Is it enough? Probably not. Can I do more? Yes. Do I need to do more.... maybe. Will I do more? Eventually.

I wrote up and published a list of "small steps" in my church's newsletter a couple of years ago. It came to 23 different habits or behaviors that could be done to reduce use of resources.

I came to many of those small steps in my pursuit of frugality. Each step seemed to lead to a fork in the road. Taking the path of frugality lead me toward other more sustatinable steps, and so on.

My giving up red meat lead to eventually giving up meat all together. Which lead to eliminating dairy and eggs from my diet. Results - Savings at the grocery store, and less weight on James. Also lower cholesterol, less sinus problems, and reduced seasonal allergies. Also saving the world from having to raise the meat that I would have eaten. Again, each step along the way was small, but had BIG affects on me.

My choosing to build rain barrels wasn't frugal, since it cost money, but turned out saving my family huge amounts of money on water bills during my state's drought last year. Being able to water the vegetables with saved rain water greatly reduced our need for tap water. Same with saving our shower water to flush the toilets. It is a small thing, but adds up to large savings. Imagine if everyone used the water in their house twice before running it down the toilet. How much would that save? Boggles the mind how a small step like that can make such a difference when magnified by thousands, millions, even billions.

Gardening. Ok, so I like to grow things. Handed down from my grandmother honestly. Green thumb and all. Sure it is work, but the rewards are many. I get to be outside. I eat fresh food, sometimes right off the plant! I don't have to mow grass endlessly every week, wasting fuel and breathing fumes, and get to use my labor to take care of things that are beautiful and can be sustain my family too.
The small steps lead me to getting rid of all of the grass in my 1/4 acre lot, and building new top soil where before was depleted clay. I forgot to mention the mental rest and relaxation I get from walking around my garden, and enjoying the naturalness of it? That is my quiet contemplation/meditation right there.

Taking a frugal approach to laundry encouraged me to get a clothesline, and a couple of portable indoor racks to dry clothes on rainy days. Saved bunches of money on drying things, our clothes last longer, and it doesn't take much time at all. Added benefit is that solar clothes drying is carbon negative!

Many of these small steps lead to other things. Some I can't do at the house I'm in, because it would be too expensive to put in a brand new gray water system to water trees. But we are planning on "greening" our next house extensively.

I quit watching TV. Ok, so I watch Le Tour de France and other bike races during the year, but I watch very little TV. I find that I can still live my life without the "boob tube" parading endless consumables to entice me into buying things that I don't really need. I enjoy how much better my life seems, now that I don't care what people are trying to sell me, nor do I care what is "trendy" what the best new gadget is, and what the flavor of the day is at the burger joint down the street. Heck, I don't even know what movies are going to play next week anymore. I get that kind of information from friends and family, who always make sure that I see the movies that are good, and skip the rest. And you know what, I haven't felt like I've missed anything either.

Sustainable living also means making choices about our level of living. How much is enough? What makes you happy? I don't mean the temporary thrill you might get from making a purchase, or that feeling you get from externals. I'm talking about inside. What makes you really happy? I'm sure it isn't driving a big gas guzzling car that will take 5 years to pay off, or living in a house that you can't afford to buy in 30 years. Or watching an entire season of some TV series. But I have found that hosting guests at the house, having a community around me, and also enjoying the people and relationships that are important to me bring me much more happiness than any material goods could ever do. And as a fellow blogger from Australia mentions, taking pride in the small tasks that need to get done gives a sense of accomplishment and self-worth. Even if I'm the only one who recognizes that the job was done.

Sustainability can be done. It is easiest done in small changes, working toward a goal. When shopping for a new appliance, get the one that is the best on energy use, and that you can afford. When buying new clothing, get what you need, not what loads up your closet. So what if you only have 5 days worth of clothes to wear, and people notice that you wear clothes until they, OH HORROR, wear out! Just smile and tell them that it doesn't make sense to throw out perfectly good clothing. Heck, I have some pairs of jeans that have made it into my "gardening and berry picking only" stack. They have too many stains to wear out in public, but work fine as "chore clothes."

Small steps. Small changes, lead to huge differences over time. But you won't see any differences if you close your eyes and wish to make it happen. It takes making a decision to be less of an impact than you were before. Today. Worry about tomorrow then.