La Rusa - "In Soviet Russia, car drives you!"Buying a new car is always a tough, long, stressful process. But buying a new, used car can be even tougher and more stressful. So when Watson, our trusty old man of a minivan failed NY State Inspection two times over, we knew we were in for a challenge. We had to buy a car, and we had to do it quickly. As much as we would love to avoid owning a car, as we had for the last several years living in the city, bikes and feet were no longer going to cut it. When you live 13 miles outside the nearest town and 30 miles outside the nearest city, a car is an inevitable necessity. Pile on a few inches (or feet!) of snow and you've really got no choice. We needed a car, and more than likely we needed something with AWD or 4WD.
After much shopping around we settled on a 2001 Honda CR-V that we found for sale by a private party in a town nearby. When we first got the car the RPM's were running really, really high. The car was idling up around 2000-2200 RPMs, so when it was in gear the car was more or less driving itself. As a nod to the old Yakov Smirnoff joke, "In America you drive car. In Soviet Russia car drives you!" we named her La Rusa, or "The Russian" in Spanish. Seeing as she's a Japanese car, I really have no idea how this makes any sense whatsoever.
We had to have the throttle plate cleaned and the cable adjusted, and slapped on some new tires, but otherwise she's running well. Now I just have to learn to drive a stick shift, which is a whole other battle all-together. All in all, we think we got a pretty good deal for the condition and the mileage, and so far she's done us pretty well. Really, the whole deal was more than worth it for the sweet spare tire cover we got!2. Thanksgiving 2009
Thanksgiving is definitely an all day, food-centered event in the Schadel house. The day started with amazing homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. There's nothing better than fresh, warm baked goods, and they were topped with a simple sweet icing and a sprinkling of walnuts that would have converted any Cinnabon customer in no time.
Later there was beer & Pictionary (Sadrah and I had a variety pack from UFO, Sadrah's brother's stuck to Miller High Life) followed by bread bowl dip and various other appetizers and snacks.
For dinner Sadrah's parents got their turkey from a small, local, pasture-fed, antibiotic free farm called October Rose. We also buy eggs from this local farm-- at $2.50/dozen they're not too expensive, and they definitely beat the tasteless unethically raised eggs in the grocery store. For our dinner Sadrah prepared a
homemade vegetarian "turkey" a few days before. Made primarily from seitan (made with vital wheat gluten) and slowly roasted in "no chicken" stock, the loaf made for a tasty substitute. The texture would have come out better if she kneaded the dough a bit longer, and it tasted a bit more like stuffing, but it sliced like a real turkey and tasted yummy to me.
For dessert there were 3 different kinds of cake & pie. One was a traditional apple pie, the next an apple crisp (both with local apples from Beak & Skiff) and finally one of Sadrah's Dad's famous cheesecakes. The pumpkin flavoring in the cheesecake didn't exactly work out as planned, but it was still damn tasty. Both apple creations were also wonderful sweet treats. I hardly had room for dessert that night, but there's always plenty of time for leftovers over the next few days.
3. The power of nature
We get most of our heat in the house here from a single Vermont Castings wood stove in the living room. That might be a surprise to most of you, but it's true. Sure, we also have a supplemental propane heater, and a few electric space heaters for the upstairs bedrooms set on timers and used on particularly cold nights. But there's no central heating system, per se--the wood stove is the main source of heat. And you know the best thing about heating your house with wood? The shrunken heating bill!
Sadrah's parents usually buy a few cords of firewood every year, but the price pales in comparison to fossil fuels AND it's a local, renewable resource. They also head right out the back door and into the woods to take down some old trees or cut up logs that were downed the previous year. This is totally free fuel, and there's acres of supply. All you need is a chainsaw, a strong back for hauling wood and a wood-splitter. You don't even need the wood-splitter (an axe and a sturdy stump will do) but it sure makes the whole process much quicker and easier. We've already spent a few afternoons under the front porch, splitting, tossing and stacking wood--that is after we've gotten the temperamental engine started.
But it's an easy process, and it's sort of neat to be so connected to your own survival. You cut the wood, and in turn the wood keeps you warm in the sub-freezing temperatures of Finger Lakes winter.
No comments:
Post a Comment