Give up those paper towels

Recently a reader had a question about our paper towel usage, or lack thereof. Specifically she wrote: "You’ve commented before that a roll of paper towels lasts you quite some time because you rarely use them. I’m curious. When do you use paper towels?"

For us, paper towels were one of the casualties of our transition to a non-disposable lifestyle, during which we phased out anything we could (except toilet paper) that wasn't reusable. At the time, the list included the following:

• Paper napkins
• Paper plates
• Plastic cutlery
• Plastic wrap (Saran Wrap, etc.)
• Plastic/paper cups
• Shopping bags
• Vacuum cleaner bags
• Coffee filters
• Canning lids
• Baby wipes
• Disposable razors
• Feminine hygiene
• Paper towels
• Disposable diapers
• Facial tissue
• Batteries

Obviously baby wipes and disposable diapers are a legacy from when the girls were babies; but at that juncture we were having financial struggles, so cloth diapers and homemade baby wipes were de rigueur for our frugal lifestyle.

Fast forward to about ten years ago, when we phased out the rest of the disposable options listed above and replaced them with washable and/or reusable versions.

I cannot emphasize enough how wonderfully life-altering this transition to renewables was. It brought awareness to how many disposable "necessities" are recent inventions entirely unheard of a hundred years ago. Some items had a higher upfront cost (washable feminine hygiene, rechargeable batteries, etc.), but those costs have long since amortized.

Anyway, on to paper towels. At the time we were phasing out disposables, paper towels drew the biggest gasp from everyone aware of our project. People, it seems, are insanely devoted to paper towels. How could we live without them? Short answer: A drawer full of terrycloth dishtowels that are changed out sometimes several times a day (especially during active kitchen projects) and a basket full of rags for really dirty jobs.

I buy white terrycloth "shop rags" in a 60-count bale from Costco. A bale will last me for 10 years or more of hard use before the towels become ratty or worn enough to recycle into rags. These are our "paper towels."

So, with dish towels so inexpensive and versatile, why are people so devoted to paper towels?

I think I got my answer many years ago while visiting a friend. I needed to wash my hands at her kitchen sink, where she kept a dish towel hanging from a hook. Naturally I reached for the dish towel to dry my hands… and was so revolted I had to re-wash my hands and use a paper towel for drying. That's because the dish towel was greasy, rank, and damp. It was one of those pretty decorative towels that evidently never got washed.

I've since learned that having decorative towels in the kitchen is fairly common for a lot of people. Decorative towels are expensive, so folks don't have 50 or 60 tumbled in a drawer. They don't change them or wash them on a regular basis. As a result, the towels are either (a) never used, because they're so pretty; or (b) used so heavily that they get greasy, rank, and damp (and, most importantly, never washed). No wonder paper towels are so popular.

That said, we do use paper towels. A couple years ago, I noted in "The conclusion of a small experiment" that it took us 14 months (and two moves) to go through a single roll.

The reader's original question is, what do we use paper towels for? Short answer: For when we don't want to throw away the cloth. We use paper towels for absorbing bacon grease, for wiping up things that won't wash out (such as spilled paint or varnish), and occasionally for things we just don't want to deal with (notably dog vomit or other Really Messy Stuff). Literally that's all the uses I can think of.

So what's the easiest way to reduce the usage of paper towels? Simple: Remove them from the kitchen. Don't put a roll conveniently within reach. We keep our roll in the pantry, so it's a conscious decision to use it.

I suspect a lot of paper towel usage is reflexive – people just reach for them without thinking. It's simply a habit to break. Try removing the paper towels from easy reach (and make sure there are cloth substitutes at hand) and see what happens.

Hope this helps!

Moving to a small town?

This headline caught my eye today: "Small Town Culture Shocks In America Go Viral, Answers Are Very Accurate." It's based on a Reddit thread entitled "People who moved from cities to small towns, what was the biggest culture shock?"

As the headlines imply, it's a different lifestyle when people move from urban areas to small towns. Here is what people wrote:

• Of course it matters where you’ve moved but when you enter a restaurant or bar everyone turns to see who’s come in. At first it was off putting then you realize they’re just looking to see if it’s someone they know. :)
• After 5pm it’s effectively a ghost town. Nothing open but one 24 hour gas station.
• The dating pool is ankle deep. Someone has to break up, and we all move over one.
• Having to drive 30 miles for groceries.
• When we moved to our tiny town in northern PA, the biggest shock was that absolutely nothing was open past 7pm, or on the weekends. The library's only open until 4pm during the week, and not at all on the weekend.
• Grocery store employees asked me how my dog, Hailey, was doing.
• The only store within walkable distance only sells liquor, snacks, and lottery tickets
• I lived in Vermont for a time and small town life required a lot more planning. The grocery store was a 45 minute drive, so if you went once a week and forgot something you did without it. Four wheel drive was a must. The people were more friendly and tolerant than I expected. Like the big city, no one really gave a sh*t what other people did. People in the suburbs seem a lot more conformist than people in the city or in rural areas.
• Everyone, and I mean everyone, knowing all of your business.
• Not judging, but the high percentage of very young parents (e.g. first kid at 18, 19, 20).
• I moved to a small town and now I know my neighbor’s cat better than my own family. Life is quieter but the gossip is way more entertaining
• Loss of anonymity. Couldn’t go anywhere without running into people I knew.
• More meth than the Hallmark Channel would have you believe.
• Everybody knowing each other, easier to hear about everyone’s gossip/drama, driving 20+ minutes just to get groceries, and some people do not take kindly to outsiders lol.
• Nobody locks their doors or windows.
• Simple things. Places to eat. Running to a hardware store takes an hour and a half. Where i live we have 2 gas stations. A McDonald's and a Subway.
• Everyone knows everyone else’s business. I am a deeply private person, and I hate this.
• In a small town everyone knows everyone and in a big city no one give a sh*t who anyone else is.
• Grew up outside of Dallas, spent my first 4 years out of college as a field engineer. Holy f*ck. The towns I was sent to barely qualify as villages. Less than 1000 people, dying infrastructure, no signs of investment. Maybe a gas station and corner store if they are lucky, a coffee shop that’s only open until 3pm wouldn’t be shocking. You meet people who have never left the state they were born in, a lot of times they don’t know what exists more then a 4 hour drive away It makes you wonder where our education system failed and why society doesn’t care.
• Your reputation actually matters. If you piss off the wrong person, you can find yourself frozen out of a lot of social events and financial opportunities.
• Parking everywhere is free
• Honestly, how many stupid people there are. They don't stand out as much when it's a big city, but when they're the majority in a small town it's really obvious.
• I moved from a town of 100k to a town of 650 as a kid. The biggest shock was that not only did everyone in town already know we were coming, but they knew all of our names, what grades we were in, etc. It was f*cking creepy in retrospect.
• In the cities nobody cares about what anyone else does. In the small towns everyone is in everyone else’s business. (Generalizing of course)

So let's hear from you if you've moved from big city to small town. What kind of culture shock did you experience?

This just makes me happy

This is an orchestral version of the famous theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

I don't know what it is about this performance, but it just makes me happy.

The importance of scratch cooking

A few years ago, I wrote a lengthy article for Backwoods Home Magazine on the subject of pantry independence, developing the idea that a deep pantry is an excellent tool to have – not just for rural dwellers, but for anyone.

A deep pantry can mitigate, to some degree, the rising costs of food. It also permits a measure of independence for everything from weather disruptions to job losses. "For some people," I wrote, "a 'pantry' is little more than a dedicated kitchen cabinet where boxed macaroni-and-cheese is kept next to a few cans of tuna. For others, a pantry is a vast storage room capable of holding a year or more of food. For most of us, the reality falls somewhere in the middle."

The article was lengthy and went into great detail about how we built our deep larder, what we store, the importance of preserved foods (canned, dehydrated, fermented), bulk storage, organizational tips, etc. Keep all this in mind for a moment.

With 2025 now upon us, I'm seeing a variety of New Year's resolution-type articles on becoming more frugal and/or saving money. This has always been a subject near and dear to my heart, so I read such articles with interest.

One popular resolution involves a promise to cut back on food deliveries, take-out food, restaurant meals, and other conveniences.

We've spent the last few decades living so far away from these options that we literally don't consider them an option at all. Once in a while Don and I will have lunch in a local eatery in town, and it's a lovely (if pricey) treat. But daily or weekly? Who can afford that?

One of the reasons these food options are popular with so many people is scratch cooking is becoming, apparently, a lost art. Partly this is due to any domestic chore being denigrated as lowly, and partly it's due to a lack of time for busy parents.

But scratch cooking is a supremely important skill, even for those of us who are not enthusiastic cooks (guilty!). But it behooves anyone trying to ramp up their frugality to learn the basics.

When the girls were younger, I developed a repertoire of recipes that we all enjoyed, and cycled through them regularly. This meant it was easy to keep the required ingredients on hand. When the girls left home and it was just Don and me, we fell back upon easy one- or two-person cooking (Don loves sandwiches, so that is usually his go-to meal; I would often just make myself a stir-fry).

After Older Daughter took over the woodcraft business, she also took over the cooking, since she learned she rather enjoys it. It's turned into a wonderful partnership. I'm not an enthusiastic cook, but I don't mind cleaning up; she doesn't like cleaning up, but she's a remarkable cook. Win-win.

This circles back to the idea of a deep pantry. In the article, I wrote the following:

"You might have noticed a recurring theme in this article, as well as any other article addressing the issue of food storage and pantry independence: they all focus on cooking meals from scratch.

"Pantry independence won't happen if your normal eating habits include endless pre-packaged convenience foods or deli take-outs. The whole goal of a deep pantry is to provide for your own needs for a period of time.

"So I'm going to say the quiet part out loud: Please, please – learn to cook from scratch. It's one of the best long-term frugal strategies you can master.

"I'm not an enthusiastic cook. Frankly, it bores me. But a frugal lifestyle demanded I learn the basics, and over the years I've built a repertoire of meals from pantry staples which the whole family enjoys. That should be your task too.

"Not only will scratch cooking allow you to create endless meals from the building blocks of staples, but quite frankly stocking with staples is far less expensive than any other options."

The point I made – that scratch cooking is one of the best long-term frugal strategies you can master – is a universal truth. I argue that most of what should be in a pantry is ingredients. Regardless of how you feel about cooking, it's still a skill worth mastering. I have no interest in capturing the breadth and talent level Older Daughter has acquired for scratch cooking, but neither will we be dependent on pre-made meals in her absence.

So here's my next question: For those unfamiliar with (or intimidated by) scratch cooking, what advice can you offer? (I'll start the list with one: Avoid any cookbooks by Martha Stewart. While I admire her dedication to perfection, I don't have the patience to spend three days preparing a desert. See this post.) Another piece of advice: A staggering number of kitchen implements and tools can be obtained at thrift stores.

Ready, aim, cook!

Quail central

Since I've started filling the bird feeder on our deck (I feed only over the winter), we've become "quail central."

The greedy things will literally climb over each other, gobbling the seeds.

California quail are handsome birds. They're also very wary, keeping a watchful eye out for predators. We have goshawks around here (see here and here), and those aerial predators will make an occasional foray nearby – once, one actually swooped through the porch! – so I can't blame the quail for being cautious. (The faint green lights you see on the photo below are reflections of our Christmas tree lights.)

Do you see the reddish-brown smear in the upper-left corner of the photo below? It's a goshawk juuuust flying away from a tree opposite our porch. If I'd snapped the photo half a second sooner, the whole bird would be visible.

(Here's a photo of a juvenile goshawk I took last year.)

Interestingly, one of the quails' favorite hangouts is a pile of brush we piled nearby, waiting for the chipper. The quail have adopted it as a refuge.

At all hours of the day, you can see the birds hanging around, inside and outside.

I can't blame them. It offers superb protection against predators of both land and sky.

Still, the quail are not completely dependent on the brush pile. They will often congregate across the road in some blackberry brambles, which offers – arguably – even better protection against predators, since the brambles have thorns.

I often see coveys of quail on the road exceeding four or five dozen, more than will fit in any one photograph.

No wonder the goshawks are hanging around. The bird feeder isn't just supplying food for the quail. It's also supplying food for the goshawks. Win-win.

Online jobs

On my last post "Puzzle and a glass of whine" (during which I griped about what a tough week I'd had with my online job), a reader posted a comment as follows: "Some time could you do a post about finding online jobs? I'd like to do something from home but am leery about walking into a scam. I don't need the specifics of your actual job, just a general idea of how to find a good employer."

My current online job has evolved over something like 15 years, so it's kinda one-of-a-kind and not replicable elsewhere.

But the reader's question is valid. What kind of work can be done online? I'm no expert in the subject, so I'd like to get input from other readers.

The COVID lockdowns demonstrated how many positions can be done remotely, and as a result "remote work" is now a standard element on various job-listing search engines. Articles on the subject include such standard suggestions as bookkeeper, transcriptionist, web designer, virtual assistant, social media manager, etc., but since I have no experience in those fields, I cannot vouch for their legitimacy.

So, dear readers, let's help this lady out. What kind of legitimate online jobs are out there, and how can someone find them?

Puzzle and a glass of whine

For a variety of reasons (long hours, extra days, technical complications), it's been a very tough week with my online job. Last night – after a 12-hour day – all I wanted was a glass of whine and the soothing relaxation of a jigsaw puzzle.

I think everyone has the occasional rough week at work. This was one of them. Perhaps this is apropos:

Is it really this bad?

I read a post from a college-level writing teacher that stunned me. The entry was part of a piece entitled "'Before and after' – stories of life-changing events that shaped peoples' lives." He (or she) wrote as follows:

"[I]t might well be this semester's papers turned in by students. I teach writing at the university level, and the papers were SO awful and so many students SO apathetic that I just can't even imagine doing this job anymore.

"I can point to one single paper that broke me. I actually had a real breakdown and spent last week in a crisis stabilization unit. It is TERRIFYING to watch education ebb like this, and to see students not participating in their own lives. I do not expect people to love writing, but at least be *present* in your own head! The entire system is dumbing down, which means that the American people are dumbing down too."

Okay, having to enter a crisis stabilization unit over poor writing seems a bit extreme; but still, I have to ask: Is it really this bad? Obviously we're aware the quality of public education has been declining for years – it's why we homeschooled our girls, after all – but is it to the point where college students are essentially illiterate? What are educators doing through decades of education to produce such "terrifying" results? I'm not in the trenches, so I don't see it.

Is the English language so reviled that no one teaches its usage anymore? Those with teaching experience, please chime in. Is it really this bad? And if so, why?

The Idaho screaming death spider

In our pantry, a spider has made itself at home.

Older Daughter noted this afternoon that the arachnid was turned facing out, so its pattern was visible. "Kinda interesting," she commented.

"It's the Idaho screaming death spider," Don joked. "Found only in pantries."

I got curious, however. Was this a juvenile black widow? I enlarged the photo:

Below is a juvenile black widow (photo source):

Nope, definitely not a juvenile black window. Instead, it appears to be triangulate cobweb spider (photo source):

But, for our purposes, we'll continue to call this harmless and beneficial little creature the Idaho screaming death spider if it discourages people from moving to Idaho.

My definition of social

Don found this and sent it to me for a chuckle. I see nothing wrong with it, do you?

How was your Christmas?

Aside from our unexpected car accident, we had a very nice (if quiet) Christmas.

It started in mid-December, when Older Daughter and I took Mr. Darcy and drove higher into the mountains to cut some cedar branches (with permission from the Forest Service). Darcy is always so thrilled by these excursions.

The forest was beautiful. (That's Older Daughter's car at the bottom.)

Darcy was raring to go, so I walked him around while Older Daughter collected branches. She was careful not to cut more than one branch off any one tree.

It soon became apparent, however, that a service crew had come through a short time before and trimmed a bunch of branches along long stretches of the road, presumably for maintenance purposes.

When we realized this, it was a simple matter of finding a collection of downed branches and taking as many as we wanted. There was a nice amount in this bend of the road. (You can see Older Daughter in the pink coat.)

What I didn't realize, however, was in this particular location, the fairly thin layer of snow on the road disguised a solid sheet of ice. I fell once and hurt nothing but my dignity. But then I fell a second time and managed to pull my entire left quadriceps muscle. Whee! That had me limping for a few days.

See that dark spot on the road?

That's the place I slipped. You can see the ice under the snow.

The muscle tear wasn't bad ... at first. It was much improved within a day or two, and then I took a misstep and injured it again. Then a day or two later, I slipped (on dog poop – in the yard!) and re-injured it again, at which point Don practically tied me to a chair to keep me from moving. The muscle finally healed.

Meanwhile, Older Daughter was weaving garlands with lights and hanging them above windows and doors.

On the eve of Christmas Eve (the 23rd), when we all settled in to watch "A Muppet Christmas Carol" (well, why not?). Older Daughter made us a tasty dinner of Cornish game hen and trimmings.

On Christmas Eve, we had a leisurely day of not doing much. I made sure to feed the livestock extra well on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Legend has it animals are granted the gift of speech at Christmas and will gossip about us. Can't have any bad news spreading to the neighbors!

Toward evening, we opened a few presents. For the first time this year, we skipped using wrapping paper and wrapped the presents in fabric according to the Japanese technique of "furoshiki."

With my long-time interest in sustainable and zero-waste living, I'm shocked I never even heard of this technique until last Christmas, and then I experienced a "Where have you been all my life?" moment. It makes so much sense, doesn't it, to use something for wrapping that can be used again and again? Accordingly, last year after Christmas when fabrics were on sale, I purchased a selection of holiday-themed fabrics (as well as some non-holiday samples for birthdays, etc.). Some of the fabrics are small, others larger, for different-sized packages.

So all the presents were wrapped in fabric, which meant no waste. How cool is that?

Late on Christmas Eve, we attended our church's "Lessons and Carols." The darkened church looked lovely.

Christmas Day, of course, was dominated by the car accident that prevented us from attending the proper church service, but these things happen.

In the evening, we gathered to watch George C. Scott's version of "A Christmas Carol, arguably the best version of that famous story ever made (in my opinion).

Above all, we thank God for the gift of His son.

How was your Christmas?