Sigg Company Shamefully Admits Its Aluminum Sigg Bottles Contain BPA

So if you've been living in a cave with no wireless Internet, you may have missed the announcement (though you've probably been quite cool and comfortable in your cave) that Sigg bottles have BPA, a cancer causing plastic, in the lining of their aluminum drinking containers.

I have two Sigg bottles, both of which were purchased for the express purpose of NOT leaching chemicals into my body. My choices are to abandon them and buy something else, like a stainless steel Kleen Kanteen, or send them back to the company to be replaced free of charge (though I have to pay for shipping) and believe the company that their "new and improved liner" doesn't have chemicals.

Should I believe a company that already lied to me? Or cut my losses and move on? Or should I believe that there's "little risk of chemical leaching" as the company website tells me? It's probably no worse than drinking out of plastic dispoable water bottles and microwaving my leftover casserole in plastic tupperware. What to do...

I'm pretty bummed about this development, and not just because Sigg lied/conveniently omitted facts about their containers. I'm bummed because my two Sigg bottles had become my friends, I even named them - Schmitty and Blue Lou. They were like my sidekicks, helping me to defeat the dehydration demons, which for anyone who knows my and my perspiration proclivities knows this is no easy task.

Instead of a Sigg bottle I'd highly recommend a Klean Kanteen.

Motorcycles and Such

One thing that still throws me for a loop about North Dakota is that there are no helmet laws like there are in California (and other states). I'll always do a double take when I see people cruising down the street on their motorcycle with no helmet on. Granted I can't understand the allure and joy of riding a motorcycle and have the wind whipping through my hair since I never have, and never will ride a motorcycle.

Most of my lack of desire to ride one stems from my childhood riding my bicycle everywhere, and having a paper route for a few years. With only human power and gravity on my side, I sustained injuries and had multiple accidents, and am terrified to think of what would happen with the advent of much horsepower to the equation.

One of my former co-workers who had ridden motorcycles since he was a child, on the farm and around the city, and who commuted every day on a bike told me once - "there are two kinds of riders, those who have fallen, and those who are going to fall." I'm not sure how true this is, but he seemed to believe it. And it certainly made it seem like a pretty dangerous thing to ride a motorcycle.

So anyways, back to North Dakota. I'm not sure that the anti-helmet sentiment is an expression of personal liberty, of anti government, or something else. Knowing what happens when there are motorcycle accidents, and knowing what happens without a helmet makes me cringe a bit every time I see a helmet-less person on a bike. I guess natural selection expresses itself in different ways.

Cast Your Vote

Since I don't want you, faithful readers, to feel as though you're at the whim of a tyrannical blog-master, I've decided to add a generous srpinkling of democracy to our little blog. For the first time ever on this blog, you can now be part of the solution, not just part of the problem, and can cast your vote on what blog topics you'd like to see more, or less of.

You have one week.....

Nursery Auction - Fertile, Minnesota

Last week one Alycia's co-workers tipped me off to a nursery auction happening about an hour away from Grand Forks near Fertile, Minnesota (which is a fabulous name for an agrarian community). Apparently a huge nursery was going out of business and selling everything, I mean everything - plants in pots, plants in the ground, pots, pallets, tractors, greenhouses, even the land, everything. And this was all going down over three days, and I wanted in on it.

So yesterday I dropped Alycia off at school and drove about an hour to the nursery site just north of Fertile, MN. The nursery was huge and you can see the auction website HERE (not sure how long this link will stay good). The amount of things they were selling was simply staggering. There were 13 fields of various rows of trees in the ground, being sold in lots of between 20 and 100 trees, mostly in blocks of 30 to 50. The auction guide had an 18 page listing, 42 listings per page = about 750 individual lots to sell.

I got there at 10:00 as the sale of the land started, and since I didn't have the cash to buy any of the 560 acres of land in various plots, I checked out the small lots of above ground potted plants and trees. There was a great selection of shrubs and a few dozen lots of fruit trees, mostly Honeycrisp Apple Trees, in groups of 3-6 trees, perfect for me to haul away in the Toyota Camry.

At 11:00, they started they auctioning off everything else that wasn't land. The auctioneer explained how rare this type of auction was (due to the volume of stuff and nature of it - apparently nuseries don't go out of business very often) and reminded everyone that they had a LOT of items to get through. He also noted that they wouldn't start on the above ground plants and trees, which is what I wanted, until after they'd gone through the 18 page listing of in-ground rows of trees first. I quickly realized that when it took them almost a half hour to get through the first page, that my math meant I would have to wait 7-8 hours (assuming they kept the same pace) to get to the items I was interested in. :(

I hung out for almost an hour, realized they were no closer to the items I wanted to bid on, and took off. Bummer.

I did chat briefly with a very amiable (though funky smelling) Amish fellow who asked me "Do you know the differences between the various crab apple trees?"

To which I responded, "I'll bet you very last zipper and electrical appliance I own that I couldn't tell a crab apple tree from a Mancana Ash Tree (they were selling lots of these too)". Actually I just said "nope, sorry". Much like the Germans, the Amish are not to be trifled with and don't appreciate sarcasm....

As usual, I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have any pictures of this scene, though it was a lot of fun.

Deaf Awareness Week

It's Deaf Awareness Week, and therefore also Deaf Pet Awareness Week. Special thanks to Katie (Shaak Tis' foster Mom) for passing along this link.

Petfinder.com Information on Deaf Pets

Now go look at all the cute pictures of the deaf dogs, and maybe consider rescuing one the next time you're adding a member to your family.

Three Runs In One Week

As I mentioned in previous posts, my running mojo may have returned. Though just because my running mojo has returned doesn't necessarily mean that my legs are fully prepared to deal with a recently re-mojoed running John. It feels like my legs were in hibernation for years and they need to be awakened.

So last week was the first week in a long time that I got three runs in, two the week before that. We'll shoot for three runs again this week. Granted they're only three mile runs, but any more than that is probably too much to take Shaak Ti, especially if it's warm outside. Now, many runners out there easily log nine miles a day, so nine miles a week isn't anything to be terribly proud of, but it's a good foundation to build from.

My run yesterday was the usual North Dakota to Minnesota and back route, and the typically quiet Greenway actually had a few people on it, since it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and all. I caught up to one guy, mid-40's, running slowly along, and as I got closer I saw why he was running so slow, he was running barefoot. On asphalt. My first thought was to tell the guy "Dude, you're a bad mamma jamma", but I wasn't sure how that would be interpreted, so all he got was the polite runner nod as I passed.

Canning Day

Today was Canning Day, which is not to be confused with Caning Day, which is in early March and is decidedly less pleasant than Canning Day. Considering that this is just the start of apple season, there will probably be more Canning Days in the future.

Alycia's parents stopped by yesterday and (at my request) brought three large sacks of apples from folks up in Cavalier. The apples were a little pricey at 3lbs for $1. Yes, you read that right, three pounds of apples for a dollar. And they were picked off the tree this morning. I'm trying to think of scenario that would beat that price and freshness, but I'm drawing a blank.

With a little help from the Ball Canning Jar website I got started with some applesauce. I remember fondly the applesauce my Grandma used to make. There was this closet in a guest bedroom filled with canned applesauce, starwberry jam, and other preserves, and we'd frequently drag a jar out for mealtime. The applesauce was so tasty I'd eat the whole jar and happily deal with the subsequent bout of intestinal distress from eating too many apples.

I'd like to think my canning experiment was pretty successful, I got 8 jars of very tasty applesauce (see picture above of the first four jars - yes it was still warm in the kitchen, but if you can't take the heat, then you should do something, not sure what). It only took a couple of hours, which hopefully can be winnowed down as my skill at peeling, chopping, and preparing the apples increases.

The true test of my canning experiment will be in a week or so when I crack open the first batch and have a taste. If I'm dead from botulism and no longer post here, you'll know that my experiment was indeed, not successful. I honestly think the risk of botulism and other poisoning is pretty minimal if you do it right.

I have high hopes that since I followed every direction and safety precaution the family unit will be alive and able to tell tall tales of tasty applesauce. I'd also like to think that my previous years of food service experience at Hornblower Dining Yachts and De La Guerra Dining Commons at UCSB also somehow helped a bit, we shall see.

Almost Autumn

It's almost autumn here in North Dakota. You can tell it's just around the corner, maybe as soon as next week when they expect a cold front to swoop in (thanks Canada) and hang around for a few days. It probably won't be a hard freeze, but nighttime temps are expected to dip into the upper 30's by midweek.

A few leaves on random trees started sporadically yellowing as soon as a week ago, and now there's a noticeable, yet slight yellowish tinge on the outer layers of most of the trees, like the leaves are trying to change, but the tree is resisting the effort, unwilling to relinquish its grasp on summer. And now, every day brings more fallen leaves to the ground, not a ton, but just enough to be noticeable and portend the great leaf shedding to come.

The past two weeks that I've been back here have been phenomenal weather, warm and pleasant, with very little rain. Everyone says that this great weather has been to make up for what was a cold, rainy summer (by North Dakota standards at least). And even though the past few days have made it above 80 degrees, there's been a difference, the heat doesn't last as long, and begins dissipating in early evening, and the sun just doesn't pack the same midday punch that I felt even last week.

I'm hoping that the majority of fall colors can hold off for a few weeks. My Dad's coming to visit the first week of October, and he always enjoyed fall colors, especially his yearly Columbus Day excursions to New England to visit when I lived back there. I'll have more on my Dad's visit, we're still planning his itinerary, but it already involves a UND football game (The Potato Bowl!!!) and hockey game.