Money Laundering

OK, I know what you're thinking: Those bills look like they were part of a botched bank robbery dye pack explosion! No, we haven't started robbing banks. Let me explain:

Relatively recently we've decided to try to use cash rather than debit or credit cards as much as possible. There are a few reasons for this:

1. We have a better sense of how much we are spending when we can see how much is in our wallets at the end of a week compared with the beginning. The money is "real" and not an abstract concept.
2. The use of credit and debit cards enable banks and other financial institutions to track your purchases and create a very detailed profile of who you are, where you are and your (fill in the blank) preferences. I know, maybe paranoid but it's just a little creepy when you know that there are paid number crunchers who are making inferences from your purchases which they can then pass on to advertisers to better target you with more advertising, loan offers, credit card deals, etc.
3. ATM fees and transaction fees that Visa and MasterCard charge are exorbitant and only possible through nearly monopolistic market share. Essentially they are enticing the banks with a higher cut of the transaction fees that they charge businesses to process each transaction. The businesses have the choice of paying the fees or accepting cash only. Most accept the cards and pass the fees on to the consumer. If there was real competition the services would be reduced to a commodity and the fees would be reduced accordingly. There isn't enough competition so there are huge profit margins on each transaction.

There are some obvious risks and inconveniences in using cash though.

1. Cash isn't always convenient to withdraw.
2. Your cash can be stolen.
3. Going inside to pay for gas can take up to 3 times as long than paying at the pump.
4. You might wash your wallet with the red felt lined bill pocket which would then stain your bills making them look like they were the object of an amateur bank robbery dye pack explosion.

Today I want to talk about number four. After washing my wallet (which held up remarkably well) my money was all stained red. Most of the bills were only stained around the edges but the bill at the front and the back, which were in direct contact with the felt, turned redder than a stop sign.

I took them to our bank (one of the big four) but the teller took it to another guy who appeared to be an acting manager. He came over to me and said "Yeah.... actually we're supposed to take these away and destroy them. You don't want to give this to us." He suggested that I try to deposit it in the ATM but not knowing the odds of success I wasn't ready to take the chance that my account would actually be credited.

I asked if there was a way to look up the numbers to make sure that these bills were not part of a robbery but he said no. I took them home and washed them again. I tried rubbing alcohol on them and vinegar and baking soda but none of that made a noticeable difference.

I am hoping that I can crowd source a solution here. Does anyone have a suggestion to either clean the bills or some idea for a safe exchange of the money. I thought that there were some rules about the legal tender of bills issued by the government. For instance, when I was a kid I remember hearing something about a minimum amount of the bill that must be intact for it to be tendered but that big chunks could be missing and it would still be OK. True? Not true?

It's alright to be creative with suggestions about removing the red color I'll try out any ideas on the $5 first. I am mostly concerned with retaining the value of the $100.

Oh yeah, and on a related note the Huffington Post is trying to get everyone to "Move Your Money" They have some good points. It's a financial take on the local movement and a response to the bailout mess.

Worm Eggs in the Compost

I found these worm eggs in the compost when we were planting a couple of trees this weekend.
I'll post about that later in the week - no time to write now. I don't know why I like finding these so much but it always gives me a smile.

Baby Skink

February is a busy month in a California native garden. Early winter and late fall is the time to plant new starts, sow seeds and pull weeds. I've been adhering to my fifteen minutes a day garden regimen in an attempt not to be overwhelmed by what cries to be done. In my daily sojourn, I found a baby skink.

So amazing. So small...about five inches in length. When I found it peeking shyly through the Live Oak leaves, I thought it was a worm. I called to my sons, placed its small cold body on my hand and noticed the tiny legs. When they circled around my hand, the skink wiggled lethargically. My youngest son was eager to hold it. I placed it gently on his hand. He held it for a moment. It moved. My son jumped about three feet. And the skink...she took flight.

Cool Swap Opportunity Hosted by Our Yellow House

Leah at Our Yellow House is hosting a special swap. In her own words:

This swap is for us adults. You don't have to be a mother. You don't have to be crafty. You don't have to have a blog. (Though you can be any or all of these things.) You just need to enjoy putting together packages and receiving packages.

I participated in the Stocking Stuffer swap Leah organized in December '09. It was a real treat. I had a great time making things for other people and I was blown away by the amazing gifts I received. If you are interested in sharing your work and meeting new talented people, a swap is a great way to do it. I'm still debating whether I can balance my workload and commitments to join in this swap. Whether I sit this one out or not, I plan to join the 2010 Stocking Stuffer swap (if it happens).

The Flying Apron Bakery House Bread

Isn't she a beauty? Not only is this bread good looking, it is delicious. One of my resolutions this year was to make more bread for my family. I figured that was an attainable goal as I made all of three loaves or so last year. I like making resolutions I can keep.

Making bread for the guys has pretty easy. I've been using The Tassajara Bread Book with great success. But I've been wanting for a good gluten-free bread for me.

At the suggestion of a neighbor, I bought a cookbook by Jennifer Katzinger Flying Apron's Gluten-free & Vegan Baking Book. Katzinger opened a Seattle bakery in 2002. Her goal was to provide healthy whole grain foods to customers. Although the Flying Apron did not start out as a completely gluten-free and vegan bakery, it evolved into that over the years.

I have not had the pleasure of visiting the Flying Apron Bakery, but thanks to this cookbook, the house bread and I are friends. The recipe was unfussy (one of my complaints of many gluten-free baked items). And the bread has a rich nutty flavor that isn't overpowering. The texture is moist and surprisingly light. I had to keep myself from eating half the loaf after it came out of the oven. Fortunately, I left a slice to dip into my warm bowl of soup. Such a treat.

Hive Inspection with Kirk

Kirk (the founder of the Backwards Beekeepers) came over this weekend (sporting his awesome Mohawk, I might add) to help me out with the hive. We pretty much just did a hive inspection and made sure that the queen is still in there (new eggs and fresh brood indicate that she is).

The hive was started with 5 deep frames that we just put into the upper of two medium boxes and let hang down into the lower box. At the time we filled the other side of the bottom and top boxes with blank medium frames each but I cant' get to the bottom 5 frames without removing and setting aside all 5 deeps and the box.

So when Kirk came over I was thinking that we would take some of the deep frames and cut them down and tie them into the mediums but we decided that a better way to go would be to just buy a deep box and move the 5 deep frames to that box with 5 more new deep frames, then put the remaining 10 mediums all in the same box above that. That will give us 1 deep and 1 medium box for the brood area although we keep an open brood nest so the queen can really lay wherever she wants - as she sees fit.

The piece of comb above fell off the bottom of one of the deep frames that we took out to examine. The deeps don't go all the way to the bottom of the lower medium so the bees just took it on them selves to use all of the space they could.

It was important to put that brood back in the hive on an new frame because what we found was that the hive is honey bound. That means there is so much honey in there that there is very little room for brood. Some of the lower deeps were even completely full of honey.

Here is the one frame we pulled to replace with the brood comb above tied into a new starter strip frame. As soon as the weather warms up a bit and the bees have a chance to forgive and forget, I'll go back out and pull that box of honey which we moved to the top of the hive. Kirk will probably come back to help me put the new deep box on the bottom once I'm ready and the weather warms up a bit. There are a lot of bees in the hive now and it will be much easier if most of them are in the field when we do the work.

By the way, you can see that brighter box that I added in the last post about the bees has moved down a spot and has settled in with the rest nicely. It just took it a little time to conform to the others.

So all is well with the hive and we will be up to our stingers in honey as soon as the temperature rises a bit. By the way we have a meeting coming up on Feb. 28th - join us!

Previously:

Bee Problems

First Honey Harvest

Honey Harvest

Checking on the Bees

Bee Update - a Learning Experience

Feeding the Bees

The Bees Have Landed

Big Manroot Removed

This weekend I removed a huge manroot from along the fence. This is the plant that has been causing so much work every year.


Here it is the next day with most of the dirt off it. I wouldn't have been able to get this out if it weren't for all the rain we just got. You can see my previous attempt which only created a spade shaped hole in the side.

I'll be out hunting for more next weekend after we get a little more rain. I think the tables may have turned.

Previously:
Here's the recent harvest of smaller, first year plants.
Late season manroot removal
Manroot Maintenance
Hedgehog art from a manroot seedpod

A Few Sewing Projects

My sister gave me a buckwheat pillow many years ago that has seen a lot of use. My sons recently discovered the pleasures of a warm buckwheat pillow at bedtime. I've been thinking about making a few rather than sharing one each night. I saw Green Frieda's post about making bed warmer gifts (via Make It Do) and that inspired me to actually make them. I made a smaller size than the linked pattern. The pillow cover is handy.

And I made two new tiffin covers for a neighbor after she saw the ones I made for my sons. Although her tiffins were different sizes, I was able to use my original pattern with a few slight modifications.

I have one more tiffin cover to make. And I hope to make some more buckwheat pillows and fill them with some of the dried Pozo Blue sage from our garden. No matter how many deep inhales I take, I can't get enough of that sage.